Limping back into action....

I am amazed to see that my last post was in 2007.

I sat back and waited for the TfL review of the crossings, and predictably got nothing apart from an unofficial agreement from two TfL engineers that the crossings were dangerous, and that cars regularly mistook the red crossing lights for the red filter light for oncoming traffic.

To my shame, I then didn't do too much for a while, until in a burst of enthusiasm, I started writing letters again.

TfL's response was very simple. No-one's been killed or injured, so we won't spend the money. But we will spend money upgrading the lights to be exactly the same as they are now (a process that started a few weeks ago). So, we are staring at an accident waiting to happen, and when it does, they will try to prevent the next one!

I now have a copy of the accident statistics, and it is true that there have been no reported injuries, although there may be others where there was a near-miss, which fall outside of the stats (A really big thanks to the fine officer at the Met who responded in a quick, helpful and friendly manner to my request.)

It feels a little Kafkaesque. The Council wants to help, and use some of its ill-gotten station camera money to make changes to the crossing, but as it's a TfL piece of road, they can't. And as TfL is very good about never giving you a real person to talk to, pestering them is proving difficult.

Next step is to gather some more stats from local residents who have seen issues at the crossings, and then off to the papers again. The Rich & Twick were great in the Tesco fight, and got us syndicated to the Standard and even the Guardian in the end. Maybe they'll do the same now?

God, it's no wonder so few people bother to complain. How do we get the time for a day job?