Author Archives: Freedom for Drivers Foundation

Community Roadwatch and Speed Awareness Courses

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The “Community Roadwatch” scheme has been promoted by a number of police forces in the last few years. This is where the police train local residents to use speed guns who then report malefactors to the police who send the drivers a “warning” (one might even say “threatening”) letter. But so far as this writer is aware, such letters have no legal force. This scheme has been promoted by Transport for London and the Metropolitan police in London.

According to a recent press report, in the London Borough of Havering they have gone one step further. According to the Romford Recorder, after issuing a letter for the third time to a driver, the police will take further action by issuing a “mandatory speed awareness course” invite. It is not at all clear what legal basis the police might be claiming for having powers to do this. Could they prosecute the driver for example if the speed awareness course invite is ignored?

Of course this kind of scheme, effectively local vigilantism, is opposed by many. For example a poll by Populus conducted on behalf of the AA showed almost equal numbers of people in favour as opposed. As one person said, it was “just an excuse for local busybodies to interfere with neighbours behaviour” (quote from a Guardian article on the subject).

The writer is looking into this topic further.

Roger Lawson

Safer Lorries to Help Cyclists and Pedestrians

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The Mayor of London has launched a consultation on proposals to improve road safety by ensuring that lorry drivers can see cyclists and pedestrians. Thousands of lorries could be banned from the streets of London as a result.

HGVs are involved in more than half of cycling deaths on London roads. Often lorries turning left and unable to see cyclists to their left are the cause. Pedestrians are affected in a similar way.

Previous proposals in this area have been changed. Now there will a star rating system for HGVs and only those rated three stars or above will be permitted into London. The proposals would be brought in between 2020 and 2024. But there are 35,000 HGVs (many of them serving construction sites) that are likely to be zero rated currently operating on the streets of London. There will be substantial costs in adapting those vehicles or replacing them.

The previous consultation on these proposals got a very mixed response with strong support from cyclists of course but lots of objections from those affected on the grounds that it would not solve the problems, be difficult to implement, on technical grounds and for other reasons. We objected because we consider it wrong that there should be different regulations in London from the rest of the country (as vehicles do travel around). It should be tackled at a national level. If there are benefits to road safety from these proposals, why should not the rest of the country get them imposed also?

See here for more information: https://consultations.tfl.gov.uk/roads/safer-lorries . But it does not seem that there will be any further consultation on this matter which is unfortunate as clearly there was no unanimity in support of it previously.

Roger Lawson

London Councils and TfL Make Millions from Yellow Box Junctions

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The BBC have been investigating the revenue that London councils make from fines on drivers who infringe yellow box junctions. The use of cameras to enforce these junctions has caused the figures to grow rapidly. For example one junction in Fulham has earned the council £2.4m in PCNs in 18 months.

The London Councils with the top income from this source are Hammersmith & Fulham with £2.1m and Waltham Forest with £1.7m in a year. Kingston, Hounslow and Barnet are also high but Transport for London control some junctions and they made £884,891 from Homerton High Street/Fire Station alone. More information was provided by the BBC in the BBC London Inside Out programme, no doubt available from i-Player. It showed how some junctions create enormous driver frustration, and road rage, because it simply is not possible to avoid infringement at some (particularly where no traffic lights are present), or it is easy to accidentally infringe.

Comment: This is a pernicious fund raising system (yet another such scheme in addition to those covered in our last newsletter). Some years ago there was a study done of the benefits of box junction enforcement and in fact it showed that traffic flows were reduced as drivers were hesitant to enter.

There are clearly also some junctions where the traffic has particular problems because of the design of the junction or because of traffic lights before or after the junction. If in doubt whether your case merited a fine, you should go to appeal – as this writer has done more than once successfully because as a normally law abiding driver I do not appreciate being issued with a fine. But regrettably many people simply pay up.

The rule about box junctions is simple. You should not enter it unless your exit is clear. But as one commentator said, if there is a lot of infringement then the council concerned should look at the design. Unfortunately they have no incentive to do this and no overriding authority that can instruct them to behave more appropriately.

