Remaining untouched for around 70 years, the zebra crossing we know so well might soon appear very different after a road safety experiment in the London borough of Westminster to get drivers to reduce their speed.

Although the location wasn’t an accident blackspot the council were receiving reports of children, elderly people, and pushchairs users having trouble crossing the street. The result? What appears to be lumps of concrete sprawled on the road ahead.

Trompe l’oeil

Eight weeks ago, after complaints about the speed of vehicles in affluent St John’s Wood High Street, Westminster Council installed a state-of-the-art £3,000 three dimensional-effect zebra crossing as a traffic-calming measure, at the junction with Wellington Place.

The council chose the site near the crossing pictured on the acclaimed Beatles’ Abbey Road album cover after local parent group NW8 Mums, along with Barrow Hill Junior School, and The St John’s Wood Society campaigned for introducing new safety measures in the street.

Traffic speed also concerned residents, with many arguing the 20mph limit is too fast—if drivers are sticking to the speed limit.

The clever floating effect that attempts to convince motorists they’re about to drive into an obstruction is ‘dual directional’. The design comprises the typical zig-zag lines on the approach and five white stripes across the width of the road. Around the stripes are some added blocks of grey paint that, as the driver approaches, appear to be white blocks on the road.

It’s interesting the experiment proved so effective when, before reaching the new crossing, a red sign reading ‘3D crossing trial marking ahead’ warned motorists.

And because most of the motorists using the street are local, soon after installation, one would expect the illusion would no longer cause anybody to slow down any more than for a standard zebra crossing.

Yet, at the start of the trial, Westminster Council fitted pneumatic tubes across the road to measure the effect the new crossing had on traffic speeds, so the results seem to show that a pedestrian crossing like this does appear to have something blocking the road.

‘Worth a try’

Councillor Tim Mitchell, Cabinet Member for Environment and City Management, said:

“We are delighted it appears to be working so well. Drivers are more cautious and feedback from locals has been positive. It’s really encouraging.”

Councillor Mitchell added, “Our 3D zebra crossing could be the future of road safety across the country and once again Westminster City Council is at the forefront in innovation in bringing this type of crossings to the UK.

“Far from being simply a brilliant innovation that makes the ordinary look eye-grabbing and modern—the 3D effect helps drivers to see the crossing easier.

“It’s been proven to make roads [safer] and is another example of why Westminster has a national reputation for providing excellent local services, driving improvements, and making sure the city is safe and well run.”

A spokesperson for Britain’s Automobile Association (AA) told the BBC the measures were “worth a try” but cautioned “its safety record needed monitoring”.

Edmund King, President of the AA may need convincing that 3D crossings are the answer, but he seemed open to the idea when he said:

“Once the novelty has worn off, will drivers continue to slow down? It should have a full evaluation. But if it’s successful, it could become as popular as Abbey Road.”

The AA suggested that just because the 3D crossing designs proved successful in other locations, the design may not work so well in London because of the city’s road layout. They said London authorities needed to “try new ways” to improve safety as roads grow busier.

Coming to a road near you?

The council—who said the prototype slowed motorists to a crawl—branded the experiment a success so the scheme may now extend across the rest of the borough. Local authorities throughout the United Kingdom are also proposing similar 3D crossings. This won’t alter the fact that, according to a 2018 study, 80% of drivers and pedestrians don’t know how to use zebra crossings.

This is the first time the UK has tried a 3D effect pedestrian crossing, but Transport for London (TfL) first tested illusory speed bumps in Newham, London in 2014, where they lowered traffic speeds by 3mph.

3D crossings used in a similar pilot scheme in New Delhi, India, resulted in average speeds of 31mph plummeting to 19mph. China, France, Germany, and Iceland are among the countries who have also tried out such optical trickery in the name of safer roads.

If the 20mph zones are too fast for the locals of St. John’s Wood, what about the increased pollution levels lower speeds bring, especially outside schools? Fewer vehicles using internal combustion engines seems to be the answer and is the government’s ultimate plan.

Whether the sightseers who visit St John’s Wood to pay tribute to The Beatles at the Abbey Road studios and walk across the legendary zebra crossing will now also visit the 3D crossing for their Instagram snaps, who can tell? In the meantime, here’s a video of the 3D crossing.

What’s your opinion on the new zebra crossing design? Do you think it will be a success across the UK? Tell us your views in the comments.

Using your mobile phone while driving has been illegal since 2003, the laws have been upgraded a few times since then, most notably the doubling of penalties in March 2017; getting caught using your hand-held mobile while driving could see you landed with a £200 fine and six penalty points. This, of course, means that any new driver (that’s held their licence for less than two years) will have their driving privilege revoked.

It isn’t just called either – using your phone for texting, social media, or even programming a destination through the sat nav feature will see you prosecuted – the easiest way to think of it is if there’s any physical link between you and your phone, you could be prosecuted. Unsure as to what exactly constitutes a link, I asked West Midlands Police whether a wired headset would be legal to use for calls.

