SE London traffic congestion

I know traffic jams or slow-moving traffic are part of everyday life in South East London but today was - for me - a first. I attended a funeral in Kennington Park Road at 11 a.m. but the hearse got stuck in traffic and the funeral wasn't able to start until about 11.45. Fortunately the organist had brought along enough music to play while we waited, and other than being enjoined to practise one of the hymns, we simply had to wait. Should hearses perhaps be allowed to use bus lanes?

Average speed for traffic in London is 4 mph, I learned yesterday.

Traffic is killing me too and I am letting down my patients with a serious disease (gonorrhoea) who are waiting for me and I am always late because of the traffic. :/

Road users are at the bottom of the pile in London, it will only get worse.

Looking at the roads, it seems the vast majority of vehicles are buses, minibuses, trucks, vans, small commercial vehicles, delivery trucks, cabs, minicabs, skip trucks etc - you have to really feel for these drivers, who don't have any choice but to be on the road.

People who drive a mile when they could walk or cycle don't deserve much sympathy (unless they have mobility issues of course), but there doesn't seem to be many of these any more, you'd have to be a total masochist to drive recreationally in London.

I'm working on Crossrail at the moment, I think it is expected to alleviate some of these issues, and while there's currently no plans to carry freight on the line, people on the project say that it wouldn't surprise them if it did, eventually.