Penguin68

If I was designing research to determine whether LTNs did reduce accidents involving motor vehicles (because we know other accidents are rarely reported) the null hypothesis I would test is that accident rates in the broad locales of the LTN did not change significantly compared with other comparable areas. ‘Broad locales’ because I would assume that at least some traffic would be displaced from LTNs to adjacent and alternative routes, so I would include those routes which were understood by local people to be alternatives – and helpfully look at routes offered by e.g. Waze as alternatives for those without local knowledge. I would test this against similar urban areas where there were no LTNs to ensure that I was not measuring just a general drop in accident rates (which have been significantly dropping through the second half of the 20th century into the first quarter of this, discounting the period of Covid Lockdown when all traffic was significantly reduced). And I would follow the same broad design to determine whether significant drops in air pollution (and CO2 is not a pollutant as regards air quality impacting health is concerned) had occurred. In this manner I would not by hamstrung by the lack of proper comparative data from the past, particularly as regards air quality. I would need to ensure that I chose comparable areas so that I was comparing like with like. This latter would of course be open to challenge. I cannot see from what little I have read that this sort of comparability has been undertaken in the study being quoted (happy to stand corrected). If you just look at LTNs and say reported accidents are down this actually tells you nothing of use until you can contextualise the information, and until you can demonstrate that (taking into account displaced traffic) this is unusual compared with non LTN areas. Similarly for air quality. I’m not saying this sort of study is easy, or cheap. I am saying it meets reasonable research criteria. I used to handle graduate research proposals (not in this area, but research techniques are transferable) so I know a little of what I speak.

I'm sorry, so what you are saying is that if you ban traffic from an area there will be fewer traffic accidents in that area - oh, that is ignoring the accidents which are not reported because people tend not to report accidents where it's only bicycles involved, because, inter alia, cyclists are uninsured so there is no chance of any recompense for damage and little chance to sue for injury. Quel surprise!

Who needs LTNs when our utilities (B Gas and T Water) are so adept at sealing off the area from the menace of traffic?

But in many cases the leaks are happening in the same places again and again, and every inch of pipe outside the Horniman on the South Circular must have been replaced at least 3 times in the last 15 years! Of course the infrastructure in some areas is old, but locally there's been quite a bit of replacement. To little effect it would seem.

Good point, but not Uber drivers. It's in their interest to take more fixed fee rides so jumping red lights benefits them. Makes no difference to their fares but of course it does to black cab fares, who want a short journey as they are additionally paying for time as well as distance.

So I imagine you will be urging black cabs to be allowed to jump reds as well then?

No, it's because they won't let something as petty as public opinion stand in their way. Which is why they initially targeted an area, but fell back onto individual roads, and they've even gone to part roads in the past to squeeze something into start the rot rolling.

I have reported on this site before of an incident witnessed by my daughter when a cyclist was attacked by a car driver (with his car) as a clear road rage incident - which the police only responded to with a questionnaire sent to my daughter several days later, her having reported the incident to the police on her phone as it was happening. The cyclist was slightly injured and his bike totalled. However this incident as described may well be a car driver responding (probably ill advisedly) to a phone or similar snatching incident - we do know that goes on and in spades recently. The (very probably) later arrival of the police cars may well have been a response then to a report of a crime (and not dangerous driving) - but here, please note everyone, I am just speculating.

Well, let's just hope, then, that the cyclist wasn't one of those who are phone snatching, and the driver not someone trying to make a citizen's arrest, otherwise this narrative would be stood on its head.

I'm sorry, but this is an entirely rubbish analysis. The numbers of people who were either residentially qualified to, or were aware of, this' consultation' were only a few streets in East Dulwich and not the whole of the area, which is made up of more than one ward. We know that those (well, at least one) who back the council's agenda participated in the consultation, although not even Southwark residents. Making an assumption that those who didn't say 'no' to a CPZ would have said 'yes' is statistically unsound. When there was a wider consultation a few years ago which involved those on both sides of Lordship Lane, as I recall, those registering against a CPZ were still equally and proportionally as high.

... So a very credible and immediate risk, then...

Standard Marxist entry strategy, and yes, he initially self identified as a Marxist before later removing that detail. His evident hatred and disdain for the Kulak class probably suggests Bolshevik leanings. Even Momentum, I've been told, considers his clique too left for them. But then, as Trots they probably would.

That logic would suggest that, taken to extremes, if I was the only one in a road who wanted a CPZ, a liitle one outside my house would be created, just for me. Which is probably the mindset of those who did vote for a CPZ and will be livid when someone else on the street parks outside their house. Which they will. The CPZ logic has always been to reduce the parking space in CPZ roads to fewer places than residents cars need to spread the pain to adjacent streets. That's how it works

Sunday working is very expensive... Why would they care anyway? It's not as if we have an option to go to an alternative supplier.

I do know that the bin men are tasked to empty the relevant bin to their round and to move on, so street collection bags won't be covered by them. They are given quite demanding routes daily which they have to cover. Street sweeper bag collections I think are done by those lorries with cages.