04 Apr Is cycle safety improving in London?
There are millions of people living in, working in and visiting London every day. As one of the world’s most major cities it is vital that London has an excellent transport system to enable its population and visitors to easily travel across the sprawling city. Getting the roads, and the road users, more cyclist-friendly and getting more cyclists on the roads has been an objective that Mayor Boris Johnson and Transport For London (TFL) have been working hard on – but is their work paying off?
Cyclists are classed as a ‘vulnerable group’ (alongside motorcyclists and pedestrians) by TFL. This group makes up a jaw dropping 80% of all serious and fatal accidents that occur in the capital. In 2013 there were 489 cyclists seriously injured or killed on the city’s roads. Understandably, this is something that the Mayor and TFL want to change.
Cycle safety is a relatively straightforward concept; it’s about how frequently (or infrequently) cyclists are harmed on the roads. Harm can constitute anything from a minor injury to a fatal collision and so, naturally, if cycling has become more safe this means that less accidents involving cyclists are occurring, and if cycling is becoming less safe this means that more such accidents are occurring in London.
Stephen Wallage, Customer Service Advisor for TFL, told me that TFL is following the “Mayor’s Vision for Cycling”, which he says “has, as its principle outcome, the target of ‘more people cycling, more safely, more often.’ This vision incorporates a number of schemes, which are all part of making cycling in London safer.”
He added that “The ultimate ambition is to have roads free from death and serious injury.”
Whilst that would certainly be an ideal scenario to find ourselves in, it does seem a little unrealistic.
In 2015 the Department for Transport (DfT) released figures that revealed that there were 22,988 accidents and 80 deaths in London in the previous five years (2009 – 2014) that involved cyclists. The infamously unsafe Elephant and Castle roundabout was featured in DfT’s statistics as the location of the most accidents involving cyclists; 80 to be precise – almost double that of Trafalgar Square which came in second with 46 accidents. When these figures came to light Liberal Democrat London Assembly Group leader Caroline Pidgeon scathingly commented:
“With such appalling figures as this it is simply shameful that year after year Transport for London have repeatedly spent just a fraction of their allocated budget on vital improvements to junctions and investing in cycling infrastructure.”
However TFL was already on the case and had announced a ‘major redesign’ to the roundabout prior to these statistics being released. The work is currently in progress and aims to make the junction safer for cyclists and pedestrians.
The amount of people cycling in London is a higher figure than most would expect: in 2012 there were almost 600,000 trips made on a bicycle every day in the capital. To put this into proportion that’s a similar figure to the amount of daily trips made on the Docklands Light Railway and on overground trains combined. It comes as no surprise however, that the number of cyclists in London has been on the rise – but the figures are pretty remarkable: there has been an astounding 173% increase in the number of cyclists on London’s roads since 2001.
This raised an interesting question: does getting more cyclists on the road result in less accidents – proportionately or otherwise? The Mayor’s aim is to almost triple the 2012 figures and reach 1.5m bicycle trips a day by 2026.
When I posed this question to Wallage from TFL, he was quick to reassure me that:
“There was a 7% fall in 2014 in the number of cyclists killed, and a 12% fall in the number of KSI (Killed and Seriously injured), compared with 2013. This progress has occurred alongside increasing levels of cycling in London.”
To give TFL some credit, that’s pretty good going.
According to TFL’s Cycle Safety Action Plan their aim is to reduce the number of KSI cyclist casualties by 40% by 2020. This is quite an ambitious aim – however the declining amount of KSI cyclist accidents shows no signs of slowing down given that £913m has been invested into ‘The Mayor’s Cycling Vision’. The huge investment will go towards a variety of initiatives all believed to improve London’s roads for cyclists. Work will be taking place to improve existing roads and junctions as well as to build new infrastructure such as the suggested Cycle Superhighways – these will be segregated commuter routes to carry cyclists in, around and out of central London.
Aside from the building works, Wallage told me that TFL also:
“Run marketing and training activities to promote safe behaviour on London’s roads by all users. These range from online Cycling Tips on our website, through to delivering cycle training in schools (Bikeability) and offices (Cycling Workplaces)” and that TFL “work[s] closely with the Met Police to deliver a number of training and enforcement activities” to promote adherence (by all road users) to the Highway Code.
Other initiatives include:
“Operation Safeway, where intensive policing activity is focused at the most risky junctions and Exchanging Places, which gives cyclists the opportunity to see the road from the cab of a lorry. The Safer Lorry Scheme came into effect on 1 September 2015, and was a significant step forward in reducing the danger of lorries to cyclists. This scheme requires additional safety equipment for lorries within London.”
A big step is being made regarding heavy goods vehicles (HGVs) and lorries after 2013 statistics showed that HGVs and lorries were involved in 9 out of 14 fatal cyclist crashes. The Safer Lorry Scheme (SLS) received an overwhelmingly positive response from 90% of participants in a public consultation. The scheme requires that HGVs and lorries weighing over 3.5 tonnes have sideguards fitted to reduce the likelihood of a cyclist being dragged underneath the vehicle during a crash. The vehicles must also have appropriate mirrors fitted to increase the driver’s visibility. The SLS is in place 24/7 and is police enforced. Drivers can be fined up to £1000 per breach of the scheme. TFL are also trying to encourage HGV and lorry drivers to fit their vehicles with special sensors and cameras that can detect when a cyclist or pedestrian is close to the vehicle. Lastly, in TFL’s huge effort to make HGVs/lorries less of a threat to cyclists, cyclist awareness training is being offered to drivers.
TFL also implemented the Santander Cycle Hire scheme. In recent customer satisfaction surveys TFL reported that 78% of survey takers believe that the Santander Cycles have helped to make cycling in London safer. Last year TFL ran a trial in which Santander Cycles were fitted with ‘Blaze Laserlights’. When I asked Wallage about the lights he told me that they:
“Project a “bicycle” shape six metres in front of the cycle, onto the ground, giving the cyclist a larger footprint on the road.”
An interesting concept – and quite a clever one. All 11,500 Santander Cycles are due to be fitted with the Blaze Laserlights and TFL has high hopes that they will help make drivers more aware of the presence of cyclists on the roads.
Whatever your general opinion of TFL they certainly appear to have a keen eye on the ball with regards to making cycling a safer mode of travel in the city centre. They have successfully identified many of the key issues and implemented schemes to address the problems.
The Cycle Safety Action Plan and all its initiatives have clearly played a vital part in improving cycling conditions in the capital. It’s unlikely that TFL’s dream of London’s roads being free from death and injury will come true, but it does seem fair to say that the future of cycling in the capital looks bright. With some excellent changes having already been made with resounding success and many more improvements to come in the near future, it would appear that we have a lot to thank TFL and Mayor Boris Johnson for.
