Ross Lydall reports that TfL’s Vision Zero Action Plan has yet to register with the people running London buses.
The victims were 10 pedestrians, two cyclists and eight passengers.
The data shows there have been 164 bus-related fatalities between January 1, 2014, and December 31, 2024. The number of incidents in 2024 – including those resulting in injury to passengers, pedestrians or other road users – was the highest figure for eight years. The number of incidents on buses has grown over the last five years despite a long-term decline in bus passengers. TfL says that action planned for 2025 to improve safety includes redesigning the bus driver’s cab to make it more comfortable, fitting buses with cameras rather than mirrors and trialling the return of the Routemaster “ding ding” bell that alerted passengers to “hold tight” as the bus is about to depart from a bus stop.
What Transport for London fails to mention are the main cause of their poor safety record
Managers rewarded for prioritising punctuality over safety
Drivers working schedules that often lead to tiredness and low alertness
Refusal properly to investigate incidents and reports of poor driving
A “blame the victim” culture
Until the above are tackled with a spirit of humbleness and honesty (totally lacking at the moment), sadly the fatalities are unlikely to decrease.
According to Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA), close to 10,000 people have been killed or suffered life-changing injuries on Greater Manchester’s roads in the last 10 years.
The Authority has endorsed a Strategy that aims to eliminate road death and life-changing injury by 2040, with a target to achieve a 50 per cent reduction by 2030.
Greater Manchester’s Vision Zero Strategy looks to adopt the Safe System approach to road safety. A Safe System is one where people, vehicles and the road infrastructure interact in a way that secures a high level of safety for all. While it is inevitable that there will always be road traffic collisions, adopting the Safe System approach means that the impact of a collision can be minimal, saving lives and preventing life-changing injuries.
Researchers have discovered a new hacking technique called “MadRadar” that can trick self-driving cars into perceiving imaginary vehicles or hiding real ones, causing them to veer dangerously off course. The hack was developed by researchers at Duke University, who will present their findings at an upcoming cybersecurity conference.
Self-driving cars rely on radar sensors to detect obstacles and steer accordingly. MadRadar can spoof these radar systems in three main ways:
It can make a fake vehicle appear out of nowhere. By mimicking the radar signature of a non-existent vehicle, MadRadar can fool the target car into believing there is another car in its path, causing it to abruptly steer to avoid a collision.
It can hide a real vehicle from the target’s sensors. By creating a bright spot at the real car’s location, MadRadar can effectively cloak it and prevent the target car from seeing it. This could cause a crash if the self-driving car fails to detect the cloaked vehicle.
It can make a real vehicle appear to suddenly change course. By combining the first two attacks, MadRadar can trick the target into thinking a real car has suddenly jerked sideways, again causing the target to dangerously swerve.
MadRadar is able to pull off these attacks by quickly detecting the radar parameters of a target vehicle and then transmitting spoofed radar signals to manipulate what the target car senses. It can detect the necessary parameters in under a quarter of a second.
The researchers demonstrated these three attacks on real self-driving cars in motion, showing the potentially catastrophic consequences. In one example, MadRadar made a target car believe the vehicle in front of it was speeding up, causing the target to accelerate unsafely.
The researchers say MadRadar exposes fundamental vulnerabilities in how radar systems on self-driving cars are designed and protected. Car manufacturers need to rethink anti-spoofing defenses to better safeguard vehicles against remote hacking. Possible measures could include using randomized radar parameters that are changed dynamically rather than fixed.
The findings highlight the risks hackers pose to emerging self-driving car technologies. As autonomous vehicles become more widespread in the coming years, stronger radar protections will be needed to prevent malicious actors from causing collisions by deceiving onboard sensors. MadRadar serves as a warning that radar spoofing is a serious threat to self-driving car safety that manufacturers urgently need to address.
Transport for London (TfL) has unveiled an innovative new tool highlighting the stark inequalities in road injuries across the UK capital. The Vision Zero Inequalities Dashboard, the first of its kind in Europe, maps how deprivation is linked to higher casualties on London’s roads.