It isn’t.

Phone numbers

There are around 85 million mobile phones in use within the UK, that’s 1.27 phones for every man, woman, child and baby, it’s no surprise that 54% of Brits self-admit to suffering from ‘nomophobia’ (yes, sadly it is a thing), and clearly it’s invading all manner of daily life.

In a RAC report, 25% of motorists admitted to making or receiving hand-held calls while driving, and in the year after the introduction of the stricter laws, that figure remained the same; the tougher laws don’t seem to be having the intended effect.

Looking back to 2012, there were 22,135 prosecutions for mobile phone use behind the wheel, that figure significantly decreased over the next four years, just 11,961 prosecutions for the same offence in 2016, but perhaps the 30% decrease in Traffic Police numbers could account for a portion of that?

Calling while driving

When the new driving laws were announced, the big headlines of the day were that you could be prosecuted for paying for your food in a drive-thru with your mobile phone, as the act of handling your phone meant that you were using it. As far as we can ascertain, no one has yet been prosecuted for the offence, but it does call in to question as to what constitutes ‘while driving’.

The law is clear, if a little overzealous; to legally use your phone behind the wheel, you need to be parked up, with your handbrake on and the engine switched off. The exception is if you need to call the emergency services and it’s unsafe or impractical to stop, essentially, all other contact with your phone could be deemed as a prosecutable offence.

While laws designed to make the roads safer will always find favour, it must be said that this (just like safety cameras) is a sledgehammer to crack a nut, and it’s the persistent offenders that we have to thank for it – sensible judgements have to be put aside in favour of obeying the law to the letter to avoid legal bother.

It’s a risk

Of course, this isn’t just a UK-wide problem, after analysing data from all over the world, the World Health Organization (WHO) have concluded that using a mobile phone while driving will mean that you’re four times more likely to be involved in an accident. That statistic doesn’t change whether it’s hands-free or hand-held – it’s the very act of the conversation that’s at fault, and contrary to a logical opinion, the risks are far higher than having a conversation with a passenger in the car.

The UK government deems it such a distraction, that if you’re supervising a learner driver from the passenger seat, you can also be prosecuted for using your phone; sledgehammer & nut.

To avoid prosecution, the advice is simple – when you’re driving, put your phone away, put it in ‘Aircraft’ mode, or switch to ‘Do Not Disturb’. If you must use it for navigation, it’s recommended that you pre-program your route before leaving – any ‘on the fly’ adjustments could lead to prosecution, and calls can only be made using a hands-free kit or Bluetooth headset – wired headsets aren’t acceptable.
Some motoring organisations say that driving while using your phone is more dangerous than drink-driving.

Typically, it’s taken around four decades for drink-driving to become widely thought of as socially unacceptable, and while we have a future of autonomous vehicles and self-driving cars to look forward to, they’re still far enough away that we need to treat ‘phone-driving’ with the same contempt and eradicate it from our roads.

How do you feel about phone-driving? Is it worse than drinking & driving? Should the laws be stiffer still? Let us know in the comments.

At first glance, this could be a great thing – the age of social media and sharing means that we constantly get to see the cases of inconsiderate parking splashed across the many digital channels open to us, whether that’s a young parent with a child in a buggy being forced in to the road, or someone less able-bodied in a wheelchair risking life & limb to get past a poorly parked car. We’d all agree that the person responsible should suffer consequences.

However, as the saying goes, let those without sin cast the first stone (or a variant thereof).

New guidelines

Personally speaking, if a poorly placed wheel constitutes parking on the pavement, my local council could make up any budget deficit simply by spending a week or two outside my mother’s house, and that’s the problem; the term ‘blanket ban’ and the definition of which that it constitutes.

A blanket ban on pavement parking, by its very definition, encompasses all roads (London introduced similar in 1974), and this would mean an increase in overhead for all local authorities, not only to implement the changes, but to police it, and of course there are roads where parking on the pavement is essential for the flow of traffic, which could also lead to a strain in available parking spaces.

Then there’s the definition – one wheel or four, you’re guilty of parking on the pavement and liable to a fine of £70 for each offence. (That’s each time it happens, not per wheel). Given the fact that implementing and running such schemes would likely involve significant cost, you’d have to assume that any ‘Parking Officer’ would be razor sharp on delivering tickets.

Inconsiderate parking

Local authorities say that parking on pavements (even with just one wheel) has cost implications, mainly due to the extra wear & tear on the pavement, which hasn’t been designed to carry the extra load of a car. However, that extra cost should be balanced against the cost for employing a 24-hour service of parking officers, unless of course, they sub-contract the work to the highest bidder, which then take a percentage of any fines levied. Conflict of interest anyone?

This is a similar issue to that of speed cameras – catching motorists with a blatant disregard for safety and speed limits is good, treating all motorists in all conditions for a minor infringement of an arbitrary limit, not quite so good.