Roger Lawson

GLA Scrutinise Traffic Congestion in London

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The Greater London Assembly Transport Committee is currently undertaking a “scrutiny” of traffic congestion in London. They have apparently become concerned about recent increases in congestion. For example they report the following:

– A reduction in traffic speed. On London’s A-roads, average speed fell from 16.3mph in July 2013 to 14.8mph in July 2015.

– Excess waiting times for buses have increased from an average of one minute in 2013/14 to 1.2 minutes in 2015/16

– Journey time reliability on the TfL Road Network (major roads) has fallen from 89 per cent in 2013/14 to 87 per cent in 2015/16.

Some of this increase has been blamed on the increase in the number of minicabs (private hire vehicles) from the rise of Uber and other similar booking systems.

But the removal of road space and such projects as the Cycle Superhighways are surely the main cause.

In brief we argue that the cause is lack of consideration to the impact on the road network of projects that damage it, the failure to develop a proper road network in London, and a simple failure to spend enough money on it.

Roger Lawson

Telegraph Coverage of Speed Awareness Courses

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On the 3rd September the Daily Telegraph ran a lengthy article on speed awareness courses which included some quotes from this writer. Here’s a brief summary of the contents.

It noted that 1.6 million motorists were caught speeding last year and record numbers were attending speed awareness courses (1.2 million last year). These numbers have partly risen because the “qualifying speeds” within which you may be offered a course have been broadened (for example as much as 42 mph in a 30 limit area, or 86 mph in a 70 limit).

But there is little evidence that the courses do much good. The article quoted Chris Miller, former Hertfordshire Assistant Chief Constable, as saying “There’s too little independent oversight, too little research to show whether these highly lucrative courses, all at the expense of motorists, do any good”.

I was quoted as follows: “If you were a burglar and police let you off if you paid some money it would be a criminal offence. What’s the difference with SACs?” And: “We believe they are also used to fund police activities other than simple SAC administration contradicting what Ministers promised when the courses began”.

A really odd response was obtained from Rob Gifford, CEO of the Road Safety Trust and UKROED (who run the scheme), who was asked whether they should be independently run by the Government. He said “…police would be extremely concerned because it would give the Government the power to tell police officers what to do and historically they have never done that”. Since when were police not accountable to the Government, and to Parliament? Do they now consider themselves above the law?

The article also reported that the Government has commissioned IPSOS MORI to carry out to carry out a review of the SAC industry. As we have said, there is no firm evidence of any benefit to road safety. The only evidence that is available is based on “attitudinal surveys” done on attendees. They reported on positive responses to the courses and “greater intentions to comply with speed limits”. But of course the problem with these kind of surveys is that the respondents are likely to give the answers they think those asking the questions would like and it is easy to distort the results by the way questions are phrased.

What we surely need is to track people who attend such courses and compare their accident records with a control group who have not attended a course. And compare them also with a group who were given penalty points which the article suggested is known to be effective.

But using IPSOS MORI to do such research is very odd as they are primarily a market research company focussed mainly on public opinion polls. Indeed I would say they are the Governments favourite pollster when they wish to get the answer they want. So it looks exceedingly likely that this will be a whitewash of the evidence on this subject.

Perhaps the best comment on this topic was in a subsequent letter to the Telegraph by Andrew Tobin who said “Sir – If speed awareness courses are effective, my insurance premium should go down if I take one, as I become a lower risk. But it goes up”.

Yes insurance companies might well be able to provide useful evidence on the question of the effectiveness of speed awareness courses, but even if the ends might be beneficial (which I very much doubt), the means are illegal and unjustified.

Roger Lawson

Richard Branson Survives Speed Hump Collision

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Well known entrepreneur Richard Branson has had a bad accident caused by a speed hump. When cycling in the British Virgin Islands he hit a speed hump and suffered a cracked cheek, torn ligaments and extensive bruising. He claims only his cycle helmet saved him from death.

He said: “I was heading down a hill towards Leverick Bay when it suddenly got really dark and I managed to hit a sleeping policeman hump in the road head on. The next thing I knew, I was being hurled over the handlebars and my life was literally flashing before my eyes. I really thought I was going to die. I went flying head-first towards the concrete road, but fortunately my shoulder and cheek took the brunt of the impact.”

