Bank holiday weekend and start of school holidays take place at same time, with high traffic volumes expected
Drivers are being warned to expect long delays over Easter as millions of getaway trips lead to soaring traffic volumes and congested motorways.
The RAC said that more than 14m journeys on some popular routes could take twice as long as normal, as the first bank holiday weekend of the spring coincides with the start of a two-week holiday for many schools.
Continue reading...In letter to TfL boss, Khan says plans ‘will not include new pay-per-mile road user charging scheme’
The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has pledged not to expand the ultra-low emission zone (Ulez) scheme if he returns to the role after May’s election.
In a letter to London’s transport commissioner, Andy Lord, Khan wrote that he had “categorically” ruled out the introduction of a pay-per-mile scheme as well as any tightening of Ulez emissions standards.
Continue reading...West Yorkshire police appeal for witnesses after Vauxhall Corsa involved in fatal crash in early hours of Saturday
Police are appealing for information following a fatal collision involving a car driving in the wrong direction on the M62.
West Yorkshire police received a report at 2.06am on Saturday of a Vauxhall Corsa travelling westbound on the eastbound carriageway of the motorway.
Continue reading...Police told to rip out tune-playing horns and replace them with standard ones after young people seen dancing to passing lorries
The Cambodian prime minister, Hun Manet, has ordered a ban on musical vehicle horns after videos posted on social media showed people dancing on roads and roadsides as passing lorries blasted rhythmic little tunes.
Hun Manet, who last year took over from his father, Hun Sen – who led Cambodia for 38 years, called on the ministry of public works and transportation and police across the country to immediately take action against any vehicle whose normal horn has been replaced by a tune-playing one by ripping it out and restoring the standard honking type.
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‘There’ll be a lot of people grieving today’
Both Barnaby Joyce and Tanya Plibersek were asked about soldier Jack Fitzgibbon, the son of former defence minister Joel Fitzgibbon.
The Fitzgibbon family are a family of honour. Jack died in service to our nation. Joel has served our nation. The family will be absolutely grieving. We hope and pray Jack is with our maker, give comfort to them. You’ve seen the Fitzgibbons, you’ve watched them on television. They’re a great family. He is also my mate. We’ll turn up and give what support we can to Jack’s family.
It’s just the worst thing that any parent can imagine and so our hearts go out to Joel and Diane and their family and the friends and comrades that Jack had in the service as well. We know there’ll be a lot of people grieving today.
Well, first of all, of course it’s not on government devices in Australia either. We’ve got a ban here in Australia on government devices. But there are 8.5 million Australians who are using it.
We’ll take the advice of our security and intelligence agencies on anything we need to do around TikTok. I think people should be careful of the data that they put online in general. Like I say, if the security and intelligence agencies give us advice on TikTok, we’ll take it.
Continue reading...A five-mile stretch of the London orbital motorway had been closed since Friday night to demolish a bridge
The M25 in Surrey reopened eight hours ahead of schedule on Sunday after the first planned daytime closure of the motorway.
The five-mile stretch of the motorway between junctions 10 and 11 had been closed in both directions at 9pm on Friday and was scheduled to remain inaccessible until 5.30am, in order to demolish a bridge and install “a huge gantry”.
Continue reading...Research looked at three London boroughs to value overall health benefits of active travel over 20 years at up to £4,800 per head
Policies to help people walk and cycle such as low-traffic neighbourhoods can create public health benefits as much as 100 times greater than the cost of the schemes, a long-term study of active travel measures has concluded.
The research, based on six years of surveys among thousands of people living in three outer London boroughs that introduced LTNs or similar schemes, found they tended to prompt people to switch some trips from cars to active travel, although the effects were varied.
Continue reading...Alert says there could be ‘tricky driving conditions in a few places’ after unexpectedly cold overnight temperatures
An unexpected cold snap has prompted the Met Office to issue a yellow weather warning after snow fell across parts of the west of England.
The warning covered an area from south of Bristol to north of Worcester, and extends to Hereford to the west and Swindon to the east.
Continue reading...Regulator demands recall of two models, understood to affect about 10,000 of the popular products
Dutch authorities have ordered a leading European manufacturer of cargo bikes to suspend sales and recall thousands of its products amid safety concerns over frame breakages.
The Dutch regulator for food and consumer product safety (NVWA) called a temporary halt to trading by Babboe, which makes family cargo bikes seen daily on school runs from Berlin to Bristol, “because their safety cannot be sufficiently guaranteed”.
Continue reading...One officer trapped in wreckage at non-lethal incident near Oval tube station had to be rescued by firefighters
Nine people, including six police officers, have been taken to hospital after a collision between a doubledecker bus and a police van in south London.
Emergency services responded to the incident on Kennington Park Road, near Oval tube station, at about 11.30am.
