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19
Jun
Knaresborough man takes council to task over 'shocking' road junction
A Knaresborough man has turned road safety activist by setting up cameras to monitor traffic at a busy junction – and he says his findings are "shocking".
James Monaghan first raised concerns about the York Place / Gracious Street crossroads – which is used by hundreds of schoolchildren daily – in 2017, when he emailed North Yorkshire Council’s highways team about cars driving through the pedestrian crossing when the green man was showing.
Cars drive through the crossing when the man is green, and five children - pixellated out - wait to cross.
This week, he emailed the council again. He wrote:
Since I first emailed there has been a token effort to change the signalling (that made no difference), promises of action that have not materialised, minor collisions, near misses, and an on-site meeting with an engineer whose responses often felt patronising.
I have been told nothing can be done because North Yorkshire Highways won’t prioritise pedestrian safety over vehicle flow.
Mr Monaghan, who has a degree in physics with space technology, has recently been on gardening leave from his job as director of a financial services company, and decided to use his time to investigate more deeply.
He set up a camera overlooking the junction to record between 7am and 7pm each day in hourly segments over a period of three weeks. He then wrote three separate computer programmes to analyse the footage.
He said:
What I found was shocking: on an average weekday, there are nearly 100 instances of vehicles driving through the green man at this crossing.
In some instances, the cars don’t stop going through the crossing until the green man has ended! It is a miracle that a serious accident has not already occurred.
When writing to the council, Mr Monaghan, who is a former Liberal Democrat Leeds City councillor, included two videos: one a compilation of a few incidents that cover the busy school-run period; the other, a whole day’s footage of the junction, showing 92 instances of vehicles driving through when the green man was showing.
He finished his letter by saying:
I am hoping this compelling evidence will encourage North Yorkshire Council Highways to finally take the matter seriously.
There isn’t some complicated or expensive solution needed to resolve this issue, just the will to change the traffic light signalling to prioritise pedestrian safety.
Speaking to the Stray Ferret, he added:
It is extremely disappointing that North Yorkshire Council have not taken action to tackle this problem that has been known about for several years, before an accident happens.
It is shocking that traffic flow is prioritised above pedestrian safety, especially when the crossing is so heavily used by residents, tourists, and particularly by schoolchildren.
North Yorkshire Council is understood not to have yet replied to Mr Monaghan's email, but the Stray Ferret contacted the council for comment.
North Yorkshire Council’s corporate director of environment, Karl Battersby, told us:
We are aware of the concerns raised and will be responding in the next few days.
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