In this special investigation, we head to Clapham, London, to ride what has been labelled “the most dangerous junction for cyclists in Britain.” After a national newspaper article seemed to place the blame on “lawless cyclists,” we decided to find out what’s really going on.
Spending the day navigating this chaotic stretch of road, we quickly discover the issues are far more complex. We are joined by three leading experts: Simon Monk of the London Cycle Campaign, road design specialist Mark Philpotts (The Ranty Highwayman), and environmental psychologist Dr. Ian Walker.
Together, they help unravel the real reasons this junction is so dangerous, from poor infrastructure and “rat-running” traffic to the deep-seated societal bias known as “moto-normativity.” This video is a deep dive into the systemic failures of urban road design and a powerful argument for why blaming the victims is never the solution.
Chapters ⏱️
00:00 – Riding Britain’s “Most Dangerous” Junction
00:55 – The Statistics: Why This Road in Clapham?
01:58 – First Impressions: Riding The Junction
03:26 – Questioning The Media Narrative
04:35 – The Problem: A Rat Run for Drivers (with Simon Monk)
06:54 – The Solution: Low Traffic Neighbourhoods
08:26 – The Psychology of Road Use (with Dr Ian Walker)
10:27 – Why Is There Pushback To Change?
12:35 – An Engineer’s Perspective (with Mark Philpotts)
14:17 – How To Fix This Junction?
16:20 – A Problem Further Up The Network
19:42 – Final Thoughts After A Day of Riding
21:34 – The Broader Solution & Conclusion
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Thanks for watching this deep dive into what makes a road dangerous. While this example is in London, the problems of poor design, rat-running, and conflicting priorities are universal
Do you have something like this where you live? What makes it so treacherous? Let us know your local hotspots in the comments below👇
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49 Comments
Thanks for watching this deep dive into what makes a road dangerous. While this example is in London, the problems of poor design, rat-running, and conflicting priorities are universal
Do you have something like this where you live? What makes it so treacherous? Let us know your local hotspots in the comments below👇
This is a downhill section of the road & some of the lunatic cyclists are often doing 30mph+ in a 20mph area, and the rest of the traffic around the bridge is invariably crawling.
I think we could blame the car manufacturers for the misleading way they advertise their products Cars are almost invariably the only moving object shown in adverts. Purchasers are encouraged to believe that they have purchased the right to drive around unimpeded by any other vehicles whether cars, bicycles or buses. It's time to inject some reality into car advertising and ban adverts which promise motoring solitude.
Thought cyclists were the worst riders on british streets
I’m local to this area , I can guarantee that most accidents are caused by entitled wannabe city wankers riding lime bikes or the same kind driving their fiat 500 while ordering their matcha latte on the phone
I ride this junction every day! Definitely have to keep your concentration at all times and read the road ahead carefully. One thing they didnt mention is there is a bus stop just before the bike lane so even less view for cars. I never use the cycle lane as a result
Spot on re the helmet (non) issue. Obvs, there is a small number of circumstances where such protection is beneficial, BUT the priority should be to address what causes accidents, not just to ameliorate occasionally their effects. We don’t tackle the knife crime issue by mandating all teenagers to wear kevlar vests, do we?🤷♂️
Is this an ad for British newspaper the Guardian?
Really interesting point about the traffic controls being reduced once the culture around transport shifts. I love cycling in London, I feel safer here than anywhere else in the UK, and I honestly think the average London driver has a standard of driving well above the UK average too. Watch this space as I'm about to start properly cycle commuting for the first time, including a section through Kensington, so I'm sure my opinion will change somewhat!
paint isn't infrastructure.
The Clapham Road one cant be the dangerous , look at the Windmill Rd/Whitehorse Lane/another road junction
Its all about cycilist , while all they do a skip red lights and almost kill and crossing pedestrian
15:02 thats just stupid
11:07 this is true to some extent, but i think the main reason drivers get annoyed is that they're stuck in traffic, and any scheme that makes it worse for them is bad. If that scheme is in favour of cyclists, then they see it as their fault
guardian reader eh?
I noticed there was a car parked in the cycle lane forcing any cyclists to move out into the road to pass. Should stopping in a cycle lane be the same as stopping on double yellows? I feel the best thing would be a carrot and stick approach. More cycle lanes cheap and convenient public transport along with making using the car less convenient.