Continue reading...Government adviser says water and telecoms privatisation is to blame for disfiguring streets with concrete slabs
The government must increase fines on utility companies that dig up pavements for roadworks, then pour in concrete rather than fixing the mess, a government adviser has said.
Telecoms and water companies are creating “street scars” in a “wasteful process” that is marring British high streets, Nicholas Boys Smith, who chairs the Office for Place in the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities has said in a report.
Continue reading...Italy’s data protection body investigates claims police shared names and addresses with firm collecting penalties for TfL
The names and addresses of thousands of EU drivers were unlawfully accessed by Italian police and shared with the company that collects Ulez penalties on behalf of Transport for London (TfL), investigators believe.
The Italian data protection authority is investigating claims by Belgium’s government that an unnamed police department misused official powers to pass the personal details of Belgian drivers to Euro Parking Collections, which is employed by TfL to issue fines to enforce London’s low emission zone (Lez) and ultra-low emission zone.
Continue reading...Coalition-led scare campaign predicted for plan to place yearly cap on emissions for new cars sold in Australia
The Albanese government has unveiled its long-awaited plan for fuel efficiency standards for new cars while highlighting potential savings of $1,000 a year and predicting a Coalition-led scare campaign.
The proposed model, announced on Sunday, would place a yearly cap on the emissions output for new cars sold in Australia to incentivise carmakers to supply low- and zero-emissions vehicles and penalise companies that do not.
Continue reading...First cameras were torn down by someone calling themselves Fleximan – now traffic calming measures are being targeted
Renzo Bergamini, the mayor of Gualtieri, was on his way to buy the newspapers on Tuesday morning when he noticed something was amiss with one of the two speed humps positioned on the town’s ring road.
“I saw that the sections of the hump were slightly misaligned,” he said. “The bolts had been unscrewed.”
Continue reading...Motoring association criticises data quality and say Australia has ‘no credible plan’ to reduce incidents as nation records 677 deaths since July 2023
The second half of 2023 was the deadliest six months on Australian roads since 2010, but there is “no credible plan” to make roads safer, the industry claims, as it pleads for better data to understand what is causing the surge in fatal crashes.
In the three months to September 2023, there were 341 road deaths nationally. The following quarter’s figures decreased only slightly from that, with a further 336 deaths recorded to the end of December. The total 677 road deaths in the final six months of 2023 was the largest half-yearly road toll since the first half of 2010, when 688 people died on roads across Australia.
Continue reading...More than 40 vehicles involved in collisions on Chesapeake Bay Bridge starting at 8am, says local transportation authority
Several crashes involving more than 40 vehicles occurred on Chesapeake Bay Bridge in Maryland on Saturday, injuring 13 people and forcing temporary closures.
In several announcements on X throughout Saturday morning, the Maryland transportation authority said that all lanes had been closed following a multivehicle crash on westbound lanes and warned of major delays. According to the MDTA, its police dispatch received initial calls of the crash at 8am.
Continue reading...Driver was unaware he had to register French hire car with TfL’s collection agent even though it was emissions compliant
Christian Ducarre received three fines totalling nearly £11,000 after driving his French hire car to London to attend his son’s wedding. The car, which was fully compliant with ultra-low emission zone emissions rules, was mistakenly classed as a heavy goods vehicle and deemed to be in breach of the separate low emissions zone (Lez) and well as Ulez. Lez covers lorries, vans, buses and coaches, and fines are between £500 and £2,000 a day depending on the vehicle’s weight.
“I had checked that the car’s emissions standard was Euro 06 and so was not liable for the Ulez charge,” he said.
Continue reading...Exclusive: EU states accuse TfL of huge data breach over clean air zone penalties, with many given to compliant vehicles
Hundreds of thousands of EU citizens were wrongly fined for driving in London’s Ulez clean air zone, according to European governments, in what has been described as “possibly one of the largest data breaches in EU history”.
The Guardian can reveal Transport for London (TfL) has been accused by five EU countries of illegally obtaining the names and addresses of their citizens in order to issue the fines, with more than 320,000 penalties, some totalling thousands of euros, sent out since 2021.
Continue reading...New EU entry-exit system could lead to gridlocked roads if scheme goes ahead as planned, MPs hear
Tourists heading to Europe could face waits of up to 14 hours at border controls under a scheme to be launched in October, MPs have been told.
The Port of Dover and the surrounding area could face significant disruption when the EU entry/exit system is introduced unless measures are taken to prevent delays, parliament’s European scrutiny committee has heard.
Continue reading...Study warns that lack of reporting may mask the dangers of still-mostly-illegal scooters on roads and pavements
The majority of e-scooter accidents that involve someone needing hospital treatment are not being recorded in official road accident figures, a new study reveals, sparking fears that their dangers have been underplayed.
The analysis found that just 9% of injuries involving e-scooters and recorded by 20 emergency departments over a two-month period were found in official figures. And just over a quarter of the most serious injuries were recorded in road casualty data.
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