For the benefit of visitors to London ... yes, normally cars would normally stop for pedestrians on zebra crossings ... until they muck about at which point they become fair game.
There is a plan to remove all zebra crossing because in some areas pedestrian traffic blocks road traffic. Like here. It is so bad I can't see a cabbie being prosecuted for not stopping. Not unless they hit someone.
Not at all, the roads are a shared resource paid for out of general taxation. Zebra crossings are a poor way of controlling traffic. At least we didn't go down the insane route of America where walking on a road is an offence.
Amazing! I lived in Langford Court for 2 years from 1979 to 1981! I knew it was in the background of the Beatles photo, but didn't know about Orwell living there. I recently found two rolls of 35 mm stills of the London skyline taken from the roof of Langford Court. From the other shots on the films I think it was in 1980. It's extraordinary how it has changed.
Another George Orwell/Beatles connection. George Orwell lived in what is now a hotel in Hayes, West London. Hayes town is also where the pressing factories for EMI, the Beatles label were based.
do anyone but tourists go down that street? Seems like another one of those impossible impassible zones where a low traffic area combined with a famous tourist scene means it gets crowded... and they couldn't even change the road if they wanted to because it would ruin the spot. Is it actually as bad as that, or is it just another small street with average road and foot traffic, but with a slightly larger number of tourists standing around? I always wonder about the unrelated people trying to live n work next door- like the people living above the shops on Baker St, the houses on Lombard St in San Francisco, whatever the buildings around the Beatles zebra crossing above are etc etc.
