The daily Close Call

just a thought and shoot me down in flames, but to share/spread the word on dodgy accident hotspots, would it be possible to have a google map (similar to the bike shop map) with dodgy locations marked to either highlight awareness or make riders think about re-planning routes to avoid dangerous locations e.g. north end of Blackfriars Bridge

Identifying collision blackspots is not usually a suitable methodology for assessing the relative safety of cyclists at different locations. It stems from the assumption that locations where there are more collisions are more 'dangerous', but that is rarely the case. A high incidence of collisions tends to indicate high flows of cyclists, so that it is natural to expect more collisions.

There are a few odd exceptions to this rule--but I'd estimate that in London there are likely to be no more than a dozen or so. These are locations where local circumstances and design faults mean a greater than normal likelihood of crashes. For instance, the junction of Shacklewell Lane and St Mark's Rise, E8, used to be such a location before Hackney Cyclists campaigned successfully to have it redesigned. There used to be about fifteen crashes a year with flows of only about 200 riders in the morning peak. This was way off the scale and was caused by rat-running drivers turning left fast into St Mark's Rise across cyclists mostly wanting to go straight on (or rather, right around a strange pseudo-roundabout design) along Shacklewell Lane. All sorted now.