History repeats itself, doesnt it. Cyclists have tried to help fix these sorts of junctions for years, but as the Prof says – there is so much kickback from people who see cars as the only way. For most of the country people have simply given up riding as the car is less stressful, less risk, far less effort, leading to a massive decline in cycling. The real question is – can we ever gain those riders back in the future?
One word £££££££ money.
Dare may I say too many people. Holland even France, cope with cyclists, even encourage cyclists. Although wouldn't cycle in Paris .. interesting.
Impressive commitment here from the GCN crew to wearing full Lycra and cleats for a day of mostly chatting to folk on the pavement. 😂
I am less than 4 minutes in and dont like the video. You ride through the hotspot then have the camera switch to your face so viewers that dont know the area cant actually judge accurately what the risks are. Not sure if you did or not but you could also drive it in a car and look at the car drivers point of view as to why they are missing cyclists and having incidents with them.
Accuses others of a culture war. Procedes to repeatedly say that motorists are on a 'RAT run' and that the 'RAT run' is the root cause. Who is on a culture war here?
Second point: I can see in the video that most cyclists go far faster than the rest of the traffic, I assume aided by a down slope. That is dangerous in any vehicle! It has been proven that cars cannot safely travel faster than 20mph in urban environments and obviously that applies to cyclists too! What is needed there to stop the accidents is a speed bump on the cycling path to stop them from speeding!
LTNs are classic YIMBY (Yes, In My Back Yard – but not anywhere else) territory
Feel free to disagree but UK cycle culture bewilders me. I have no issue with bikes riding on pavement and those brought up in East Asia can agree with me – it is legal in Japan, China and Korea but not in this UK, while it is illegal to cycle on a vehicular road in China. It seems this country is fine with bikes riding in road traffic or with haphazardly drawn 'cycle lanes' on the road, and thinks the risk of doing so and getting ran over by a car is somehow more acceptable to the possibility of a cyclist hitting someone on a pavement (heard that argument a few times already). Bikes deserve separated bike lanes and should be no part of road traffic, the current situation is simply for the refusal to invest in the necessary infrastructure for proper bike lanes.
Honestly cycle lanes in London more often than not feel like death traps – much safer to cycle in the main road section where there's better visibility on me and less parked cars opening doors into me and cars turning out of side roads straight into me.
Which is an insane state of affairs in my opinion
1 minute 10 in the video. White van pulling into the junction using his hand held phone whilst into ‘Britains most dangerous junction’. 🤷♂️
4:27 The roads that runs north alongside the bridge in the picture for a second is a huge natural cutthroat the road that runs South alongside the bridge in the picture is also the cut-through to miss the The junction which he highlighted seconds before this point and a lot of people go from the south East straight across to the north west on daily commutes into the city And definitely people just moving around the clapper area like Uber etc.
Not to mention you've probably been sat in Bedford road for God. Knows ages trying to get down to.
7:32 no no no Mr. Cycle man. That is not what you do. You don't force two sets of traffic through one set of traffic lights anywhere in Clapham if you don't have to look what's happened over at bloody clapham him South … Why don't you just have it where the cyclists have to stop? Or a set of lights that for everybody to allow people to go straight across as well without the traffic trying to come across them
Bromley Masons hill – Bromley common is a dangerous one too
Bikers constantly go through red lights. You guys stop that and let's see how things go!
I suspect that design of streets , junctions, etc. would be a good application for AI, to model potential impact on traffic flows down the line.
interesting video. Where I live in Switzerland it's also pretty dangerous. The government want to drive their cars, and not promote cycling. That's how the culture is. But unless cycling gets safer, people wont do it. It's a shame the network was built on cars, and bikes are just an after-thought to the road network with band-aid solutions.
The standard of ALL road users in London is often awful and inconsiderate. The number of wheels not being the main issue. But talking about safety then totally forgetting pedestrians 🤔 Although to be fair they are often seen by cyclists as nothing but objects that get in their way.
How about shutting the road down to all but emergency vehicles and public transport. Nothing stopping cyclists from taking public transport or walking is there 🤔
It's never on the cyclist to slow down
BS, all they talk about too many cars and the ways to cut down people driving.
Trust me, no one wants to drive unless they really have to.
