Pedestrian Safety in Lancaster

Whilst Rishi Sunak and his friends complain about “Dangerous Cycling” others who are more concerned about the safety of pedestrians are campaigning for real change to make our streets safer for everybody.

Meanwhile in the real world it is now over a decade since the then Justice Secretary Chris Grayling MP announced the Government’s intention to launch “a full review of all driving offences and penalties”, stating that he “wanted to make our roads safer”. This review still hasn’t been undertaken a decade later.

A quick look at Crashmap reveals that the most dangerous places for pedestrians in central Lancaster tend to be in the vicinity of signal controlled pedestrian crossings on the one way system.

W understand from Lancashire County Council that the wait times at these crossings can be up to 45 seconds from someboddy pressing the begging button to people actually getting a signal that it is safe to cross if the roads are busy. There are a few crossings where the delays are 10 seconds shorter, but that can still be quite a long time to wait standing in the rain.

Of course these traffic lights are programmed to give a signal that it is safe for people to cross the road much more quickly if there isn’t any traffic coming, but this is of limited usefulness to most people who can see that the road is clear and cross without needing the lights to change. That tends to make these pedestrian crossing little more than a very expensive placebo, except for visually impaired people.

We have all see people in a hurry and not wanting to wait for the lights to change to stop the traffic take their chances to cross the road before the traffic has stopped. This rather common behavoiur could well explain quite a few of the pedestrian road casualties in central Lancaster, so why aren’t those people who claim to be concerned about the safety of pedestrians actually trying to make crossing the road easier for people who just want to get to the shops?

Councillors and council officers routinely complain that there is no money to make any improvements, but changes such as this don’t require any costly road works, just a bit of time reprogramming the traffic lights. So what’s stopping them?

Next time you go to Manchester have a think about how long you wait at a pedestrian crossing for the trafic to be signalled to stop.