Top right diagram is eye-opening
The interactive dashboard enables users to explore road casualty data from 2017-2022, filtered by year, borough, severity and transport mode. It identifies areas with the highest injury rates, where urgent action is needed to protect vulnerable road users. Disturbingly, the most deprived 30% of areas have over double the rate of deaths and serious injuries per km compared to the least deprived 30% of the city.
People in poorer areas are also nearly twice as likely to be killed or seriously hurt when travelling anywhere in London. The dashboard updates show these shocking trends continued in 2022. Road danger has become an urgent public health issue, with lower income groups clearly facing the highest risks.
TfL will utilize the inequality data to prioritize safety investments and influence local borough transport plans. They have already met with the ten worst affected boroughs to drive collaboration on reducing road danger. The dashboard has been welcomed by campaigners as a powerful tool to demand road safety improvements from local councils.
The initiative supports the Mayor of London’s strategy for a fairer, more equal city. Safely encouraging walking and cycling is crucial to a sustainable, healthy, green future. But without tackling road injury inequalities, poorer groups will remain reluctant to abandon cars. Improving road safety is fundamentally an issue of social justice.
Selecting victims who were walking and cycling
According to Lilli Matson, TfL’s Chief Safety Officer, the dashboard displays “crucial information” on links between deprivation and casualties. Protecting vulnerable road users is a top priority. More research and multi-agency efforts are still required to eliminate road deaths and serious injuries. London’s streets must be made “greener, more sustainable and safer for everyone.”
The inequality dashboard is a step forward for transparency and accountability. Campaigners now have evidence to lobby local councils over the urgent need for danger reduction where it is needed most. With coordinated action, we can build a future London where all people are confident and safe walking, cycling and using public transport.
According to a recent report from Action Vision Zero, hit-and-run collisions continue to be a major problem in London. Some key statistics from the report:
The number of people killed in hit-and-runs rose to 16 last year, with over 800 seriously injured.
Hit-and-run deaths and serious injuries were up 10% compared to the previous year.
Pedestrians account for most of those killed in hit-and-runs.
Pedestrians and cyclists regularly account for 70% of hit-and-run deaths and serious injuries.
This is an appalling situation. In my view, the key reason drivers flee the scene is that the punishment does not fit the crime. Currently, the maximum sentence for failing to stop at the scene of a crash is just 6 months.
I propose that any driver who does not stop at the scene of a collision where there is someone injured should automatically be charged with manslaughterin case of death or grievous bodily harm in the case of serious injury. In other words, the penalty for not stopping should be a dramatic increase, at minimum a trebling of the potential sentence. This may deter more drivers from fleeing and bring some justice to victims. Stronger punishment is needed to combat the ongoing scourge of hit-and-run collisions.
Elaine Gorgon, pictured above, poignantly tells the grief that these act of piracy and callousness cause:
“My sister, Gina Johnson, was 44-years-old when she was killed. She was on her way to work when a speeding car crossed over onto her side of the road. It crashed into her car, spinning it around and slamming it into a wall.
The driver got out of his car unharmed and ran off. He didn’t call for help. He just ran off back to his girlfriend’s house. Whilst he was running away, Gina’s car caught fire and went up in flames.
We never got to see her again. We never got to hold her hand or speak to her again. The agony of her loss cannot be explained in words. Gina was a daughter, wife, sister, aunt and friend who impacted our family’s life. There is still an empty space that only she can fill. Our lives have never been the same since the day she was taken. The pain continues. There’s nothing that could ever take that pain away or make it better.”
In a previous post, I argued that the “trolley problem” is a misleading conceptual framework that is being pushed by the automated vehicle industry to shape policy debates in a way that prioritizes their interests over public safety. As the article explained, the trolley problem scenario is extremely unrealistic and fails to capture the types of everyday driving situations that pose the greatest risks.
A new paper published in AI & Society proposes an alternative model called the Agent-Deed-Consequences (ADC) framework that aims to provide a more nuanced and realistic approach to studying how people make moral judgments in traffic situations. The model suggests that judgments are based on evaluating three key factors: the character of the agent/driver, their actions and compliance with traffic rules, and the consequences of those actions.
