Serious accident in Kennington at junction of Camberwell New Road / Brixton

A serious accident took place at the junction between Camberwell New Road and Brixton Road just outside Kennington Park Business Centre this evening.  Reports of the incident started to appear just before 6pm.  Traffic ground to a halt and local buses were placed on diversion.

The crash looked to involve three cars in which one car appeared to have entirely mounted a second car.  Fortunately, there were no fatalities, although several people, including a child, were reportedly taken to hospital. The clean up operation was still taking place several hours after the incident.

Two Brixton Road cycle accidents and one motorbike accident on Clapham Road

I have no confirmed reports, but Twitter users (and London Fixed-gear & Single Speed forums) are reporting two incidents involving cyclists on Brixton Road.

One incident occurred at approximately 7:20am at the top of Brixton Road/Camberwell New Road (near Oval tube station) and involved a male cyclist, a bus and a petrol tanker. The road was closed for the rest of the morning, but the incident is not reported to have been fatal.

Another accident occured this morning further south on Brixton Road, involving a female cyclist, which is again not reported to have been fatal. Stockwell News mentioned an incident allegedly concerning a cyclist and a lorry (which may be the southern incident). I hope the cyclists did not sustain major injuries.

In addition, another Twitterer/Tweeter/Twitter user (what is the correct noun?) reported an incident involving a motor bike on Clapham Road outside Greggs and Pearl Pharmacy at about 11am this morning. That's down in Stockwell, so I can only refer you to Stockwell News for further information.

I'm particularly concerned about the number of road accidents in and around SE11 at the moment, and further concerned that many of the incidents seem to involve cyclists. (Please don't use my blog to moan about bad cycling. There are bad cyclists and bad drivers and both are to blame). I'd call on TFL to consider segrating the cyclists from the rest of the vehicular traffic, but I know that major arguments exist between cyclists as to whether this is the safest option.

I haven't (and cannot) report all local accidents since many are not serious and do not make the news, but people frequently search Lurking about SE11 for mention of incidents so I can see that they are frequent. I'm fairly certain that there was a road accident on Bowling Green Street yesterday, and I know that there was a road accident on Kennington Road last week, involving a police vehicle. I know that Lambeth Council are investigating the possibility of 20mph zones, but I do not imagine that these would include the major roads (Kennington Park Road/Clapham Road or Kennington Road or Brixton Road or Camberwell New Road) and these seem to be becoming accident hot spots. Does anybody have any further data on accidents or information about the wellbeing of the cyclists mentioned above?

Oval Farmers Market and SE11 and SW9 wander

A late start to the day meant that by the time I arrived at Oval Farmers Market, much of the cake from Cakehole London had been magicked away. I'm quite excited by the fact that we have an SE11 cake business and shall therefore return at an earlier time to take a photo of the stall with its cakey goodies (they do take orders if you need cakes locally). I can recommend the blueberry apple crumble cake. Yumm.

After that, we had a wander around the top of Brixton Road. The delicatessen on the corner (number 2, I think), near the market is closing, but is being replaced by another one. See pics below:





I didn't realise there were so many good restaurants at the top of the road at the edge of SW9. Adulis (an Eritrean one) looks particularly good, and so does the Oval Tandoori (Indian).

One of my favourite adverts is at the top of Brixton Road... if you look carefully, it encourages you to smoke (for the sake of your throat), a legacy of times past:



After that, we went for a quick coffee at the Kennington Park cafe (it's worth a visit as the coffee is excellent, and the staff are very friendly). I took a picture of the underside of the helium balloon, currently advertising to everybody watching cricket at the Ashes:

My personal quest to make SE11 a bit greener

Following on from a recent article in the East London advertiser that suggested that Vauxhall Cross and Brixton Road are within the top 10 most air-polluted roads in London, perhaps it's time that car drivers other than trades related people or minicab drivers start to reduce their car use. Some of Vauxhall Cross is included in the SE11 area, and I was surprised that one neither Kennington Road, Kennington Lane nor Kennington Park Road were included in the top 10 list, especially considering their proximity to Brixton Road and Vauxhall Cross.

Current petrol prices might encourage the trend to abandon cars in favour of other methods of transport. (C'mon, the Cross River Tram would be a real asset...) I imagine a move from petrol to LPG powered vehicles might help the cause... But best of all, it would be really exciting if London could become more cycle friendly. I was reading an article in the Independent by James Daley who has changed his cycling route from being based around the quiet back streets of Stockwell to a new busy route along the Thames Embankment. Having seen Clapham Road/Kennington Park Road also become a route for cyclist anarchy, I'm not surprised that he notes

"much of my route seems to turn into a cycle racetrack"

I try and cycle responsibly (not going through red traffic lights, sporting bike lights at night etc.) but I hope the trend towards cycling will lead to some form of stiffer penalty for cyclists that break the rules in a dangerous manner. As a driver, cyclist and pedestrian, it's fairly clear to me that cyclists are the worst transgressors of the highway code (especially couriers). On the other hand, there's nothing more frustrating than facing red light after red light when on a bike, because the traffic lights are phased for motorists. Obviously, I'm not suggesting changing all of the lights in favour of cyclists, but some innovative thinking re. roads that could be "cycle only" or more cycle paths (preferably not on pavements) might mean that cyclists could ride around more safely.

Once the move has taken place, I hope to get the trusty old bike out again (am a bit worried about the level of bike theft, so a folding bike might be a better option), and cycle to work where possible. That will probably turn Lurking about SE11 into a list of traffic violation grievances, but hopefully it will also help SE11 go green!