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

The main thing I took from this article is that Diane Abbott is a mayoral hopeful.

... Words fail me.

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

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.

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"

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.

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.

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....