“I don’t want to see someone die on my doorstep”: Council urged to sort out notorious zebra crossing where near misses “happen every day”

Residents who live near a notoriously dangerous zebra crossing, made famous by recent viral videos showing motorists hitting cyclists and pedestrians as they cross the road, have called on Bradford Council to make urgent changes to the road layout before “someone dies”.

The crossing, on the Horton Grange Road in Bradford, sprang to prominence last week after two clips, one from August and another from earlier this month showing cyclists being struck by drivers, went viral. A third clip, from 2018, also shows a woman crossing the road on foot being knocked to the ground by a motorist.

The footage was shared on Twitter by broadcaster and road safety advocate Jeremy Vine, who asked, “what the hell is going on with this zebra?”, while the Labour MP for Bradford East, Imran Hussain, said he was “absolutely horrified” by the incidents.

Horton Grange Road, West Yorkshire. How does the driver fail to see him?
pic.twitter.com/bVuxIYbnVW

— Jeremy Vine (@theJeremyVine) November 17, 2022

In response to the publicity stemming from the one million-plus views of the video on social media and the subsequent national newspaper coverage – including the Daily Mail asking if the Horton Grange Road housed Britain’s “most dangerous zebra crossing”, and a depressing but wholly unsurprising discussion concerning “who was in the right” – Bradford Council acknowledged the safety concerns and promised an immediate inspection on the site, located around a mile from the city centre.

However, the council’s decision to improve the safety of the crossing – a spokesperson said last week that a traffic light-signalled crossing will replace the zebra “as soon as we can” – comes over a decade after residents began to call for the local authority to take action on a road where near misses occur “every day”.

Tahir Zeb, who lives yards away from the apparent collision hotspot and along with other residents has campaigned during the last ten years for a pelican crossing to be installed, has told the BBC that he spent £1,800 on CCTV cameras to document the road’s dangers after realising that Bradford’s councillors weren’t going to act.

After four years of compiling the startling proof of the crossing’s inadequacy, Zeb’s nephew uploaded the footage from the cameras to TikTok, sparking the recent social media frenzy and press coverage.

What the HELL is going on with this zebra???pic.twitter.com/eJLNGrmaav

— Jeremy Vine (@theJeremyVine) November 17, 2022

“The council need to do something urgently, they’re putting money before someone’s life here,” Zeb told the BBC.

 “I don’t want to see someone die on my doorstep. It’s getting too serious, the kids are waiting for one car to stop and are assuming the other side will automatically stop too.”

Mohammad Haleem, who runs a nearby shop, added: “A child has done more work in moving this forward than any of us put together by uploading it. We’re so proud of him as he felt it was dangerous and was worried for the safety of other children.”

Haleem, who once took a petition with hundreds of signatures to the council demanding the crossing be changed, continued: “It’s supposed to be the safest place to cross, but people young and old are scared of it. Traffic lights would help a lot, because red means red.”

> MP "horrified" by footage of multiple drivers hitting cyclists and pedestrians at "Britain's most dangerous" zebra crossing

Another resident, Mohammad Azeem, also told the BBC that he “nearly got ran over” on Monday by a seemingly distracted driver.

“There’s an incident every day, I sit and watch it from the garden and there’s always a near miss or an accident,” he said.

A spokesperson for Bradford Council said last week: “We understand the local concerns about this crossing and we will carry out an immediate inspection.

“Improvement works were carried out in 2018 to replace the existing beacons with high visibility LED units and enhanced white lining and the location is awaiting funding to be converted to a signalled crossing and this work will take place as soon as we can.”