The authors propose testing this model through virtual reality experiments depicting mundane, low-risk traffic scenarios rather than unrealistic sacrificial dilemmas. Character evaluations would be based on discernible cues like driving style to avoid biases. They hypothesize that positive assessments of each factor increase perceived morality, with character and actions weighted more heavily than consequences for everyday situations.
By incorporating character considerations and focusing on common traffic interactions, this framework addresses some of the limitations of prior “trolley problem” approaches. It also has the potential to provide more ecologically valid insights into how autonomous vehicles should make decisions on the road. However, the study still relies on participants as observers rather than actors, and consequences remain certain rather than uncertain risks.
From a Vision Zero perspective, what does this revised conceptual framework for studying driving decisions imply about how autonomous vehicles should be programmed to behave? I would argue it points to the importance of prudence.Prudence means expecting that other actors may do unexpected things and therefore giving a margin of error to others so catastrophic consequences do not occur if an error does.
Autonomous vehicles should be programmed with a prudent mindset that treats all road users, whether compliant or not, as potential sources of risk. This involves limiting speeds, prioritizing defensive avoidance over rules compliance alone, and reducing the “freedom” of robots to move unimpeded through busy urban spaces with innocent citizens present. Only through such caution can we ensure these technologies do not undermine Vision Zero’s goal of preventing all traffic deaths.
In conclusion, while this alternative framework is an improvement, developers and policymakers must not lose sight of Vision Zero’s primary principle – that no loss of life is an acceptable trade-off for autonomous technology. Prioritizing prudence over convenience or profit is key.
Image by Dall-e 3; Text edited with help from Claude Instant
If you subscribe to the AirText messaging service you will have received a number of SMS alerts recently saying “MODERATE air pollution”.
Notice how their website calls them Air Quality Alerts, thus leading one to think that quality is moderate, leading people to think that it is not so bad.
Indeed, why use the word “moderate” rather than “medium” or indeed “poor”?
Let’s assume you want to clear this bullshit fog with actual numbers and guidelines.
Sadiq Khan has made Air Quality his spitzen policy, so let’s see how he communicates with citizens. His policy page is here. The only map does not show the dire situation of today’s air, rather “the Mayor’s air quality actions across London”.
What a stupendous piece of self-aggrandising bullshit! The information on it is useless. For instance, the “Current Air Quality Data” is actually three years old …
Khan awarded a contract to friends to set up the BreatheLondon network of monitors. These seem to record lower levels than the official monitoring stations. Notice how most official stations show a level of 3
whereas the BreatheLondon monitors are all 2s
The above screenshots were taken at the same time. We don’t know if the numbers are comparable (but if they weren’t, what is the point?).
Let’s look at London Air which has comprehensive data from all the main official monitoring stations in London. We can see for example that on Monday 23rd January 2023, the Horseferry Road station (which is right next to a school playground) recorded unacceptably high levels of both NO2 and PM2.5 particulates
WHO hourly safety limits: NO2 = 200, PM2.5 = 35
The London Air website is fairly comprehensive, but it takes time to understand how to extract precise information. Its RSS feed of incidents of medium to high pollution events is no longer working.
What about other sources?
The BBC has for many years refused to provide accurate pollution information. Notice how wind, rainfall, temperature is measured accurately, whereas air quality just has an undefined badge, with uncertain provenance.
It is also probably wrong. At the same time the screenshot above was taken, another site, AQICN was calling air pollution in London “Moderate” – again that weasel word (If I find the asshole who started this ruse, I will give him a moderate smack in the head, and he will know what is coming)
AccuWeather uses data from PlumeLabs and this morning they were calling the Air Quality “Poor”, with PM2.5 at more than twice the safe limit (Where exactly?)
So we get a very mixed picture according to where we look, and numbers which are not easy to compare.
Knowing how slimy Khan is, we cannot help deducing that this obfuscation is deliberate. The reason is that if citizens knew exactly how bad sometimes the air we breath becomes, we would demand what other European cities do: forbid half or more of the drivers from using their poisoning vehicles at times of poor air quality.
But that takes cojones, which Khan does not have. So Londoners are told not to exercise outdoor, so that poisoners can keep on poisoning.
