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  • Yes, it's been posted before, although I can't remember where.

    It's always important to note that in London there aren't really any 'blackspots' for cycle crashes. They're fairly evenly- and randomly-distributed. A 'blackspot' is one where there is a systematic problem, such as persistent crashes from left turns. That's very rarely the case in London; for instance, the southern junction of Blackfriars Bridge, which has 14 crashes in this mapping, is a bad design with multiple problems. It stands out among junctions in the number of crashes, but it is also one of the junctions with the highest traffic flows in London. That there are so many crashes is for the most part down to it being so busy. (That it is a bad design is also something we know even without using crash data, as it has many other problems, such as a poor walking environment, etc.) Even if a junction has a high incidence of crashes measured against other junctions, it could still mean that there is a lower crash rate, i.e. number of crashes compared to vehicle flows.

    People like talking about 'blackspots' because it highlights design more than driver behaviour (the implication is usually that people are merely lured into these problems and that poor driving is not to blame). NB there is of course a need for a comprehensive and radical redesign of such junctions.

    Also, I'm not too sure how accurately-mapped the data is. Take the death of Paula Jurek, for example:

    https://www.lfgss.com/thread62831.html

    This is actually mapped at the junction of Barker Drive and St Pancras Way, far to the south of where it happened.

    It's also worth noting every time this comes up that crash data from one year only isn't very useful. You want to compare at least three years' worth of data, ideally more. There are various sites that have mapped such multi-year data, e.g. the BBC site of fatal crashes 1999-2008:

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8401344.stm

    Again, the markers are somewhat off the sites where the crashes actually happened.

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