Yet Another Crash on Barry Road - Underhill Road Junction

[DJKillaQueen]

You have made lots of posts and hope you intend to do something as I remember don't you live on this road?

What a sarcastic post. I already attend a lot of meetings and do more than my fair share for local issues. I'm trying to be helpful. James alone will not be enough I'm afraid because whether you like it or not this juction is not one of the highest for accidents in the area. You can write all the letters you like, it won't change that fact.

Face to face action is the only way you will get anything done. Find some time, get a group of residents together, ask for it to be added to a CC meeting agenda and attend the next transport sub committee meeting.

[Nicholas]

Sacasam not intended. Serious issue yes.

I agree face to face action is needed. Well done and good luck with the meetings.

I have written a letter weather it does any good or not.

Anyone concerned about road safety should get involved.

[Narnia]

A sub committee meeting............you are joking? Where are there more accidents in the area?

[James Barber]

When the previous collission occurred I asked the head of traffic officers at Southwark COuncil for an update on the last three years traffic stats with root causes. As it takes a little while for such incidents to work their way through to them when no one injured we agreed to meet up mid November when all the information would have been received by them.

Speed cameras - in London they're controlled via the London Speed Safety Camera partnership controlled by the Met Police and funded by Transport for London. Boris before the May elections halved their budget.

[DJKillaQueen]

Junctions of East Dulwich Road and Peckham Rye and Nunhead Lane and Peckham Rye for a start. Grove Vale. Which is why those juctions are part of the coming round of schemes.

Have you ever been to a sub committee meeting Narnia? All the people that make these decisions on what road schemes are formed and done are there.

[DJKillaQueen]

Boris before the May elections halved their budget.

Exactly James.

I can give a very good example of why attendance at meetings makes a difference.

Last week at the meeting there were two members of the public representing the residents of Friern Road. Friern Road has a problem at the moment with traffic for the school. Simon Philips claimed a survey had been done and there seemed to be no problem. It turned out the survey was done before the school opened and the two residents had video footage showing the type of problem, the damage to cars as a result and so on.

If those two hadn't come to that meeting, and been persistent, it would now not be on the agenda for a further investigation. There would no correspondance with the school to assess the impact of traffic and so on and it would probably would have taken for things to get a whole lot worse before Simon Philips would have accepted that the problem needed investigating.

Meetings demand immediate responses and often commit the council officials to some kind of follow up action. Letters and phonecalls don't.

[James Barber]

Hi DJKillaQueen,

Which sub committee are you talking about?

I don't recognise a sub committee as taking all these decision for SOuthwark. The decisions for the strategy are taken by the Cabinet member. That person then approves the subsequent officer proposals. Community Councils can influence this and agree/disagree particular schemes.

[DJKillaQueen]

Transport sub-committee meetings can influence decisions too. The point is that when people are face to face with those involved in the process of decision making - they get heard more than they would by letter. You know that to be true as well as I do.

[James Barber]

Is this the transport sub committe of the Peckham and Nunhead community council?

If so that committee doesn't cover the junction this thread is talking about.

[Narnia]

So you two know how to play politics. When the first person is killed at THAT junction, who will you blame? I've already said it's safer to approach Barry Road from Silvester Road. Why not make it 'no entry', so people have to? How much can it cost to put up a frigging sign?

[James Barber]

Hi Narnia,

I'm not sure being clear on the process for road changes is playing politics.

What I am clear on is that road improvents should be improved in order of how dangerous they are - they should not be processed in order of who shouts the loudest. In Southwark until 2002 that was the way they were improved. In 2002 it was changed to a statistical basis and road safety took a huge step forward.

This change dramatically reduced the opportunities for politicians to be popularist at the expense of road safety.

This particular road junction appears to be statistically standing out more OR lots of under reporting of collissions.

I've asked to meet officers to test that theory and will report back honestly what I find. This isn't politics it's doing the right decent thing.

[DJKillaQueen]

James is absolutely right. Process is not playing politics. And what he says about data forming decisions, and not demands 'something should be done' in spite of data saying otherwise, is absolutely right and that is the process that is followed.

