Driving standards

[petethemole]

The junction layout is due to be altered soon, https://www.dailyecho.co.uk/news/18780334.ipley-crossroads-turned-staggered-junction/

One of the cyclists killed used to drink in the same pub as me in the late '80s; I didn't know him well but we had friends in common.

[Enterprisingwestern]

 

Even in that report look at the number of vehicles which didn't stop.

The road junction isn't dangerous or there would be a crash every time vehicles crossed it.

The only thing which makes road junctions dangerous is the motorist, but driver education is an impossible task. Taking that specific junction, all a driver has to do is make sure they observe the road signs, what is so difficult about that?

Maybe if the 2 drivers who killed the cyclists had been charged with murder/manslaughter, and in other similar situations, then maybe that might focus peoples attention.

 

Mike.

[kevinlms]

7 minutes ago, Enterprisingwestern said:

 

Even in that report look at the number of vehicles which didn't stop.

The road junction isn't dangerous or there would be a crash every time vehicles crossed it.

The only thing which makes road junctions dangerous is the motorist, but driver education is an impossible task. Taking that specific junction, all a driver has to do is make sure they observe the road signs, what is so difficult about that?

Maybe if the 2 drivers who killed the cyclists had been charged with murder/manslaughter, and in other similar situations, then maybe that might focus peoples attention.

 

Mike.

You can't rely on people obeying the road rules. It's impossible to police them properly, especially in a relatively rural location. 

It wouldn't be that expensive to split the road into 2 T junctions, which apparently is the chosen solution. 

 

Probably ought to have been fixed years ago.

 

There was a similar multiple fatalities incident here in Victoria, where someone missed the stop sign and went into the side of a mini bus or something. 

 

It's a bit late to focus people attention AFTER going through a Stop sign. 

Rather than painting stripes on the road, far better are rumble strips, across the road. 

[Reorte]

2 hours ago, Enterprisingwestern said:

 

Even in that report look at the number of vehicles which didn't stop.

The road junction isn't dangerous or there would be a crash every time vehicles crossed it.

The only thing which makes road junctions dangerous is the motorist, but driver education is an impossible task. Taking that specific junction, all a driver has to do is make sure they observe the road signs, what is so difficult about that?

Maybe if the 2 drivers who killed the cyclists had been charged with murder/manslaughter, and in other similar situations, then maybe that might focus peoples attention.

Things aren't binary dangerous or safe (and nothing's ever completely, 100% safe).

 

I've a degree of sympathy for the "there's no such thing as a dangerous road, only dangerous drivers" view (unless you're talking narrow unfenced mountain roads with the edge crumbling away), but human beings are human beings and even if you remove the careless idiots no-one's perfect, we all make mistakes from time to time (and even if you removed humans from the equation and turned us into useless lumps of flesh unable to do anything for ourselves machines will never be perfect either), so a dangerous junction is one where it's all too easy to make a mistake and all too easy for it to have severe consequences; issues like visibility and how obvious the layout is are important.

 

There are definitely drivers whose behaviour falls well below acceptable standards (361 pages of this thread stands testament to that) but we all make mistakes from time to time.

[Michael Hodgson]

11 hours ago, duncan said:

Or a few very public prosecutions for failing to stop

Not many bushes there for the copper to hide in while he catches a few culprits.

[boxbrownie]

12 hours ago, duncan said:

Or a few very public prosecutions for failing to stop

If it’s such an issue I cannot understand why they don’t just put some speed ramps at the junction, at least slow the bu99ers down a bit.

[PhilJ W]

Or CCTV that is triggered by anyone approaching the junction to fast. That way you will have the evidence to prosecute those who break the rules.

Edited January 22, 2021 by PhilJ W

[petethemole]

1 hour ago, PhilJ W said:

Or CCTV that is triggered by anyone approaching the junction to fast. That way you will have the evidence to prosecute those who break the rules.

It would have to be solar powered.

[ejstubbs]

On 19/01/2021 at 19:06, JDW said:

Definitely a valid point that lots of dual carriageways have no hard shoulder - places like the A303 or up north, once you pass Perth the M90 becomes the A90, same speeds, almost as much traffic in places, but just a dual carriageway.