This writer has of course campaigned against speed humps over many years and this is not the first example of the danger speed humps cause to cyclists. There was a very similar case in the London Borough of Bromley in 2005 which is documented here (fast cyclist on a hill in poor light conditions): http://www.freedomfordrivers.org/speed-humps-old-hill.htm (and there is lots more information on the dangers of speed humps on that web site).

With the negligible road safety benefits of speed humps, simply in the interests of improving safety for cyclists would it not be a good idea to remove them all?

Roger Lawson

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Congestion Taxes Unpaid

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Transport for London (TfL) have disclosed that in addition to running up bills of £500,000 in unpaid parking fines, which diplomats have avoided or delayed paying last year, they also have an outstanding amount of £96 million in unpaid “Congestion Charges”. That is a considerable amount which would make some difference to TfLs budget shortfall.

The new Mayor Sadiq Khan repeated the claim by his predecessor that this tax is actually a “service charge” which should be paid. But the embassies claim that as it is a tax, and as foreign embassies are exempt from taxes, they do not have to pay it.

There is a simple question to ask here. What service is being provided? In essence none so the embassies are correct to refuse payment. It was only rebranded a service charge to fool those who have been forced to pay it that this was not simply a money raising tax but something else. It is not.

So my advice to the embassies is: “don’t pay it”. And TfL should stop calling it a service charge and correctly label it what it is.

Roger Lawson

Launch of Campaign Against Speed Awareness Courses

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AMPOW Campaign Against Misuse of Police Waivers

We have launched a campaign against the misuse of speed awareness courses (named AMPOW) because the actions of the police in offering such “Education Courses” as an alternative to prosecution for speeding and other offences are distorting road safety policy. It is leading to the proliferation of speed cameras and threatened prosecutions because the police now have a direct financial incentive to maximise their activities in this area. This is wrong.

In our view there is no statutory support for this activity and it is contrary to law. In addition it is a perversion of justice for the police to waive prosecution on the basis of money being paid to them.

There is also no hard evidence that putting people through a speed-awareness course has any impact on their subsequent accident record, or behaviour in general. So what we now have is an enormous industry dedicated to raising money to pay course operators, the police and other organisations who benefit from these arrangements.

The Government has claimed that the police only recover their “administration” costs but that is not in fact true. They are actually using their proportion of fees paid by course attendees to finance more cameras and more staff to operate them plus to fund other equipment and activities from the surpluses generated. We can provide evidence on this.

We ask the Government to put a stop to these arrangements forthwith simply because Parliament has never approved these activities. If they do not we will consider a legal challenge to prevent these abusive practices from continuing.

More Information

You can learn more about this campaign from a web page set up to support the campaign here: https://www.freedomfordrivers.org/speed-awareness-courses.htm     .

Kingston, Surbiton and New Malden Road Changes

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The London Borough of Kingston upon Thames is consulting on proposals to change many roads in their borough as part of the “Go Cycle” programme to encourage cycling and walking. This is what one local resident had to say on the subject:

Kingston

The key points of this proposal are:

  1. Imposing a 20 limit on the main road (Wheatfield Way, then Clarence Street and Wood Street) affecting all traffic travelling in/out from/to the South (Surbiton, Tolworth, the A3) and the West (Hampton Court, Teddington)
  2. Filling this route with humps and raised tables, intending to create what appear to be ‘shared spaces’.
  3. Taking away a filter lane and a traffic light queuing lane, both on Wheatfield Way.
  4. Encouraging cyclists to use the route put partially in place of these traffic lanes, and a route running round the outside of main Kingston – ie the long way round.

