Council FINALLY starts installing traffic lights at Britain’s ‘most dangerous’ zebra crossing – four years after residents first warned someone could be killed
A zebra crossing in West Yorkshire which could well be one of Britain’s most dangerous is finally being installed with new traffic light after a council came under pressure from locals.
MailOnline video of a catalogue of terrifying accidents and crashes at a crossing in Bradford went viral last year.
The shocking footage from November showed a boy cycling slowly crossing Horton Grange Road near the junction of Spencer Road, avoiding one car which fails to stop, only to be struck by a second one.
Other pedestrians stepping onto the crossing have risked serious injury.
Work to install a pelican crossing with traffic lights at the site started on Saturday, and is due to be completed by November 5.
Work to install a pelican crossing with traffic lights at the site started on Saturday, and is due to be completed by November 5
Other CCTV footage shows two people almost being hit by a car (not seen in this image)
Local resident Tahir Zeb, who lives yards from the crossing, and other locals have long campaigned for a pelican crossing to be installed.
He told the BBC: ‘It’s like winning the lottery. It’s going to make it safer for our kids to cross that road now. Now they’ll wait until the green man comes on before they cross. If you want something getting done in your area, keep campaigning and keep going for it. Don’t ever give up.’
Over the last four years, Mr Zeb recorded CCTV footage of accidents at a personal cost of £1,800 to provide proof that the zebra crossing is so dangerous.
Speaking before the installation works began, he said: ‘The council need to do something urgently, they’re putting money before someone’s life here – I don’t want to see someone die on my doorstep.’
Earlier this month Bradford Council revealed that work on the signalled pelican crossing would begin this week – with the work due to be completed in November.
The zebra crossing has been dubbed ‘Britain’s most dangerous zebra crossing’
This terrifying catalogue of accidents – four of them in 2022 – were all at a crossing in Bradford, which was originally highlighted by Jeremy Vine on Twitter. In this one, a boy cycles over the road as a silver car approaches from the left
The car fails to stop for the boy and hits him, but fortunately the force of the collision is not enough to knock him off his bike
Councillor Alex-Ross-Shaw, council executive member for regeneration, planning and transport, said: ‘This zebra crossing has recently been the scene of several incidents where drivers have failed to stop for those crossing the road and new crossing with traffic lights should make it safer.
‘We have prioritised this scheme for progression and the funding has been identified.
‘Now that the necessary statutory process has been undertaken and a suitable contractor has been secured, work can commence.’
Mohammad Haleem, who runs a nearby general store, told the BBC: ‘It’s supposed to be the safest place to cross, but people young and old are scared of it. Traffic lights would help a lot, because red means red.’
Another local resident, Mohammad Azeem, said he ‘nearly got ran over’ this week by a driver.
On November 3 last year, this woman was hit by a black car approaching from the left (it cannot be seen in this video still)
The CCTV has divided opinion, with some social media users blasting the cyclist for not dismounting to cross the zebra crossing, in accordance with the Highway Code, but most people squarely blaming the driver
This video was viewed more than 70,000 times when it emerged late last year
Drivers are breaking the law if they fail to stop for pedestrians who are at the crossing.
Exactly why the drivers’ appear distracted as they approach the crossing, which is barely 100m from a speed camera and on a 30mph road, isn’t clear. The accidents appear to happen in good visibility as the camera shows, and the crossing, with its trademark Belisha beacons is visible from a long way back in both directions.
Although cyclists are required to dismount on the crossing, there’s no question of either of the cyclists involved in these clips taking drivers by surprise by speeding onto the crossing.
Only a few days earlier, another teenage boy had an incredible escape. Seeing that a driver had stopped on one side of the zebra crossing, he ran across, but was hit head-on by another vehicle coming in the other direction, sending him somersaulting into the air.
Here, a pedestrian is seen walking across the crossing on a rainy evening as a black van comes hurtling from the left
The van appears to knock the man off his feet as he cannot be seen again after the van passes
In this fifth incident, a woman walks across the zebra crossing one evening as a small black car comes at speed from her right
Fortunately, she is able to dodge the car – missing it by inches – and falls backwards onto the tarmac. She is seemingly unhurt
Amazingly, he picked himself up and began to limp away before being called over by paramedics in a passing ambulance who turned on their blue light and tended to the boy. Police later arrested a man.
In another horrifying clip from 2018, a young woman carrying a bag is half way across the zebra and a man and a boy are crossing from the other side. Suddenly a black car, travelling at high speed, clips her and she staggers backwards and falls onto the road, apparently unconscious.
Other drivers pull over and switch their hazard lights on as passers-by call for an ambulance.
On December 22, 2021 in the early evening a young man is seen more than halfway across when he notices a black van approaching at speed and tries to get out of its way, but he is struck almost full-on with the van pushing him down the road.
In a clip from August 2022, a boy on his bicycle is slowly crossing the road and one driver stops but another silver car coming from the other direction is clearly not paying attention and hits the boy at slow speed.
The driver brakes and comes to a halt with his car straddling the zebra crossing. Amazingly the boy cycles on but passers-by intervene and call him and the driver back.
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