Morning:
14°c
My five-year-old daughter's best friend was run over last week. It happened on the pelican crossing on Uxbridge Road, opposite St Stephen's Primary School in Shepherd's Bush.
Miguel waited until he saw a green man, crossed to the island in the middle of the road, then carried on walking, not realising that the green man had started flashing. He was hit by a Ford Focus travelling at 30mph.
Luckily, he wasn't badly hurt, but it is only a matter of time before a child is killed at this crossing. Miguel is the third child from St Stephen's to be hit there this year.
In each case, the cause has been the same: a child has started to cross, only to be marooned in the middle of the road when the green man has started to flash. Like all pelican crossings, it simply doesn't give you enough time, thanks to the Mayor's decision to reduce the length of time all traffic lights in London stay red in the hope of reducing congestion. Linford Christie might be able to make it but a child doesn't stand a chance.
After Miguel was knocked over I called a road safety officer at Hammersmith and Fulham council and told him that if the council doesn't install a lollipop lady, a child will soon be killed. He said he couldn't speak on the record - it was more than his job was worth, apparently - and referred me to the council's press office.
I spoke to a press officer who then emailed me some bureaucratic gobbledegook explaining why a "school crossing patrol" could not be "deployed" outside St Stephen's.
He blamed it on the "guidelines" issued by the "Local Authority Road Safety Officer Association". "Under the guidelines this site is in the wrong category," he wrote.
Not very reassuring, particularly as a quick Google search revealed that the Local Authority Road Safety Officer Association no longer exists.
What about increasing the length of time before the green man starts flashing? I spoke to the road safety officer about that, but he was non-committal. Transport for London is responsible for programming traffic lights in the city, he said, not local authorities. The council can submit a request but there's no guarantee TfL will respond.
In that case, could he please make the request? "At this stage, I can't tell you what we'll be doing," he said. "Please don't quote me."
It was a typically frustrating exchange that anyone who has complained to their local authority will be familiar with.
It's not just the unwillingness of the officers to take responsibility for anything, maddening though that is. It is also the sense of being lost in a Kafka-esque labyrinth as you're shunted from one faceless bureaucrat to another.
It's not unusual for the buck to be passed from hand to hand so often that you end up back where you started.
Still, I did manage to glean one useful bit of information. The National Association of Lollipop Ladies - sorry, Road Safety Officers - hasn't vanished altogether. Rather, it's been "rebranded".
After lengthy consultations with various marketing experts, the Department of Transport has renamed it "Road Safety GB" and given it a fancy blue-and-red logo. It's nice to know the taxpayers' money is being well spent.
Meanwhile, the children outside St Stephen's continue to play Russian roulette. I hope the next child to get run over is as lucky as Miguel.
Reader views (13)
Toby - as you are a friend of the Mayor - why not ask him to something? beezz
- Beezz, LONDON
I'm glad that some people that actually know this crossing have given testimony at the issues here. Please get together to lobby the police to do something about the moron drivers out there responsible for this.
As a keen driver with twenty years of unblemished motoring I feel nothing but shame that there are scumbags out there that put people at risk, especially children, just to save a few seconds.
- Escobar A-Lop-Lop, Mad as hell and not taking it anymore
Highcode rules 196, 197 and 198 make it quite clear that two inline crossing like this counts as a single crossing & that drivers are required to wait for pedestrians who have already started to cross regardless of whether the lights turn green for them.
- Phil Armstrong, Oxford
My 5 year old daughter was knocked over on this crossing just a few weeks before Miguel, and luckily escaped with some nasty bruises and a few grazes, not to mention the awful shock of it all.
In our case a car had stopped at red and the green man had displayed and my daughter upon seeing the green man and hearing the simultaneous beeping noise instantly recognised this as her signal to cross the road, as she stepped out into the road and was hit by a separate car that had under cut the stationary car and had jumped the red light. My daughter had been standing next to me I was unable to hold her hand at the crossing as I did not have a spare hand I was already carrying a multitude of school paraphernalia including a violin. The car did not stop and the matter is now with the Police.
The crossing in question does not give sufficient time to cross all four lanes before amber/green flashing starts. Regular users of the crossing are conditioned to rush across it urgently as cars always start going through behind or in front before reaching the safety of the pavement on the other side.
We were lucky, speaking to other parents at St Stephen's school there have been many near misses at this crossing, the next child may not be so lucky……!
- Louise, London W6
The crossing at Wellington Arch gives you only four seconds to cross about 60m. The only way to achieve that is by cycling or running across, as shown in a video at http://realcycling.blogspot.com/2009/03/crossings-and-double-crossings.html.
- Rob, London, UK
How about drivers observing the highway code? If a pedestrian is still crossing while the green man is flashing the traffic is supposed to remain at a standstill until he is safely over the road. A lot a British and huge numbers of foreigners are oblivious to this rule or choose to flout it. Nowadays it is not unusual for at least 4 cars to run a red light in succession. Unless the law comes down harder on these people there will continue to be accidents. Shame so much effort is put into fining drivers for overstaying their welcome on a metre for 5 mins instead of these homicidal freaks.
- Penny Subbotin, Twickenham
Have I missed something here?
Toby writes of "(being) marooned in the middle of the road when the green man has started to flash". If the green man is flashing, that doesn't mean that the lights to traffic have gone green...they are not even necessarily flashing amber, so this is first and foremost about observing simple traffic laws, not the duration of Green Man phases. Even if the green man has long stopped flashing and the traffic lights have gone green, the pedestrian already crossing has right of way.
Of course this doesn't help Toby's daughter's friend, and I hope the little one is OK, recovers well and is able to summon up enough trust to cross the roads again, escorted or not, but there would seem to be a greater issue at this crossing than simply the length of time given to pedestrians to cross.
- Escobar-Alop-Lop, Camden County
I was there and he was accompanied. The problem is that the crossing is used by 2 schools as well as other members of the public and at 8.45, it's very crowded and distracting. There is also a lot of traffic. With all the school bags etc, not every child can hold an adult's hand, even if you can get them to do it!
- Louise Williams, London
I am also a parent at the school and am still waiting for said road safety officer to call me back as promised re getting something done about this...fast
- Tom Hv, London
@Mark Wilkinson
Is there a way of finding out what Beds CC deem worthy of Health and Safety regulations...?
- Gwaddilove, london ENGLAND
Why don't you stand for election. You can then give the faceless bureaucrats at the council a hard time and make them work for their money. All councils (but particularly the London ones) need a serious shaking. Some employees need to be removed and the few good ones need to be promoted and given power to make real change. There are too many middle ranking managers in councils who do nothing but have pointless meetings. They really are useless and non-productive, as your article clearly shows.
- Cameron, London, W2
Thank goodness the child wasn't seriously or even fatally injured, but he must have been very frightened. I agree with Toby Young up to a point: bring back lollipop ladies (or men); but what on earth was a five-year-old doing going to school and crossing a busy road unaccompanied anyway? I do think today's children are over-protected in many ways, but five is still too young to cross roads unaccompanied by an older person.
- Pam, East Kent UK
I had a similar experience with the then Beds County Council. Their position is that "lollipop ladies" reduce safety of children, as they never "gain experience in crossing roads unaided" and are lulled into a false sense of security, in fact providing a crossing patrol is one of the worse things they could do for children, as they shielded from understanding the damgers of road traffic. I suggested that perhaps disabling the school's fire alarms and sealing the fire exits would give children a healthy respect of fire, this was not being "constructive" they said.
- Mark Wilkinson, Biggleswade Beds