All proposals need to be opposed:

  1. It is not remotely appropriate for the speed limit to be reduced.  This is deliberately designed to be a loop round the key parts of Kingston, one that through traffic can and should use as a main road, at a sensible speed.  On top of this, 20 is very bad for pollution, something Kingston is struggling with.
  2. They want to put humps in the main road – used by thousands of cars, buses and lorries.  Does this need an explanation as to why it should be opposed?!  Further, these are designed to be like shared spaces, especially round the station – and these are both dangerous and unpopular with vulnerable road users, as you have well documented.  Outside the station in particular is a shared cycle/pedestrian lane crossing a 3-lane road next to a T-junction.  It needs order, not chaos.
  3. These are not minor, just because they may be low use at many times.  The scheme talks of wanting to reduce congestion, but on a road that already easily gets heavily congested, taking away any road space like this will only lead to one thing.  (The scheme says “some journey times will change slightly” – I presume this is easily translated?).
  4. This is just not a good cycle route.  The short way from Surbiton to Kingston Station (Which incidentally is a heavy bus centre but very low traffic usage) is Brook Street, Eden Street, Castle Street and Fife Road.  Those using the mini-Holland mess on Portsmouth Road will use High Street, not join this.   This is a rotten proposal all round.

Surbiton:

The plans are:

  1. Narrow Claremont Road, removing parking spaces, for a separate cycleway
  2. Making a mess of the Claremont Road/Maple Road junction
  3. Adding more humps – to Avenue Elmers this time
  4. Closing Surbiton Crescent (which doesn’t appear to be up for consultation?!)
  5. Painting lots of bicycle signs on roads.

This should also be opposed:

  1. Those parking spaces are well used.  If not during operational hours, that’s because the restrictions are overly oppressive.  Their loss cannot be good for the residents or business along there.

Also, this seem to create a number of hazards with pedestrians, at the The Crescent junction, and at the bus stop half way down Claremont Road, which is quite well used, very well served, and incidentally also right by a crossing linking the park to a footpath.  This cycle land is a very bad design.

A better design would be a lane round The Crescent, which is not significantly longer, uses a much quieter road, can avoid issues where that road meets Claremont Road, and shouldn’t interfere nearly as much with pedestrians.

  1. I just don’t understand where cyclists and pedestrians are supposed to go on this junction.  It’s just not friendly to users.

3/4. These are completely pointless.  What benefit do they bring, other than to waste more money recklessly thrown at these schemes?

New Malden:

The plan here is to replace the Fountain Roundabout with a traffic light junction.

Actually, this I approve of.  Though roundabouts may have more capacity than traffic lights, it’s no good when they are naturally poorly designed, too small for the levels of traffic, and quite genuinely hazardous.  It is also true that, while ‘New Malden Fountain’ is a landmark of sorts, it is completely unreachable.  I do not agree that the crossings are pedestrian unfriendly, at least for a roundabout, but the alternative is better.

The only complaint is that No Right Turn from Malden Road to Burlington Road.  Quite apart from affecting the 265 bus route, this is unnecessary, and primarily a pain to locals.  This is a tweak, though.

The most important part of this proposal though is that it does (even if by accident) consider road users.

It is important to note that once again there is lots of money being thrown at big schemes on main roads that are designed to impede motor traffic.  The schemes even invite ‘cyclists, pedestrians, and other road users’ to respond – not even naming drivers as users of note!

This must be opposed.  It must have alarmed you and many of your readers to see absolutely no regard paid to drivers’ needs by any of the mayoral candidates in the London Mayoral elections, and here is another example of motorists being ignored.  Drivers must therefore speak up; planners must know that drivers care, drivers will fight for their space, and that drivers are going to keep on driving. Most of these plans ignore drivers, dismissing them as a problem, a nuisance, a disease that can be cured.  It must be heard that to ignore or treat drivers like this is unacceptable.

These plans will probably not be dumped regardless – so it is worth pointing out that the New Malden plan shows drivers’ needs can be considered too, and that schemes can be designed for their benefit.

I hope you, and all members in the area, take the time to respond, and strongly oppose the Kingston and Surbiton proposals.

The public consultations on these schemes are present here: http://consult.kingston.gov.uk/portal/planning/go/consultations_summer_2016/

But you need to respond by the 18th July.

Roger Lawson 13/7/2016

Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) to be Toughened

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As new London Mayor Sadiq Khan promised in his manifesto, he plans to tackle vigorously the problem of air pollution in London, a lot of which comes from motor vehicles. To that purpose he yesterday announced proposals, and associated public consultations, on strengthening and bringing forward the planned Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ).