 

There are stretches of the M90 south of Perth (i.e. supposedly motorway class) that don't have a hard shoulder: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M90_motorway#Issues  ISTR that the explanation has something to do with the Scottish specification for motorways not being the same as south of the border at some time in the past.

 

https://www.roads.org.uk/motorway/m90

https://pathetic.org.uk/current/m90/

[kevinlms]

5 hours ago, PhilJ W said:

Or CCTV that is triggered by anyone approaching the junction to fast. That way you will have the evidence to prosecute those who break the rules.

That tends to be expensive and guess what, in such a rural location, the pole would 'accidentally' get bent, thus making it useless.

 

Better to get rid of the cross road, then it's almost maintenance free.

[johnofwessex]

I wrote the following to the local rag a few weeks ago.  I suggest that there is a case to treat at least some motoring offenders in the same way as gun & knife offences

 

Sir,

 

I see that there is upset in Bath over proposals to close the centre to vehicles due to the risk of a terrorist attack.

 

Since 2000 there have been 16 terrorist incidents in the UK, resulting in 63 deaths, 4 of the incidents involved the use of vehicles as weapons.

 

In comparison there were 1752 reported deaths on the roads in 2019, and between 2005 & 2018 542 people were killed on the pavement by motor vehicles, an average of 38 a year.  In the last week or so there have been three fatal single vehicle accidents in Somerset when cars went off the road, or in one occasion the motorway.  One driver drove into a house in Clevedon and five people have been injured, one seriously when a car drove onto the pavement in Stamford Hill, London.

 

Now at the expense of pointing out the blindingly obvious about six times as many people are being killed by drivers on the pavement as are being killed by terrorists each year, worse still we are about 292 times more likely to be killed in a traffic accident as killed by terrorists.

 

More importantly the majority of these deaths are entirely avoidable, drivers are intoxicated, travelling too fast or playing the fool.

 

So why don't we have the drunks, the boy racers and the mobile phone addicts stopped, dragged out of their cars by armed police officers and immediately remanded in a high security prison?  Oh and in case you think I am being a bit over the top, given the number of police officers who have been injured by criminals using vehicles as weapons, I suggest that anything that encourages criminals in cars to come quietly and emphasize the seriousness of their crime might be no bad thing.  

 

More to the point with more Traffic Policing we could save many many more lives than almost any other Policing measure, make it harder for offenders to move around and make our public places much more civilised, 

 

Yours Sincerely

[Compound2632]

19 minutes ago, johnofwessex said:

I wrote the following to the local rag a few weeks ago. 

 

Was it printed? If so, were there letters in response?

[johnofwessex]

3 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Was it printed? If so, were there letters in response?

 

Sort of, they converted it to an article but all the figures and suggestions were used

 

There were a few comments, from memory one lady wasnt that keen on armed officers, but sadly I suggest that recent events suggests arming traffic officers would make stops safer for the police and the public

[Compound2632]

A line of argument might be that counter-terrorism policing is sufficiently effective that many more lives have been saved than have been lost in road traffic accidents: unpoliced terrorism more of a danger to the public than unpoliced driving?

[Reorte]

4 hours ago, ejstubbs said:

 

There are stretches of the M90 south of Perth (i.e. supposedly motorway class) that don't have a hard shoulder: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M90_motorway#Issues  ISTR that the explanation has something to do with the Scottish specification for motorways not being the same as south of the border at some time in the past.

 

https://www.roads.org.uk/motorway/m90

https://pathetic.org.uk/current/m90/

Never noticed that the M90 was on Pathetic Motorways, that's a bit harsh IMO!

 

Strictly speaking a motorway is any road that's under motorway restrictions, which has included such gems as the single carriageway A6144(M) (now relegated to an A road), which had a 70 mph speed limit as a motorway. The only comparable example left now is the A601(M) stretch to the east of the M6, which needs a rather fancy car to even be able to reach 70 mph and stop in time before it ends. There are standards for motorways of course, so it's unlikely any road not planned to those standards and supposed to be a motorway will be approved, but they're not set in stone, so can be reduced with sufficient justification, such as some of the terrain the M90 has to go through.

 

The bigger problem than the curves and the hills on the M90 was the appalling surface, but that had been mostly replaced the last time I used it.

