Zebra crossing pop-up protest

Our pop-up zebra crossing this week travelled to Winchester to help a community blighted by speeding traffic. Despite numerous meetings with their local council, a petition boasting 1,000 signatures and a campaign spanning five years, requests for a safe crossing continue to be turned down.

Worthy Road is the only primary feeder road into Winchester City without a pedestrian crossing, and is a main pedestrian thoroughfare for children walking to St. Bede C of E Primary School where over 450 local children attend. Furthermore, traffic flow is expected to significantly increase as the Kings Barton development expands over the coming 1-2 years.

Lucy McLoughlin, mother of 3 children under the age of 10, expressed the frustrations of the entire campaign group when she told us: “We feel very frustrated and we are fed up with all the excuses we have heard over the years. Why do we have to wait for an accident to happen before something gets done?”

The story will resonate with the hundreds of other groups around the country currently campaigning for safe crossings. It's the reason we developed a pop-up zebra crossing.

What is a pop-up zebra crossing?

When we were approached by a group of parents in London whose request for a zebra crossing at a road traffic collision black spot outside their local infant school had been turned down on grounds of cost, we went about building one ourselves as cheaply as possible.

The result was a pop-up zebra crossing that could be erected in less than two minutes. And with no need to consider drainage, the excavation of existing pavement, disposal of material, new kerbing and paving, anti-skid surfacing, road markings, traffic signs, electrical connections and pillars, the total cost came to £50 – considerably less than the £114,000 quoted by the Highways Agency.

Faced with coverage of the campaign in the Sunday Times, Daily Mail, Evening Standard and Metro newspapers and on numerous radio stations, the local authority quickly installed the much-needed real zebra crossing.

If you are facing a similar challenge trying to get a zebra crossing for your school, please get in touch.

Funding campaigns like the pop-up zebra is easy

Not only are we ethical, we campaign for sustainable transport. Sometimes that means protesting until a school gets the zebra crossing they've been refused, or running 60 roadshows this year to encourage people out of their cars, or fixing bicycles for free. Supporting this work is easy - you simply have to take out cycle insurance with us, cover that just happens to be excellent.

Unlike other insurers we never devalue your bike. And if you ride a carbon bike, rest assured we will never have a cracked frame repaired - we will always replace your bike with a new one. How many other insurers can say that? Find out more

..and it's not just cycle insurance that we offer. We provide home insurance, cycle insurance, travel insurance and breakdown cover - all while putting concern for the environment at the heart of all we do.

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