But lobbying can bring new data to the fore and it can challenge existing data as well. The example I gave of a survey being used to dispute claims by the Friern Road residents, turning out to be irrelevant because it was outdated, is something that would never have come to light if those residents hadn't challeged that data.

[Narnia]

2+2=4....we know that. The problem with your method of resolving problems is to have a meeting about it............like in a couple of years. Then you'll decide the answer is 4. I wonder will that be the number of people killed because of that junction by then?

[DJKillaQueen]

But there isn't any other way in system that has to be accountable for every thing it does and every penny it spends. It takes time to analyse, design, get approval and then execute.....and councils have far more to take care of than they have time and money to do so. So the planners have no option but to pick and choose. They chooose the junctions that have the most problems....it's as simple as that.

The junction of East Dulwich Road and Peckham Rye. There have been fatalities there. Road accidents will always happen and most of them will be down to driver error. No amount of redesign of anything will stop that.

[Tarot]

Jford, you have a good point about that green light giving a false sense of procedure.

[James Barber]

Hi DJKillaQueen,

The Peckham Rye end of Friern Road - apparently some minor tweaks planned outside the Academy.

Barry Road/Underhill Road. Nearly have all the ingredients for a meeting between local Police and council officers with ward councillors on site to review what can be done.

[Pearson]

James Barber Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

>Nearly have all the

> ingredients for a meeting

_______________________________________________________

Jeez...did you really write that! what further ingredient are you all waiting for???

Please don't wait, this comment will look really bad in retrospect if you do so :(

[James Barber]

Hi Pearson,

Some of the crashes reported on EDF have not been reported to the Police and as a result don't reach council traffic officers. So trying to synch up non reported with reported crashes has been a problem.

Then lining up the relevant people hasn't been easy due to shifts patterns.

[DJKillaQueen]

Minor prangs won't be reported to Police but can only be included in stats if there is a an official record of them somewhere that the council can access (a forum isn't that unfortunately). Out of interest james, how many reported accidents have there been?

[sharls]

James, I will be most interested in the outcome of your meeting mid-November. Is there anything that the rest of us non-commitee members can do to help? Petitions? Letters? I really am desperate to get something sorted for this junction. As previously mentioned I have to use this road daily (crossing over from Henslowe Rd end) and fear for the safety of my 2 babies and myself after the terrible incident that I was involved in 3 weeks ago. Please let me know.

[trentk69]

James, who is not reporting these crashes? Like I said in an earlier post by far and away the majority of the crashes I see here have some sort of police involvement.

I even made a point to ask the officer who attended this crash if this would be considered a "reported" accident, which he said it would be.... So, what more can we do everytime crashes happen here in order to "report" them - especially when the police are in attendance.

There is something very wrong going on with this intersection, and the accident stats for this junction. It is just a matter of time before someone is killed here, and then it will be too late.

This is much like the farce of the gas works at the junction of Peckham Rye and East Dulwich road earlier this year, when after months of stalling getting the works fixed / completed it took the death of a young girl to finally get action here. Very poor indeed.

Dont let this happen again at this junction. I dont want to have to be the one to say "I told you so".

[DJKillaQueen]

But what ARE the accident stats. Until James can tell us you don't know what they are. And also some of those accidents will be driver error that no amount of tweaking to the junction will prevent. Let's see the stats, and see what options if any might be possible.

[Penguin68]

Actually, driver error can be mitigated by good road design, exacerbated by bad design. So while 'tweaking' the junction will not necessarily avoid driver error, it may make that error less disasterous. When crash barriers were put into motorways, driver error still took drivers into them on occasion, but not, then, across the carriageway and into oncoming traffic. There have also been a number of posts about the effect of the traffic lights encouraging a false sense of security in drivers, perhaps precipitating driver error.

[wilbur]

Rename it Moron junction because it seems to attract that type of driver. Either the chancer or the totally inept. From many years driving through it seems they are the ones most likely to cause an accident.

[ImpetuousVrouw]

Productive input there Wilbur.