Reading bus lane taxi access plan despite crash concern

King's Road is an accident blackspot, the council heard

A plan to allow more taxis to use a bus lane in an accident "disaster zone" has moved forward.

Private hire drivers in Reading applied in 2022 to use the outbound bus lane in King's Road.

However, improving the traffic flow could make the crash-prone road even less safe, Reading Borough Council officers told a meeting.

Nevertheless, the authority's traffic management sub-committee unanimously agreed to consult on the plan.

Kamran Saddiq, representing the drivers, told the committee: "In the last 10 years, we can prove there's not been one single accident created by Reading private hire drivers on the King's Road.

"The record speaks for itself. Public safety is our number one."

Kamran Siddiq (third from left), representing Reading private hire drivers, said they had a perfect safety record

He said it was unfair that taxis licensed outside of Reading were using the bus lane while local drivers could not.

A council report said: "King's Road is sadly experiencing a relatively high number of incidents involving casualties.

"The majority of these incidents are either involving pedestrians crossing the road or vehicles turning across other vehicles within the bus lanes.

"The officer concern is that [the plan]... will risk increasing the numbers of casualties... as a consequence of increased volumes of traffic that will be travelling at higher speed."

Peter Seymour, of the Reading Motorcycle Action Group, said councillors were "looking at a disaster zone".

Many accidents involve Reading College students, councillors were told

He told the meeting: "When I opened up the crash map data for issues on that road, I was shocked. I didn't know it was as bad as that.

"It's a known blackspot. An awful lot of those are young people coming in and out of the college."

However, Councillor John Ennis, in charge of transport, said: "We need to support our Reading private hire drivers."

He said the consultation results could be reported back to the committee in March.

Additional reporting by James Aldridge, Local Democracy Reporting Service

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