Safe Speed Forums

Having just returned from a shopping trip into London (*), I'm left pondering something...

If you're waiting to exit a side road at a light-controlled junction which also incorporates red/green men for pedestrian control, and your lights turn green but the pedestrians continue to pile across the road in front of you despite the red man showing AND your vehicle having started to inch forwards in clear view of them all (OK, all except the ones who were so engrossed in their mowbli conversations that they seemed entirely oblivious to everything around them and thought nothing of stepping off the pavement into the road without so much as a glance to check for any traffic - if the SCPs want to reduce KSIs in urban areas, perhaps they should train their cameras on Darwin Award candidates like these...), what would your course of action be knowing that you only had around 15 seconds before the lights turned red again?



* and if anyone is after a quite interesting Central London parking experience, I can recommend the car park underneath the casino/YMCA building at the south end of Tottenham Court Road, which has the appearance of having been hewed out of solid rock (though given the geology of that part of London, it's more likely to just be very roughly finished concrete) and which is accessed via some long and quite steeply sloped tunnels which were a bit of a tight fit in an Omega - quite surprised to then see how many big 4*4's were in the car park, though that might explain the scrape marks on the CEILINGS of the access tunnels

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Chris

Having been a chauffeur in London I would drive on at a crawling speed with maybe a toot of the horn. They expect this.
The masses in London will take the piss given the chance and what is more the cars waiting behind won't tolerate you dawdling either.
Be positive but not dangerous and always remember there are places were the Highway Code just doesn't apply!

I'd suggest there's no one right answer to this scenario.

Leaving a football match you'll often find loads of people milling about the road. I just play it by ear and edge my way along, haven't encountered any trouble yet. Then again, I'd probably not consider beeping the old horn either

I didn't think there would be I was just curious to see if anyone suggests something that might make the next such encounter a little easier to handle, or if the suggestions were broadly in line with the approach I used.

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Chris

Well, in Paris you would probably get mowed down for doing this? I've experienced that a few times when I had the green man too, they'll drive at you with any reason...

In Germany I guess something similar because I'd guess they'd class that as Jaywalking?ol...

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Mike

1. Get past the stop line, then you are no longer under signal control.
2. Consider locking the doors.

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Andrew.

I used to work in Camden Town for a while, and witnessed this lemming like behaviour, and indeed many pedestrians being struck by vehicles.

Common practice on the part of the London motorist appears to be stand on the horn and rev the engine whilst careering towards them!

I would like to point out also, that I never drove there. I would suggest that start moving off and hooting the horn is the only way to get across.

I think it's about assertiveness. You need to give out the message that it's your turn and your going to take it. In practice I think this means moving gently but determinedly forwards. It helps if you have some space to accelerate - if you don't that's an earlier mistake.

Naturally agression is absolutely to be avoided. I wouldn't honk or rev. But I'd look as if I was going to go regardless.

In general I call this approach 'bluff and cave' (and we've talked about it before). You have to look as if you'll take the space and drive through them - that's the bluff. If you do they will usually notice and part like magic. If they don't you'll just have to wait meekly - that's the cave.

It's also the standard method by which taxi drivers make excellent progress through London traffic. If in doubt, ask yourself... What would a London cabbie do?

See: http://www.safespeed.org.uk/forum/viewt ... 0143#40143
and: http://www.safespeed.org.uk/forum/viewt ... 1178#71178

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Paul Smith
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