Response from TFL regarding RLJs at Bow roundabout

[Luke Redpath]

As I'm sure anybody here who commutes over Bow roundabout is aware, its a dangerous junction, despite TFL trying to improve it. A problem I've noticed, both in my own experience and through others (sw19cam has posted several examples of this on his YouTube channel), is red light jumping.

I recently contacted TFL about this and got a response back today - I wasn't particularly impressed with it, I was wondering what everyone else thought.

What prompted me to write to TFL was an incident I experienced a few weeks ago travelling westbound over the roundabout. I was waiting at the advanced stop line for my light to green - when it did, rather than making a quick getaway, as I normally try to, I had the presence of mind to watch the traffic on the roundabout as I was well aware of how bad it can be for RLJing and I'm glad I did. Half a second after my light went green, a white van approaching from my right (already on the roundabout, heading for the A12) shot through his red light. A few seconds later, another van shot through too. If I'd gone on my green light, I might not be here writing this.

Now it goes without saying that you should always proceed with caution on green - as I did - but I'm sure many less experienced cyclists would proceed without looking. I guess you expect amber gambling, but shooting through several seconds late seems particularly terrible to me.

This shocked even me and I'm pretty used to terrible driving on London streets. Analysing it somewhat, my suspicion is that as traffic on the roundabout approaches the light, they are already starting to accelerate towards the A12 slip road. They look to their left and see the stationary line of motor traffic held back at the first stop line - some 20 feet back from the roundabout - and think they can just go for it. They don't think to look at the advanced stop line where there can be cyclists waiting to go or even be aware there is an advanced green.

I won't paste my entire email to TFL but in short I asked if they could a) consider using red light cameras to dissuade RLJing at this particularly notorious junction, b) put up better signs to make drivers more aware of cyclists at the ASL and c) consider improving the phasing of the lights.

This was their reply:

Dear Mr Redpath

Thank you for contacting us on 10 September 2014 suggesting improvements for Bow roundabout.

I am sorry you have experienced motorist jumping the red lights at Bow roundabout.

There is a London wide policy to only install red light cameras as mitigation for a history of people being Killed or Seriously Injured (KSI) as a result of red light trespass. Criteria are used to assess whether the installation of a camera would be justified so that the camera would help improve safety by reducing the number of red light trespass related KSIs. The criteria for the implementation of a red light camera is that there must have been a minimum of two injury collisions on the same arm of a junction (in a three year period) that resulted in one KSI and both of these must have been as a result of a red light trespass.

According to Transport for London (TfL) records, none of the collisions at Bow Roundabout have been as a result of red light trespass. Therefore, as there has been no red light trespass related KSIs at this location it is doubtful that the introduction of a red light camera would be effective in addressing the collision problem and so would not be considered in this instance.

However, if you feel there is habitual running of red lights at Bow roundabout you might be interested to know that there is a website where concerns pertaining to a particular location can be reported to the Metropolitan Police via the Road Safe London website (www.met.police.uk/roadsafelondon/) which has been set up to allow the public to pass on information in confidence about illegal or nuisance road use. The police concentrate their resources on those issues of most concern based on such information.

I hope I can assure you that whilst there have been improvements made at Bow roundabout the process to improve the area has not finished. We are currently working with the London Boroughs of Tower Hamlets and Newham, and other key stakeholders, to deliver the Vision for Bow: a place which all road users passing through find accessible, safe and connected. We are therefore looking at opportunities to deliver more substantial changes at Bow for pedestrian and cyclists in the longer term, in order to support the regeneration of the area.

Thank you again for taking the time to write to us with your suggestions to improve safety at Bow roundabout.

Please contact me again if you need any further assistance, or if you would prefer to talk to us about this matter, please call us on 0343 222 1234.

Yours sincerely


Jonathon Cartwright

I guess I shouldn't have expected much to come from contacting them and I know you can't expect red light cameras to be installed everywhere but I would think they could make an exception to their "policy" for particularly bad junctions like this one.

 

[Drago]

Ah, that old chestnut. Not enough people have been put in coffins or wheelchairs to justify action.

