How legalising a bit of paint might save lives
Simple Zebra crossings are a quick and cheap way to improve road safety and encourage active travel. It's just a shame that the UK makes them borderline illegal.
White Paint. It might be simple but it’s a key instrument in the arsenal of urban planners and road engineers across the world. It’s cheap and versatile, it supports wayfinding and navigation, and it separates flows of traffic. It can also be used to delineate areas for different types of road users, the most iconic of which is the humble Zebra Crossing, forever immortalised on the face of the Beatles Abbey Road album.
They’re a popular intervention, as for just a few hundred pounds (it can’t be any old paint; it’s usually thermoplastic), they provide a plethora of benefits over the standard dropped kerb:
Provide a stronger indication to drivers to expect pedestrians to be present, incentivising reduced speeds in urban environments.
Encourage people to walk and cycle, as they feel more comfortable crossing busy roads and junctions.
When placed at junctions, they give a clear visible priority to pedestrians over turning vehicles, beyond a few statements in the Highway Code.
Support visually impaired people to cross roads, by providing a much clearer delineation with the wider roadspace.
Collectively, these benefits improve road safety, saving lives. Such is their benefit, that if you travel the world, you’ll find places like France where Zebras are universally used at all pedestrian crossings, and at all urban junctions, regardless of usage or location. Not so much in the UK. Compare and contrast:
Gold-Plated as Standard
In the UK, our usage of Zebras is fairly limited, and can mostly be found outside schools and other landmarks in rural areads, or to cross busy urban roads, but roads that are not so busy as to warrant a proper traffic signal. Their relatively sparing usage isn’t because councils don’t want them or can’t paint them, but rather, because it’s actually quite hard to do so.
Ever the fan of bureaucracy and gold-plating, us Brits have banned councils from just throwing down a bit of paint. In order to legally paint a zebra, you most also erect black and white totem poles with flashing yellow bulbs on top, or to use their technical name, Belisha Beacons.
Whilst this might seem a trivial affair, it hardly is in practice.
It means that rather than laying down some paint in a couple of minutes, councils wanting a Zebra need to perform road design changes, deal with any community consultations and objections, perform a road closure, dig up the ground, install the Belisha Beacons, bring in an electrical contractor to plug them into the grid, re-lay the pavements, and finally, lay down the Zebra paint. As you can imagine, this takes the timeline from something that could go from decision to implementation in days to one that takes months, all whilst costing magnitudes higher.
It is perhaps unsurprising then that we don’t have the density of Zebras in our cities that you might see abroad. Thankfully the changes required are relatively simple; an update to the relevant clauses of the excitingly named, “The Traffic Signs Regulations and General Directions 2016”; Schedule 14, Part 1; to enable Zebras to be created without a flashing beacon.
They’re changes that many local authorities in the UK have been calling for years, including the then Walking and Cycling Commissioner of Manchester, Chris Boardman, who wanted to paint the town white with Zebras on 20,000 side streets.
But though a simple change, it requires cooperation from the historically uncooperative Department for Transport. There’s likely some concern that they may confuse existing drivers, but they seem to survive with existing Zebras, and Zebras work fine without beacons in other countries. Or perhaps they’re worried the crossings will be unsafe if there isn’t a flashing yellow light, but surely adding a clear road marking to a location where pedestrians already cross can only make it safer?
Whatever the reason, one can hope that the DfT eventually sees sense:
It’s an easy policy tweak that could be implemented in a number of weeks, and at no cost to the Exchequer.
Councils already want to paint beacon-less Zebras, and given their cost-effectiveness will likely start roll outs the moment they can, despite budget pressures.
There’s no clear downside or loser to the change.
They are a cheap and easy intervention to improve road safety and encourage active travel, and importantly, pedestrians have proven their ability to successfully cross roads without a flashing beacon in many locations to-date.
Richard Holden MP, our current roads Minister, would be wise to take a look and make the necessary changes, earning his stripes by painting them.
With thanks to Adam Tranter whose recent post unbeknowingly prompted me to finally write this one up.
In the recent redevelopment of St. John's Wood High Street, I tried to encourage the upgrade of the existing zebras (2 out of 4 arms on a crossroad, really needs to be 3 or 4) to become a Shibuya like scramble (with one diagonal, to follow primary pedestrian desire line). Refused despite utility and also cultural tourism benefits (the area has a Japanese expat community, and existing tourism to the Abbey Road Studios zebra).
There was an experimental 3d painted zebra at the other end of the high street, now removed and a normal zebra installed. I felt that at the time it needed to be a full speed table zebra (as is the case at the other end) to discourage late night speeding/ASB from drivers of expensive fast cars; a problem still not addressed (at several locations nearby)