THe crossing made famous by the Beatles Abbey Road has a web cam.
Its fun to watch. Many people walk across it for photo ops
http://www.abbeyroad.com/Crossing/
Any London Dopers out there? Do you get irritated that these people are holding up traffic all the time? or do you just expect it and accept it as something that’s going to happen?
Fun cam! Thanks for the link.
I had a friend at school who lived near there, he found it very irritating.
Bear in mind it is not in a part of London that 95% of Londoners will go to any more than once in a blue moon so it can hardly be said to piss off Londoners.
I can’t make that play at work. The crossing has moved from its original location back in 1969, but it still would be cool to have a picture. I would most certainly have one taken of me.
It seems a pity the camera could not be set up to give a view from the same side as the album photo. Was that park there when the photo was taken? It is not apparent on the album cover.
Wow I had the camera up for like 3 minutes and sure enough, up comes a gaggle of tourists. A bunch of drivers stop for them (which I’m guessing is the law) but the tourists wave them on. Very annoying for everyone who stopped for no reason, I’m guessing. Plus, there were pedestrians coming from the other side of the road who almost got hit by a car that was “waved on.”
They got their picture, though. It was painful to watch.
eta: 2 minutes later, here come some more. Idiots holding up traffic. I don’t even live in London and I find this annoying.
Thought you might like these candids of the Beatles themselves waiting to cross.
I live about 30 seconds from it. Yeah, there are always - and I mean -always- groups of tourists walking around, but I don’t recall ever seeing it holding up traffic all that much.
Sure is - it’s a zebra crossing - cars give way to pedestrians for as long as there are pedestrians to cross (even if this goes on for hours) - this is pertinent to the OP, as it may be irritating to drivers that the crossing is used a lot, but the stance of the law is: tough shit - the drivers have to wait.
Waving on traffic at a zebra crossing is almost never a good idea, for this sort of reason. Most drivers are reluctant to be waved on (knowing that pedestrians have the right of way) and will hesitate, during which time, other pedestrians, unaware of the ‘waving on’ will appear and start to cross.
What about Penny Lane?
I just clicked on the link. Sure enough, there were people crossing with somebody standing outside of the crossing area taking pictures of them.
However, by London standards there doesn’t seem to be much traffic.
Yep, which is why it is why reacting to a pedestrian’s waving on (be it a turning, crossing or whatnot) is a sure fire way to fail your driving test.
There is one woman just standing there at the edge of the crosswalk. Cars keep stopping for her and she waves them on. I HATE it when pedestrians do that. Get out of the damn cross walk if you are not crossing the street.
A few years ago we did a London Walks tour that focused on the Beatles sites, and it ended at Abbey Road. They didn’t demand that we don’t do the photo-op, they just said be quick about it and don’t stop and freeze and hold up traffic. So yes, we have a family picture of the four of us at the crosswalk (that another tourist took for us), but we were just walking normally.
Thanks for the rather pleasant diversion.
Just clicked over there for literally 15 seconds, and saw a double-decker bus have to stop to avoid TWO SEPARATE douchenozzles taking staged pictures at the same time…
Joe
There’s something wrong when I click on the link… all of the cars are driving on the wrong side of the street 
That’s strangely hypnotic. The cyclists seem not to bother stopping! walks away whistling
HA! I’m watching it now.
One girl almost darted into traffic before noticing that, yeah, there are cars to her right.
Then four girls walked across and stopped, causing a momentary delay in traffic. Then they ran off again.
Good lord, this must happen hundreds of times a day.