 

[Luke Redpath]

Ah, that old chestnut. Not enough people have been put in coffins or wheelchairs to justify action.

Quiet. That's what I found particularly egregious about the reply.

I'm aware of Roadsafe, but I don't wear a helmet camera (have considered it many times and keep umming and ahhing over it) and I didn't exactly have time to catch the license plates and even if I had I'm not sure what exactly they would have been able to do about it.

Maybe I should head down there one day and sit their with my phone and record people jumping the red lights.

 

[Roadrider48]

It's a pretty poor response you received from TFL Luke.
The things you suggest should be mandatory at every major junction in London.

 

[Ganymede]

Maybe I should head down there one day and sit their with my phone and record people jumping the red lights.

That would be a public service. It shouldn't be up to you though! I bet you'd see loads.

 

[Luke Redpath]

Funnily enough, I always thought it was London-wide policy to install red-light cameras at the junctions most likely to make the most money, but maybe I'm just being cynical.

If that was the case though, Bow roundabout would be a good little earner I reckon.

 

[winjim]

Had you gone immediately on green, you'd now be halfway towards getting your camera!

 

[MisterStan]

Poor response IMHO. Basically saying that they are reactive instead of proactive. Let a few people die and then we might do something about it.

 

[jiberjaber]

Happening to work in the industry (not TfL I would mention!) when you are in the position as TfL are and have over 6000 traffic signals you need some way of prioritising where you put additional infrastructure to be able to work within the budget you have. Unfortunately, this needs some sort of 'rule' to help decide where to put that investment. I think the response from TfL is quite informative by letting you know the criteria they apply to make such decisions.

Its never going to feel right where a need to exceed a threshold of serious injuries occur so that a site can be pushed up a waiting list for something to be done, but unfortunately unless you can get some heavy weight political backing, that's the way it will be. Outside of London this might be a local MP or councillor but in London it would probably take more political clout than just that I would have thought. At least they have a weighting in their decision process based around safety, some other processes I come in to contact with now consider economic benefit over safety!

In terms of the lights phasing, I do deal with a lot of similar questions in my world but the problem is (and I am not saying this is your case here) often an isolated view from one arm of the junction not knowing what the junction is actually designed to do overall, so faced with a request to do something with the phasing of the traffic signals makes me often smile . They might be designed to allow priority through different routes at different times of the day or may be semi-autonomous and perhaps linked to other junctions so may be assisting another junction deal with a congestion issue or similar... add to that all the other parameters the Traffic Signal designer has to deal with to allow the right time to clear before changing lights (inter-green) and a hold load of other variables and it makes the operation of the junction to give fair use to all users quite a hard task.

One thing is for certain, the time an Amber aspect is displayed never changes, its always 3 seconds for stop and 2 seconds for go. Problem described above is down to driver behaviour as you've noted. My favoured solution would be strategically positioned machine gun posts Though a politically correct placements of signs might be better (but I suspect the ones jumping the lights wouldn't read them anyway! ).

You did the right thing to hang back though!

 

[CopperCyclist]

Unfortunately, I think this is as a result of the "don't pick on the motorists" brigade, who whine about "stealth taxes" and the like. Leaves a position where you literally have to wait for someone to die for action to be taken.

 

[PeteXXX]

I'm sure it wouldn't cost much to put a fake camera on the junction in question.. Just the presence of a yellow box on a pole makes people think a bit before they RLJ!

 

[crazyjoe101]

They'll put cameras in to catch people blocking a yellow box but they won't put cameras in to stop people getting hit by RLJers. Wow.

 

[I like Skol]

They'll put cameras in to catch people blocking a yellow box but they won't put cameras in to stop people getting hit by RLJers. Wow.

But that's the point isn't it, People aren't getting hit by red light jumpers?

 

[Luke Redpath]

But that's the point isn't it, People aren't getting hit by red light jumpers?

Yet.

 

[crazyjoe101]

But that's the point isn't it, People aren't getting hit by red light jumpers?

You're more likely to get hit by a RLJer at a junction where RLJing is common than at junction where it isn't.

But yes, "prevent" would have been a more accurate word to use than "stop".