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Chris Boardman backs mayoral hopeful Christian Wolmar's Vision Zero for London road deaths

Transport commentator seeking Labour nomination sets out his policy for slashing capital's road casualties...

Chris Boardman has given his backing to prospective London mayoral candidate Christian Wolmar’s ‘Vision Zero’ which aims to eliminate road deaths in the capital.

Wolmar, one of the UK’s leading transport commentators, is seeking the Labour Party nomination for the next mayoral elections in 2016, but faces competition from a trio of MPs – Diane Abbott and former ministers Dame Tessa Jowell, and David Lammy.

In his Vision Zero policy paper launched today, he called for “a radical new approach to the issue” of road safety in London.

He said that while there was a downward trend in road casualties, the number of people killed on the city’s roads – 132 in 2013 – “is still far too high and there is still a casual acceptance that this is the price that must be paid for Londoners’ mobility.”

The three key features of his proposals are:

A 20mph zone across the capital

A freight strategy to reduce the number of lorries on London’s streets and

An accident investigation body for road deaths.

The policy is based on the Vision Zero initiative introduced in Sweden in the mid-1990s, with the concept also embraced last year by Bill De Blasio, Mayor of New York City, where it has already been credited with cutting road casualties.

Former world and Olympic champion Boardman, who is now policy adviser to British Cycling, is supporting Wolmar’s bid to become Labour’s mayoral candidate.

He said: “Lowering the speed limit to 20mph is already working well in some London boroughs and it would be great to see this rolled out across the capital.

“British Cycling also supports the idea of restricting large lorries during peak hours, including ensuring that all HGVs are fitted with the latest safety equipment.”

He added: “A body to investigate deaths on the roads, including making specific recommendations on improvements to infrastructure, would be a welcome move.

“A similar approach by the rail industry has been extremely effective in recent years.”

Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.

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12 comments

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eurotrash | 9 years ago
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The main thing I took from this article is that Diane Abbott is a mayoral hopeful.

... Words fail me.  102

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andreacasalotti | 9 years ago
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For updates on Vision Zero London (no affiliation with Wolmar), please go to:
http://www.visionzerolondon.org/
https://plus.google.com/u/0/b/103953962476871248924/+VisionzerolondonBlo...
twitter.com/V0LDN

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oozaveared | 9 years ago
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vision Zero was a term coined by Prof Claes Tingvall. It's also called "eradication philosophy". It's a double edged sword for cyclists. Sounds good of course we want fewer deaths but in practice the philosophy is to remove areas of conflict. I have heard this man speak at a road safety conference in Brussels as part of a job I used to have. He characterises the philosophy as "five star vehicles driven by five star drivers on five star roads" all well and good so far but a five start road in its purest form is by his definition a single carriageway with no turns, barriers both sides and importantly no traffic conflicts. So you remove potential conflicts. And the easiest way to stop cyclists being killed on the roads is to remove cyclists from the roads.

Now Christian whom I have also heard speak is a pro cycling guy and he doesn't mean that. But you need to be careful of a philosophy that put the number at zero "by all and any means" . You have to be careful what you wish for.

Vote Wolmar for Mayor and CB for PM btw.

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ChairRDRF replied to oozaveared | 9 years ago
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oozaveared wrote:

vision Zero was a term coined by Prof Claes Tingvall. It's also called "eradication philosophy". It's a double edged sword for cyclists. Sounds good of course we want fewer deaths but in practice the philosophy is to remove areas of conflict. I have heard this man speak at a road safety conference in Brussels as part of a job I used to have. He characterises the philosophy as "five star vehicles driven by five star drivers on five star roads" all well and good so far but a five start road in its purest form is by his definition a single carriageway with no turns, barriers both sides and importantly no traffic conflicts. So you remove potential conflicts. And the easiest way to stop cyclists being killed on the roads is to remove cyclists from the roads.

Now Christian whom I have also heard speak is a pro cycling guy and he doesn't mean that. But you need to be careful of a philosophy that put the number at zero "by all and any means" . You have to be careful what you wish for.

Backs up what I was saying exactly.
Vote Wolmar for Mayor and CB for PM btw.

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clayfit | 9 years ago
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I work in the chemical industry, and we talk about the "accident pyramid", that for every death there are 100 injuries and 10,000 near misses. So we concentrate on reducing the near misses, because every now and again, one results in an injury or death. This is a role for police and planners- every near miss is a potential KSI, and one too many. In my industry it's not tolerated to wait for a KSI before taking action: why is it different on the road?
And we have another mantra: "accidents don't happen, they are caused"

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mrmo replied to clayfit | 9 years ago
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@Clayfit, I was hit by a car last year, tried reporting to the Police not interested, council not interested. I walked away with a few bruises, the reason was a mix of stupid driver and badly designed road (cycle path and blind corner)

Until the authorities actually record the true number of accidents how can they know how big the problem actually is, and if you don't know how big a problem is how can you begin to address it appropriately?