To mark the 30th birthday of RoadPeace, the Gallery@OXO in London will exhibit When Lives Collide, the stories of 30+ berieved families through portraits by Paul Wenham-Clarke, a Professor of Photography at Arts University Bournemouth
These include:
Lucy Harrison, of Redditch, Worcestershire, whose brother Peter Price was killed while walking by a hit-and-run driver at 93mph
Emma Butler and Mark Hackett, whose son Lee Ferguson, from Dudley, was killed in a crash while riding his motorbike
Jane Evans, from Birmingham, whose husband was killed in a hit-and-run collision outside the school they both worked at. The driver has never been found
Bev Abbey, whose 19-year-old son, Harry, was killed in Warrington while riding his motorbike to work
Steve Newcam, whose wife Annette Booth was killed by a drunk driver in Leicester
Mandy Gayle, whose father Hopton Gayle was killed in a hit-and-run crash in Wolverhampton
Diane Gall, of Dudley, whose husband Martyn was killed while cycling
Professor Wenham-Clarke said: “These images serve as a window into the soul of people who have experienced a nightmare, and they address the emotional consequences of devastating collisions, which radiate out like waves on a pond.
“Some of the portraits capture raw emotions as they surge and flow through the participants, ranging from grief-stricken crying to smiling, as they remember their lost one. Mothers and fathers are left wondering why they have outlived a child and lovers are separated forever with no opportunity to say goodbye.”
Gallery@OXO, OXO Tower Wharf, London SE1 from Wednesday 4th January to Sunday 15th January, 2023
A typical busy shopping street that is awful to use on two wheels. Most of the drivers of those motor vehicles are not there to shop, but to go somewhere else from somewhere else. In other words they are intruders: they bring noise, pollution and death. People have been brainwashed in accepting this as normal.
One of the zombies is Graeme Irvine, senior coroner in east London. He was obviously distressed by the killing of a 14 year old. However, instead of pointing the finger at the intruders, at the people who bring death to the street, he claims that the preventable cause of the collision was the e-scooter.
Without any grasp of statistics, Irvine noticed a correlation between Police enforcement action against e-scooter riders and number of deaths
E-scooters have been acknowledged as a useful arm of the micromobility revolution that will make our cities more liveable. That is why most European cities have successful hire schemes. The only reason why a citizen cannot ride one’s own legally purchased e-scooter in England is that authorities are too lazy to change illogical regulations. If e-hire scooters are deemed safe, why shouldn’t private ones be, if properly vetted?
A/B Street is an open source web tool designed to help citizens and Council officers play around with ideas on how best to implement a Low Traffic Neighbourhood.
The project started in collaboration with Bristol City Council, who were aiming to engage with residents in East Bristol in designing a Liveable Neighbourhood in their area
To capture Bristol residents’ needs, BCC launched a process with three phases: co-discover, co-develop, and co-design.
First, they collected feedback through online citizen engagement platform Commonplace, and paper surveys, on residents’ current experiences of their neighbourhood, aggregated on a digital map.
Second, they invited a diverse group of residents to attend virtual and in-person sessions to learn about the different street design options, and propose ideas based on their priorities. To reach people who may not typically attend public consultations, such as those new to the UK or who don’t speak English as their first language, BCC worked directly with volunteers (‘community champions’) in ethnic minority communities.
Third, BCC will now analyse these resident designs and work with traffic engineers to propose two schemes to pilot in East Bristol in 2023.
To facilitate the participation of citizens, BCC used the A/B Street tool
This interactive web tool allows anyone to visualise how small street changes, such as redirecting car traffic from certain residential streets, will affect the route options of cyclists, pedestrians and drivers. In other words, it provides a shared canvas for residents, planners and policy makers to suggest, discuss and evaluate street designs. With a similar look and feel to other mapping apps, A/B Street can make creating a street design as easy as planning a route on Open Street Maps. Beyond usability, the tool’s map-based interface also helps BCC to answer questions that it has struggled to answer in the past, such as “where will traffic divert if we make a change on this street?”.
The A/B Street team is now working with planners and residents on street-design projects in places as varied as Islington, Taipei and Seattle.
Vision Zero London 