Simple answer

Edmund King, AA president said: “It is right that anti-social pavement parking, which prevents and restricts wheelchair users, blind and partially sighted people and pushchairs travelling around our communities must be tackled, however, a blanket ban would be a step too far. A street-by-street assessment is needed to decide where it may be suitable to allow pavement parking. Pavement parking poses problems on both inner city streets and rural lanes, so the outcome needs to be tailored to the circumstances.”

The House of Commons Transport Committee are actively looking for feedback on how this issue can be resolved, and the difficulties that it presents, if you feel that your voice should be heard, closing date for submitting written evidence is 14th May 2019.

Throughout the UK, just over four people are caught speeding every minute – or around 6,000 every day. Avon and Somerset police top the league table, at around 548 a day, the neighbouring force, Wiltshire, are at the very bottom – just 1,191, per year.

Do drivers immediately speed up when they reach Avon and Somerset? Or is there something more to it? Is it the heady thought of a holiday in the south-west that’s causing the problem? How can there be such discrepancy?

Data analysis

Thoughts turn to the oft-used phrase “revenue raising”; lowering the threshold for what constitutes speeding is simple enough, except in this case, Avon and Somerset’s police are adhering to the NPCC (formerly ACPO) guidelines of 10% + 2mph, ie, 30mph would need a minimum of 35mph to trigger an incident of ‘speeding’.
Similarly, Wiltshire hasn’t relaxed the speeding guidelines either.

It’s only by looking into the statistics that we get a clearer picture as to where the disparity may stem from; 100% of the offences in Avon and Somerset were caught by a safety camera, and out of the 1,191 motorists speeding in Wiltshire, 0% were caught by a camera.

While many forces are cutting the use of fixed speed cameras, either through a budgetary deficiency or other means, Avon and Somerset have 96% of their speed cameras active. Only five other forces (that responded to a Freedom of Information request) had the same percentage or higher, and out of those areas, only one force had a greater number of cameras; Nottinghamshire (with just 27,155 offences caught).

RAC Foundation

The study has been carried out by Dr Adam Snow from Liverpool John Moores University for the RAC Foundation, as part of some wider research into speeding offences and how they’re dealt with throughout the nation.

The biggest takeaway from the study is that speeding seems to be on the up, the increased use of speed cameras has had a dramatic effect on numbers caught (Avon and Somerset recorded a 416% increase in detections between the period 2011 – 2018), and that there seems to be no cohesion as to how the offence is dealt with – Derbyshire sent just 1% of speeders on a Speed Awareness Course, Durham topped the list at 60% being offered a SAC.

It’s easy to decry the use of speed cameras, and they do have their flaws, but it could be argued that they’re doing part of a job, of which has all but been made redundant thanks to budget cuts and reprioritisation. Steve Gooding, RAC Foundation director says: “A lot of it will come down to local policing priorities, it’s the job of the police, crime commissioners, and chief constables to target resources appropriately, recognising the issues of local concern”.

It’s worth noting that Avon and Somerset have over 130 active community speed watch schemes running, although being caught through the scheme means a stern warning, rather than penalty points.

The top five

The areas with the most offences detected are:

Avon and Somerset (27 of 28 cameras active)
West Yorkshire (98/396)
Metropolitan Police, inc City of London (figures only for City of London 4/4)
Thames Valley (no figures released)
Greater Manchester (43/177)

It’s no surprise to learn that the areas with the least detection rates have at least two without cameras, although it’s believed to be three.

Wiltshire (no figures released, but press cuttings say cameras deactivated in 2010/11)
Durham (no cameras)
Derbyshire (10/112)
Cleveland (no cameras)
Kent (19/77)

Unfortunately, there is no dataset for road traffic collisions available for Cleveland and Durham, which would give us a good indicator as to just how ‘safe’ safety cameras are, but if road safety campaigners are to be believed, then surely Durham and Cleveland would be an accident hotspot, figuring in national news on a regular basis?

For the record, we aren’t saying that all safety (or speed) cameras are focused in revenue generation, with absolutely no need for them to be there, but it gets back to what is appropriate speed, and until they’re able to distinguish the difference between appropriate speed, and ‘speeding’, then perhaps the discretion of a traffic officer may always be the favoured option.

Crime fighting technology

We’re used to technology playing a bigger part in our lives, be that in an official capacity or for our own personal benefit, and surely it’s only ever going to increase. We often hear of people bemoaning the fact that driving standards seem to be falling, but as sensors get evermore intelligent, they could just be the saviour of driving standards, perhaps even encouraging change on a societal level, but then of course any change would be subject to the cry of ‘Big Brother is watching you’.

Should we rely on technology to aid driving standards? Do you think that technology can be used to improve our journeys? Or are we heading in to the abyss of machine dominance? Let us know in the comments.