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ChairRDRF replied to mrmo | 9 years ago
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mrmo wrote:

@Clayfit, I was hit by a car last year, tried reporting to the Police not interested, council not interested. I walked away with a few bruises, the reason was a mix of stupid driver and badly designed road (cycle path and blind corner)

Until the authorities actually record the true number of accidents how can they know how big the problem actually is, and if you don't know how big a problem is how can you begin to address it appropriately?

Excellent point. Disgraceful lack of official concern. We need not just these incidents but near hits as well.

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severs1966 replied to mrmo | 9 years ago
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mrmo wrote:

...I was hit by a car ... tried reporting to the Police not interested, council not interested...

This has been my experience several times. I suspect this is the norm, rather than a rarity. Vast numbers of cyclists are probably bumped into, or bumped off (in both senses of the term) and go unrecorded.

This is partly because the police institutionally and systematically hate cyclists, and councils simply don't care if bike riders live or die.

Let's hope Mr Wolmar will take this into account. He used to be known mainly as a rail fetishist. Now he's a politician, which makes me worry that he will descend to the usual level of the typical politico.

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ChairRDRF replied to clayfit | 9 years ago
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clayfit wrote:

I work in the chemical industry, and we talk about the "accident pyramid", that for every death there are 100 injuries and 10,000 near misses. So we concentrate on reducing the near misses, because every now and again, one results in an injury or death. This is a role for police and planners- every near miss is a potential KSI, and one too many. In my industry it's not tolerated to wait for a KSI before taking action: why is it different on the road?
And we have another mantra: "accidents don't happen, they are caused"

Clayfit, this backs up what I was saying exactly: near hits for cyclists are probably far more indicative of danger than the very small number of deaths.

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ChairRDRF | 9 years ago
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Christian is the best of a (so far) uninspiring lot, none of whom have had anything at all positive to do with transport in general and cycling in particular (that is all parties).
However, a bit of cold water needs to be poured on this:

1. “Vision Zero” is a highly contentious issue. It can, in principle, fit in with a road danger reduction approach that we advocate (see www.rdrf.org.uk) but can also slot in nicely with having fewer pedestrians and cyclists around – which we most certainly do not. Christian knows this, but could be a lot more explicit. For example, the Dutch have a far lower casualty rate per cycle journey – but more cycle casualties per head of the population because so many more of them cycle. Also,just lumping the casualties together fails to distinguish between those which may be self-inflicted (drunks falling off bikes) and ones where cyclists have been hurt by another road user.
All this and the general issue of what we should be aiming for is discussed here http://rdrf.org.uk/2013/11/15/if-we-want-safer-roads-for-cycling-we-have...

2. 20 mph default – good idea, but on most roads the Mayor does not have direct control. He needs to make it clear how he would pressure Councils (that are the Highway Authority) to implement these areas, and how he will work with the police to ensure compliance.

3. Lorries: it is necessary to do a number of things, such as retro-fitting protective devices, sensor technology etc. Is he going to actually find the finance to do this? Nothing costed is advanced by him so far. And don’t forget that while HGVs are involved in half the cyclist deaths, when it comes to the reported injuries it is down to less than 10%. He needs to talk about buses (over which the Mayor has some control) an cars, vans etc.

4. A body to investigate deaths. Hmm. Don’t forget that deaths are only the tip of the iceberg of cyclist casualties, and quite different from DANGER. The most dangerous places in London are gyratories like Staples Corner which often have very few cyclist deaths because here are very few cyclists – often because of the extra amount of motor danger there!

And we have “making recommendations”. Well, we have had quite a few of those over the years – couldn’t he get stuck in with pushing things like non-discriminatory law enforcement, highway and vehicle design etc. without such a body.

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jacknorell | 9 years ago
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Christian Wolmar already had my vote, because of how passionate he is about creating a city that's for the people living here rather than just monetary gain.

All-around good guy, and he's proven it over many years as a local politician.

If *every* London cyclist gave him their vote... well, I can dream.

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matthewn5 | 9 years ago
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Brilliant, and about bl**dy time. Best of luck to Wolmar, he's got my vote.

Boris really doesn't care, it's all soundbites and photo-ops for him, as he heads for Westminster....

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