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It's a few months since the London mayor announced that Transport for London would look at letting cyclists turn left through red lights. TfL would need to submit a proposal to the Department for Transport, which it hasn't done yet. Many of the current mayor's original ideas have been whimsical and, where already implemented such as Ride to Work Friday, not particularly successful. This one is good though. There are already precedents for allowing traffic through red lights. In Germany, of all places, motor traffic is allowed to turn left through red during the pedestrian crossing phase if the way left is clear of pedestrians.

There is, despite the headlines about "legalised red-light running", potential support for this proposal from commercial drivers for one. Anecdotally, some taxi drivers have spoken in favour of cyclists going through red lights as it gets them out of the way when the lights do turn green, particularly useful one imagines where drivers accelerate away from lights side by side in lanes.

Let's hope as much effort goes into this idea as is going into the naive Routemaster plan.