Tuesday 30 April 2013

Making soft flesh and heavy metal mix on a race-track

This was the scene an hour or so after a bus and a cyclist collided on Kennington Park Road, Cycling Superhighway 7 towards Clapham/Brixton, at the bottom of Kennington Road this morning
 and this was how the bike shed looked at the nearby Lilian Baylis Technology (secondary) School on a sunny school day last week
 and here is the Lambeth Cycle Conference held on Saturday with lots of cyclists, three Lambeth Cabinet Members and a fourth Councillor, and staff from Lambeth and one from TfL but no head teachers, public health officials, police officers, town centre managers, or commercial driver representatives, discussing 'How to make Lambeth a place where 8-80 year olds choose to cycle.'
and here is the poster that was put on a bus stop by Made in Lambeth, who spent the weekend asking how we go about 'Creating the street of the future', for people to write on
and here is what a bus driver wrote
and this is what a person tweeted this morning
Just had to try to lift the 333 off a cyclist they'd hit on Kennington Road. Blood running cold.

and this is what a person asked on a forum
What colour bike Ed? I cannot get the Mrs to answer her phone.

and this is what they do in the Netherlands at a T-junction, like the one where the cyclist was in a collision today, so cyclists aged 8-80 aren't in the same place as buses or lorries or cars
and yes, there is enough space here to do as the Dutch do
and I hope both the cyclist and the driver, and the people who helped, recover from the collision soon, but above all, I hope that our politicians and engineers will look at what the Dutch have achieved and ask ourselves why we are not doing here what works so well there - and that TfL make changes bloody soon because EVERYONE WHO CYCLES HERE KNOWS JUST HOW SHIT THIS URBAN RACE-WAY SECTION OF ROAD IS AND HAVE BEEN SAYING SO FOR YEARS.

(and in the meantime, I'd like to know whether all 333 bus drivers have undertaken Transport for London's Safe Urban Driving Course that includes on-road cycle training, and if not, why not.)