As proposed by previous Mayor Boris Johnson, the ULEZ would impose a charge on all vehicles that were not compliant with certain standards from 2020 within the existing Congestion Charge area of central London. The charge for cars was to be £12.50. Zero or very low emission vehicles were exempt and most modern cars, but not older ones and particularly not diesel vehicles. They needed to be Euro 4 compliant for petrol vehicles or Euro 6 for diesel cars – which meant only diesels manufactured after 2015 would likely be free of charge. Similar tough rules applied to large vans and HGVs with a £100 charge for the latter.

The objective, as with the new proposals, was to substantially reduce NO2 and particulate emissions which are the main health hazards and where London has been consistently breaching EU legal standards on certain roads (but as also happens in many other major cities). Although air pollution from vehicles has been falling, and will continue to fall as the vehicle fleet is replaced by newer models, the timescale is quite extended for major impacts and the increasing use of diesel cars has not helped. Diesel vehicles were mistakenly promoted by the Government because of their alleged lower emissions of CO2, but are much worse for other pollutants – and that’s assuming even that their pollution controls were working properly and the figures were not being fiddled by VW et al, which we now know to be untrue.

In summary the latest proposals are:

– To bring the implementation of the central London Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) forward by one year to 2019

– To expand the ULEZ beyond central London in 2020 (to within the North/South Circular).

– Introducing a new Emissions Surcharge from 2017 for the most polluting vehicles entering central London (congestion charge zone) – in essence those older vehicles such as cars, buses and HGVs made before January 2006, or a year later for vans. This charge will be £10 (Toxicity Charge).

– Giving TfL the go-ahead to start looking at a diesel scrappage scheme as part of a wider national scheme run by the government.

– Making sure TfL leads by example by cleaning up its bus fleet and buying only hybrid or zero emission double-decker buses from 2018.

Note that as many as 9,000 vehicles that do not qualify for exemption and hence will incur the £10 Toxicity Charge currently enter central London. There will obviously be a strong incentive for the owners to replace their vehicles with newer ones, or not drive in at all.

You can find out more information, and respond to the public consultation, by going to this web page: www.london.gov.uk/cleanair

Here’s some comments from this writer:

Ensuring older vehicles are replaced, or removed from central London by 2017 is wise as they are a major source of pollution. However this will bring hardship to many, particularly van owners. Clearly those who own such vehicles are often the less wealthy or run small businesses so putting in place a “diesel scrappage” scheme would be helpful. But will the Government go along with this and provide the necessary funding? That is a big question.

Expanding the ULEZ to within the North/South Circular in 2020 will affect many more people and will be particularly difficult for current diesel vehicle owners as it will affect relatively modern vehicles at that time. Again a diesel scrappage scheme would help enormously. Note though that the previous plan to solely have the ULEZ cover the congestion charge zone made little sense as the air blows in from around and hence it was not likely to have much impact. But it was a lot cheaper because the existing congestion charge cameras could be used. Presumably a whole new technology infrastructure will be needed for the wider area. What are the costs of this likely to be? We do not know.

One particular negative effect will be on the environment on the North/South Circulars which are already heavily congested and hence have poor local air quality in some locations. This might be made worse if the boundary is just within those roads.

Note that the initial public consultation also covers such matters as giving the Mayor control over Vehicle Excise Duty (VED) receipts, the pedestrianisation of Oxford Street and your local town centre, the closure of roads (for car-free days, play streets, etc), the funding of a boiler scrappage scheme, etc, so there is lots to comment on. So please make sure you respond to this consultation.

But unfortunately there is no cost information provided for these proposals, or cost/benefit analysis, as is usual with recent consultations from TfL so any responses may be ill informed.

One last comment: the survey system asks you for lots of personal information which is highly inappropriate. I suggest you avoid answering those as best you can. But if they see any responses from 116 year olds living in Bromley with no specific gender bias then you will know who it is. For security reasons I simply do not give out such data as any simpleton now knows.

Roger Lawson