London Buses are Good

Don't start with pedestrians--start with HGV/car drivers. They have the greatest responsibilities.

That's the kind of attitude which encourages pedestrians (and too many cyclists) to neglect their own responsibility. I suppose it makes a change from the attitude which informs most classical traffic engineering, an attitude which seeks to eliminate personal responsibility by separating vulnerable users into their own cotton wool lined ghettoes, but it misses the point by just as much.

but then, if all the peds are actually careful about walking across the road, then motorised vehicle are likely to go faster and not expected a peds to step out, thus chance are the casualty will increase due to drivers not being prepared of peds randomly stepping out of the road.

it's a catch-22, I prefer it as it is right now as vehicle drivers are more aware of peds, and if they're more aware of peds, then I think they'll be aware of cyclists as well.

is that what you're trying to says Oliver?

[quote=Oliver Schick;696368]Don't start with pedestrians--start with HGV/car drivers. They have the greatest responsibilities. Pedestrians and cyclists are not an equal target, but their role has in the past usually been exaggerated. For instance, campaigns to scare pedestrians off the roads and streets appear to have resulted in the highest child pedestrian casualty rate in Europe.

quote]

Oliver if we're talking about the 'duty of care' here then HGV/car drivers do have the greatest responsibilities and obviously they should be targeted on this. I am talking about an 'up-to-date' awareness of cyclists for pedestrians - not another campaign to scare/demonstrate that the more /bigger road users are kings of the jungle.

That's the kind of attitude which encourages pedestrians (and too many cyclists) to neglect their own responsibility. I suppose it makes a change from the attitude which informs most classical traffic engineering, an attitude which seeks to eliminate personal responsibility by separating vulnerable users into their own cotton wool lined ghettoes, but it misses the point by just as much.

http://www.londonfgss.com/thread20412-2.html#post648531

IMHO I've always felt that looking out for peds is part of my responsibility as a road user. Yeah sometimes they do silly things but shit so do I. You can't expect to barrel through Covent Garden at 35MPH and get pissed off when you take out a tour party milling around in the road.

That's the kind of attitude which encourages pedestrians (and too many cyclists) to neglect their own responsibility. I suppose it makes a change from the attitude which informs most classical traffic engineering, an attitude which seeks to eliminate personal responsibility by separating vulnerable users into their own cotton wool lined ghettoes, but it misses the point by just as much.

Oddly enough, it's exactly the other way around. It's been precisely by de-emphasising the responsibilities of car drivers and excessively emphasising people's responsibilities when on foot or on a bike that the current 'Road Safety' climate has come about. Traditional traffic engineering has done the opposite to 'separating vulnerable users into their own cotton wool-lined ghettos'--it's actually de-emphasised their priority at every turn and made them feel unwelcome on the streets and roads.

I agree with you that in an ideal world all road users should recognise their responsibilities equally (i.e., there wouldn't be a need to emphasise car drivers' responsibility more strongly than that of pedestrians or cyclists, as there wouldn't be 3,000 road deaths caused by motorists every year--well, I am talking about an ideal world), but until we get there, we still have a lot of redressing the balance to do. It's currently a very skewed picture.

but then, if all the peds are actually careful about walking across the road, then motorised vehicle are likely to go faster and not expected a peds to step out, thus chance are the casualty will increase due to drivers not being prepared of peds randomly stepping out of the road.

it's a catch-22, I prefer it as it is right now as vehicle drivers are more aware of peds, and if they're more aware of peds, then I think they'll be aware of cyclists as well.

is that what you're trying to says Oliver?

That's a good way of putting the effect of the 'Road Safety' attitude in this country. I'm afraid I tend to refer to that somewhat obliquely.

Oliver if we're talking about the 'duty of care' here then HGV/car drivers do have the greatest responsibilities and obviously they should be targeted on this. I am talking about an 'up-to-date' awareness of cyclists for pedestrians - not another campaign to scare/demonstrate that the more /bigger road users are kings of the jungle.

Well, cyclists are the 'bigger' road and street users, as they travel faster than people on foot. And shared use works--it's been demonstrated time and time again. Of course, it means that in an area busy with people on foot, you are best advised to apply your cycle training (and I still advise strongly to get some, as it's great), but that's what we need to truly share the streets. You will easily find a road where you can get up a bit of speed again. No, I don't think such an awareness campaign is required, simply because it's not a priority. As I said above, the first priority is to unskew the expectations of responsibility a little bit from the current situation, in which victim-blaming is unfortunately prevalent.

3,000 road deaths caused by motorists every year

Caused? Only in the sense that collisions with motor vehicles wouldn't happen if motor vehicles didn't exist. It's disingenuous to say that all deaths of non-motorised road users in collision with motor vehicles are caused by motorists, when there is often contributory negligence by the so-called victim.

I think it probably is fair to say that the vast majority of collisions wouldn't happen at all if everybody paid proper attention, but as a vulnerable road user you can do a lot both to make sure people pay you attention and to make it hard for the buggers to kill you even when they seem to be trying. I rode half a million miles in a decade as a London motorcycle courier with only the one aforementioned collision with a really determinedly suicidal pedestrian, by assuming that everybody was out to get me, and making it as hard as possible for them to succeed. Now that I'm in a van, I seem to be making the most use of the same skill set in assuming that all pedestrians and quite a few cyclists are determined to end it all under my wheels, and putting my efforts into preventing them from so doing. When I'm walking or cycling, I don't assume that any other motorists are making anything like the same effort to preserve me, a conclusion easily drawn by observing how careless they are about something as big, red and liable to break their car as my daily driver.

http://www.wired.com/2014/07/f1-kers-london-buses/

I'm not a bus geek by any means, but even I'm tempted to do the Superloop tour (the inner ring, that is--not sure I'd have the stamina for the outer ring they're planning, and it obviously gets complicated with the non-orbital routes, so not thinking about those, either). A friend of a friend has done it and it apparently took ten hours. Hard to find the time but I'm thinking about it.

Doing it clockwise means either getting to Thamesmead to start it there and then go from about four o'clock to about three o'clock (North Woolwich), or to start somewhere else and then cross the river at Woolwich and get to Thamesmead (probably on the 177) to catch the SL3. All the other connections are reportedly easy to make.

Better orbital public transport routes are needed in London to counterbalance the radial focus on Central London.