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Received a leaflet on this from the local Labour party - anyone wanting to make their views known can contact the email address below. As a regular cyclist I can testify that the junction between UTG and Florence Road is a nightmare;"Your Labour council has successfully secured funding for some key improvements to our local roads that will improve safety for both pedestrians and cyclists near Stroud Green Primary School. In an area that has seen a number of accidents in recent years, there are proposals for a raised road surface at the zebra crossing at the corner of Upper Tollington Park Road and Florence Road in order to slow down traffic, with similar safety improvements being proposed for the junction of Upper Tollington Road and Lancaster Road.The council will be running a consultation in July with local residents about the proposals and your local Labour team is encouraging people to feed in their thoughts around how safe the junctions are for both cyclists and pedestrians and how the money could be best spent to improve the junction. Despite substantial cuts in its funding, the council believes that road safety is something that should always be a priority and lobbied hard to get around £120,000 from Transport for London for the series of improvements.If you want your views known to the council contact joanna@haringeylabour.org.uk
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For some considerable time now, this matter has been running on the local (all Lib Dem) councillors' websire and in their print publicity ... an initiative driven by local SG people and pushed at Council level by these councillors ... all in the face of what has seemed (to me at least) to have been a certain disdain for - and resistance to - local views on this matter by the Council's majority Labour group.
However, credit where it is due, if - as the post above suggests - the previously taciturn and sullen Labour group are now on board and vocal in support of this local SG initiative.
If indeed this is the case, 'Welcome to the bandwagon!'; SG-ers will expect a 'speedy' implementation.
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The lollipop lady at the school just before Highbury Barn is my enemy. She holds up the traffic every morning by stopping the bus for each person that arrives (not just nippers) instead of waiting for a cluster. I apologise if anyone here is related to her but really, she is the bane of my mornings.
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Miss A maybe the lollipop lady needs to read this
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Schleswig-Holstein indeed. We just need to pay a gentleman with "kilt knob" to stand and expose himself to speeding cars: a good deterrent I think, though at what range it would work might be rather, um, apparatus-specific.
Flashers don't need to be paid the minimum wage - as I recall they're a statutory exception. Stroud Green Primary schoolers would need to be bought special blinkers of course, though restricting childrens' horizons can only be good for them in austere times, so they could be permanently attached... thus road safety achieved and expensive aspiration crushed in one cheap move.
Watch your doormats... -
The right-hand turn onto Florence road is rather cyclist hostile - the turn into the contraflow cycle lane is really tight (I can't be the only one who refuses to use and will use the main highway instead?).
To add to this, the crossing seems to be viewed my many drivers a perfectly acceptable place to attempt to overtake - in both directions if travelling from SGR towards endymion road, it's often the first opportunity.I've had several close calls - mainly involving inpatient white vans.I suggest that the best thing the council could do would be fund better traffic enforcement in the area. There are, after all, no shortage of traffic offences occurring.\ Whilst they're at it, how about ticketting the fast food delivery moped riders rat-running through the cyclist only openings on gated streets?In terms of changes to the highway, I'd suggest humps either side of junction, and possibly a localised 20mph speed limit. I'd also support the removal of the poorly designed segregated contraflow cycle lane on Florence Road, replacing it with an on street contraflow.Judging from the frequency with which the garden wall of the house on the end of Oakfield road gets rebuilt, some humps down there just before the bend might be in order too. -
The right-hand turn onto Florence road is rather cyclist hostile - the turn into the contraflow cycle lane is really tight (I can't be the only one who refuses to use and will use the main highway instead?).
To add to this, the crossing seems to be viewed my many drivers a perfectly acceptable place to attempt to overtake - in both directions if travelling from SGR towards endymion road, it's often the first opportunity.I've had several close calls - mainly involving inpatient white vans.I suggest that the best thing the council could do would be fund better traffic enforcement in the area. There are, after all, no shortage of traffic offences occurring.\ Whilst they're at it, how about ticketting the fast food delivery moped riders rat-running through the cyclist only openings on gated streets?In terms of changes to the highway, I'd suggest humps either side of junction, and possibly a localised 20mph speed limit. I'd also support the removal of the poorly designed segregated contraflow cycle lane on Florence Road, replacing it with an on street contraflow.Judging from the frequency with which the garden wall of the house on the end of Oakfield road gets rebuilt, some humps down there just before the bend might be in order too. -
Agreed there is generally too much street furniture around but I don't really think that is an excuse, there is still the light on the other side of the road and the zebra road markings themselves.
