Green man to show for LONGER at crossings as unfit Brits slower at walking

PEDESTRIAN crossings will leave the green man lit up for at least an extra second – because Brits have become too unfit to cross the road.

Obese and overweight people will have 20 per cent extra time to walk across roads, new Department for Transport guidelines have revealed.

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Walkers currently have 6.1 seconds to cross both lanes of a road, at an average speed of 1.2 metres a second.

But an increasing number of blobby Brits mean a rising number of people are too unfit to cross the road before the green man fades – risking serious accidents at junctions across the country.

New measures will boost the length of the green figure’s appearance to 7.3 seconds – an average speed of 1m per second.

The guidance, penned by Active Travel England chief Brian Deegan, notes: “A lot of infrastructure is aimed at the average person, but the number of people excluded by that is growing, so we have to tackle it.

“If we don’t give people enough time, they are going to feel they can’t cross the road and that will leave some people feeling that they can’t leave their own house if they don’t have a car.

“We are going to have to meet people where they are. That means local authorities might need to think about extending crossing times.”

University College London figures from 2013 revealed 76 per cent of men and 85 per cent of women over 65 failed to cross roads before the green lights faded.

The average speed of participants in a survey was 0.9m per second for older men and 0.8m per second for older women – below the currently required 1.2m-a-second pace.