Zebra crossings

The council installs or upgrades several pedestrian crossings (zebra, puffin or pelican crossings) each year.

Compared to signal-controlled crossings, zebra crossings are used on less important roads; those having less traffic and fewer people crossing the road.

At zebra crossings:

• give traffic plenty of time to see you and to stop before crossing
• wait until traffic has stopped from both directions or the road is clear before crossing 
• keep looking both ways, and listening, in case a driver or cyclist has not seen you and attempts to overtake a vehicle that has stopped.

And remember:

• drivers need more time to bring their vehicles under control when the road is slippery 
• traffic does not have to stop until someone has moved onto the crossing
• regular motorists tend to ignore crossings that are not often used.

Where there is an island in the middle of a zebra crossing, wait on the island and check for oncoming traffic before crossing the second half of the road. This is, in fact, a separate crossing.

New zebra crossings

The need for a crossing is assessed according to:

• traffic volume and pedestrian crossings surveys that gauge the conflict between pedestrians and vehicles
• the difficulty pedestrians face from traffic speed and volumes
• the time pedestrians must wait before they can cross
• the personal injury accident records indicating how many accidents occur at a location and noting those involving pedestrians.

All requests from residents for installation of a crossing are looked at individually.

Related information from other websites

• Department for Transport
• Highway Code
• Living Streets