Majority like 95% of the vehicles in this video were all trader, business vans or load carrying lorries.
How come no one talks about the fact that the cyclists should be taught on how to use their brakes. Cyclists live under the illusion that if they are on a ride then they should have a TRON like experience, no brakes, empty lanes and even Jo pedestrians. So what's next? You are going to tell people to stay home because cyclists find pedestrians annoying?
Not everyone can jump in a Spandex and cycle anywhere.
The majority of them are single, no families, just a selfish existence filled with self loving bashfulness.
That fat I'd!0t standing in the red shirt calling for LTNs should know that LTNs are the reasons why we have this traffic gridlock everywhere.
Cyclists should be made accountable, there should be a course on cycling before they come out on the road thinking they don't need to use brakes, follow traffic signs.
They should also be allocated a number just like cars so when they break law, they are chased and held accountable.
a cycle lane, parking bay, bus lane – all combined in one lane… makes perfect sense!
It would be interesting if GCN went back to ride it again once the schools have returned. I think you would find it a very different, and more dangerous, experience.
What is immediately obvious over Conor’s shoulder when he starts the presentation is just how lawless the motor vehicles using the road and motorbikes using a bike lane are. Motor vehicle operators don’t just have contempt for cyclists and pedestrians (and in my area horses) but also each other. As a former professional rally driver, it’s sad to see people with such poor skill levels being allowed to use motor vehicles, it’s obvious it won’t end well. Cars and motorcycles can be great, amazing machines capable of fantastic things, but we have ended up where a chisel is being used as a screwdriver.
In the UK, every day over 2 million illegal cars/drivers are on the roads. Removing those must be a priority, all the tools are in place to do this, it just needs action.
I live near that junction, both drive and cycle around there. It is quite dicey around there on a bike.
The LCC guy is being overly critical of cars here. These “rat runs” aren’t because people want to shave 20s of a journey, the road system funnels people to come out of the side streets if they want to get onto the main road. If you are coming from Landor Road you either force people into a different side street, which just moves the problem elsewhere, or you send people on a 10 minute diversion.
There doesn’t seem to be a simple fix around there, especially as it’s an arterial route from the south west into central London. The roads and routing will require a serious rethink, blocking a few side streets isn’t going to cut it.
I don't know why anyone drives in London, or any of the major cities in the UK TBH. Public transport is amazing in London, Manchester, Newcastle, Leeds and Sheffield. It's pretty good in most other cities. If even a third of private drivers just didn't bother with the car for most of their journeys, there would be a fraction of the actual traffic.
I cycle or run this route everyday that I travel to the office. I’d say between Clapham South and up as far as London Bridge or even Bank, is dangerous because no users of the roads really respect the other. Cars and trucks don’t respect bikes, bike owners don’t respect bike renters (and vice versa), and bikes don’t respect pedestrians (who are definitely most at risk). If I had to make one change, it would be to remove the electric rental bikes from the equation. They are the most unpredictable and inexperienced users of the roads at rush hour. I’m not excusing bike owners, as many ride dangerously as well, but they are almost always pedal powered AND they own their bikes so care what happens to them. If they piloted this for 3 months during the winter (when it’s less likely to affect commuters but is also more dangerous), I’m sure it would have a notable impact on the number of incidents. Other suggestions:
– make the side roads one way so you can exit the main road but not join it (impractical but stops rat running)
– more barriers for cyclists when there is no segregated cycle lane.
– Cameras and police presence – most people are day to day users so you’d soon spot and stop the regular offenders.
All cycles should be limited to 20mph
Best to Light control this junction and take off the ped lights futher west
Clapham North Station needs , platforms widening , and step free and step free connection / subway (like Balham) to Clapham High Street Station to reduce pedestrian conflicts
Love the way as soon as the interview starts a guy is on the "keep clear" box without a free exit. "NOPE! It's the cyclists that are wrong"
Remove cycle lane and re-route south for quieter route to Clapham Common – does every cyclist NEED to get down that bit of road
just stick that plonker cyling mikey on the corner.
There’s a place in West Ealing where the council have moved a predestination crossing from one side of a junction to another and it makes no sense. They are so stupid and have caused so much danger for cyclists, car drivers and pedestrians. It’s made the junction worse. I really don’t understand why they moved it.