September 27th, 2006
Road Safety. What’s That Then?
Lancashire Partnership for Road Safety officers have been pissing me off again lately with their ignorance. Ignorance of the needs of cyclists as road users that is.
And this time it’s not by plonking their big fat arses camera vans in the local cycle lanes. No, this time they are being too lazy to get out of their vans on the way to hiding in the bushes and preventing one of our local garages from parking their vehicles for sale on the cycle lane. A cycle lane that provides the main route out from Preston to the coast, and used extensively by folk commuting between Preston and BAE Systems. Evidence from a Lancashire County Council (who employ the LPRS) road safety survey a couple of years ago was presented at a local cycle liaison meeting showing that more folk would use this cycle lane if it was safer. LCC has even spent money erecting bollards to try and prevent this garage from blocking the cycle lane. Ineffectually as it happened, but at least they made an effort.
I rang LPRS, pointing out that they site two of their vehicles in the bushes in the vicinity of the garage, one or other of whom must drive past the offender. It would be the work of but minutes every time they drive past to ‘have a word’ each time they spot the cycle lane blocked. They said they’d get back to me.
They rang back the next day to slope their shoulders, and say that they’d pass the issue on to the police to deal with.
Excuse me.
The police have other, more important priorities. I thought the whole point of the LPRS officers was to take this kind of thing off the police so that the police had more time to deal with those more important issues. Surely, as road safety officers these guys should be able to see that road safety is more than just about catching speeding motorists? LPRS officers should be the ones making sure that the cycle lanes are kept safe for, well, cyclists, rather than retailers.
They claim that the LPRS officers are civilians so have no powers. Really? They have the powers to ignore rights previously enshrined in law (rights of silence, innocent until proven guilty) when it comes to their speed guns, but they can’t deal with a safety problem caused by an obstruction as they spot it? Bit inconsistent that if you ask me. Even so, they may have no legal right to force the retailer to remove the obstruction but their asking isn’t going to hurt. They drive past this place so often that the sheer nuisance they cause would end up having an effect.
Maybe they think that as it’s OK to park their camera vans in cycle lanes then that right extends to anyone, and bugger the poor sod who’s actually trying to use it to get somewhere. If judges are going to fine cyclists for riding in the road where a cycle lane is provided - however unsafe it might be due to hazards such as parked cars for sale or LPRS officers raising cash - then LPRS need to do better.
Remember the ineffectual bollards I mentioned that LCC paid for to try and stop the cycle lane being blocked? With their “not our problem” attitude to improving road safety for cyclists the LPRS are about as effective.
Update, 28 Sep 2006
The BBC today carries a story on road deaths falling in 2005, figures that will no doubt be trumpeted by the Safety Partnerships as evidence that they are working.
In which case they might like to consider that for the second year running
cyclist casualties rose, this time by 10% to 148.
Evidence that for us they aren’t working, or is it that they aren’t working for us?
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