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Dion = seconded
£120,000 for a road bump and some painting?
No wonder this country is drowning in debt and that we could have bought an entire new country for what we've spent on hosting the Olympics.
Also, Ali and Misscara are right, I don't think drivers deliberately try to knock people over on it - they just don't even register it or the people there, despite the crossing being your of your bog standard usually-spotted kind.
It just seems to be in a location that chucks an invisibility cloak over it. Answer has to be to move it. -
For the argument that drivers aren't seeing the crossing to stand up it would need all of the offending drivers to be travelling along that road for the very first time, otherwise they would know it was there, even if they can't see it.
Given the amount of drivers that do ignore/not see it I would suggest that they have travelled along the road before, are aware that the crossing is there and are just ignorant f*ckwits - in too much of a hurry and not caring about anyone else. -
A camera would require constant viewing to catch the offenders. Maybe Haringey could borrow Islington's camera car that lives at the top of Evershot Road, would be more useful here...
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I don't think they can't see the crossing - as you point out most must know it's there as they drive it all the time.
I do think, however, there is something about that location that draws eyes elsewhere and means drivers just don't register people waiting to cross.
What might work is a reminder sign that flashes up as you approach, like the slow down ones that have been proven to be very successful.
(No more cameras please, or use of that little car with the lazy oafs sat in there with the engine constantly running.)
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I regularly drive along UTR and in almost 13 years have never witnessed an accident or other drivers speeding willy-nilly over the crossing (more than a few cyclists, though), so I'm finding all this kerfuffle a bit bemusing. But if something more is needed, a slow-down sign/kids crossing sign like the ones near Rokesly School in N8 would seem to be a sensible option. The kind of drivers who do speed over crossings don't care enough about their suspension to be significantly slowed down by a speed bump!
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According to Which...
Two thirds of road accidents occur within five miles of a motorist’s home, a new poll has revealed. 'Our research suggests that many drivers appear to be in a comfort zone when driving close to home on familiar roads, hence why such a large proportion of accidents occur there.
'It's so important to keep a full level of concentration when driving, whether you're just popping to the shops or starting or ending a longer journey. These results emphasise this even more.'
Papa L, Ali and Misscara are right. People don't pay attention to things they see every day.
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But but but that's because most driving happens within five miles of your home.
If you want to get your car 5 miles away from your house, you have to drive, well....for at least five miles. Think about the average journey - how often is it under 5 miles?In the same way, most accidents happen at home because that's where people are.That's pretty shonky logic from Which. Those "results" don't emphasise anything. -
@vetski - I drive over it and use it to cross - it is not an easy one to spot if you are a driver because of the way the road curves into it from both sides. A bump would definitely help as most people do slow down at least a bit for bumps. As a pedestrian, it is a nightmare. Next time you are feeling a bit flat and uninterested in life, try crossing it and trying not to get kerfuffled.
(I had a driver swerve around me this weekend on it! I shouted at him and he shouted back out of his window) -
For further reading for the nearlydyingofboredom amongst you, I recommend this thread
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my home office window looks out at the crossing and I hear severe screech of wheels at least once every 2 days, sometimes more often (generally when it's hot and sunny or dark and raining). There may not be many actual accidents but there are many, many close shaves and i think it is just luck that no-ones been seriously injured or worse yet.
Moving it would make matters worse - the pedestrian rat run down to the station and the morning/afternoon run to the school make it the most obvious place for it to be and if there was no crossing here, people would continue to cross here at greater risk.
A raised crossing and clearer marking is a very good thing in my book. -
How about a big CCTV camera at motorists eye level as a deterrent to anti-social motoring. Do motorists notice cameras?
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As an example I was cycling up UTP on my way home from work last night, I noticed a pedestrian about to cross so slowed to stop and a van behind me pulled out and overtook and went flying over the crossing as the guy had stepped on.
Like others have said, the amount of close shaves is dangerous, one day worse will happen.
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In this Discussion
- Ali July 2012
- andy July 2012
- dion July 2012
- dorothy July 2012
- gardener-joe July 2012
- helen July 2012
- Helicon July 2012
- marko July 2012
- miss annie July 2012
- Misscara July 2012
- Papa L July 2012
- RedSturgeon July 2012
- vetski July 2012
- yagamuffin July 2012