 

edit: Does that post sound like whatever the motorway equivalent of a rivet counter is?

Edited January 22, 2021 by Reorte

[Reorte]

3 hours ago, kevinlms said:

That tends to be expensive and guess what, in such a rural location, the pole would 'accidentally' get bent, thus making it useless.

 

Better to get rid of the cross road, then it's almost maintenance free.

Speed detection before junction - the way things are going it'll probably force your car to slow down in the near future, and thus we'll have TPWS on roads.

[Reorte]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

A line of argument might be that counter-terrorism policing is sufficiently effective that many more lives have been saved than have been lost in road traffic accidents: unpoliced terrorism more of a danger to the public than unpoliced driving?

Could be, but there are a lot more people prepared to drive like idiots than are prepared to deliberately kill as many random people as possible (thank heavens).

[mezzoman253]

A follow up article from the Beeb on Smart motorways.  https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-55782301

 

Rob

[PatB]

On the obeying signage at cross roads, I've lived on the corner of a STOP signed one for 22 years now, and it's been an interesting experience. Whist there have been no fatalities in that time, there have been at least two potentially very serious incidents, including one full 360 barrel roll by a 4WD, and dozens of binges, all from folk missing, or ignoring the stop signs. 

 

Although there are definitely some drivers who deliberately ignore the signs (you can hear some of the more hooliganistic plant it 50m out so as to run the junction at high speed), the local road design is such as to make it easy for the unwary to be caught out. The route with the most traffic approaches from one direction with about 400m of straight road, which includes two other cross roads. Crucially, these both give priority to the straight route. Consequently, when approaching "our" junction, where priority is, for some reason, to the cross street, it's easy for the unobservant or distracted to assume they've got a clear run. It seems significant that most incidents, including the most serious, seem to result from vehicles from this direction running the stop signs.

 

Fortunately, we're in a 50 kmh speed limit zone, so most incidents are at relatively low speeds. It's going to be quite messy, though, if one of the aforesaid hooligans happens to meet one of his mates at 90 degrees. 

 

I'm not sure why the local authority hasn't improved the road design, or why we've never seen the coppers spend a lucrative couple of hours booking offenders occasionally. It might partly be because our village had something of a reputation for being a bit wild. Given that, over 22 years, within 150m we've had an armed siege, a house explode as a result of a botched insurance job, two other houses burn flat, and goodness knows what other mayhem, I guess a few traffic accidents don't really register. However, the local area is now becoming quite gentrified, and the population is rapidly increasing, so maybe a few complaints from affluent newcomers with bent SUVs will be the charm. 

[Compound2632]

12 minutes ago, PatB said:

It might partly be because our village had something of a reputation for being a bit wild. Given that, over 22 years, within 150m we've had an armed siege, a house explode as a result of a botched insurance job, two other houses burn flat, and goodness knows what other mayhem, I guess a few traffic accidents don't really register. However, the local area is now becoming quite gentrified, and the population is rapidly increasing, so maybe a few complaints from affluent newcomers with bent SUVs will be the charm. 

 

That happens. The outcomers are drawn in by the appeal of your bohemian lifestyle but find that in practice it's not what they really want. 

[PatB]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

 

That happens. The outcomers are drawn in by the appeal of your bohemian lifestyle but find that in practice it's not what they really want. 

I think some early immigrants were a bit disturbed by the nightly rattle of small-arms fire and the occasional distant crump of recreational explosives. It's quietened down a lot now though. Sometimes it's months between the speed limit signs getting holes shot in them. 

[boxbrownie]

29 minutes ago, PatB said:

I think some early immigrants were a bit disturbed by the nightly rattle of small-arms fire and the occasional distant crump of recreational explosives. It's quietened down a lot now though. Sometimes it's months between the speed limit signs getting holes shot in them. 

So, you used to live in Washington DC then? 

[kevinlms]

59 minutes ago, PatB said:

I think some early immigrants were a bit disturbed by the nightly rattle of small-arms fire and the occasional distant crump of recreational explosives. It's quietened down a lot now though. Sometimes it's months between the speed limit signs getting holes shot in them. 

Funny how the likes of Peter Dutton don't mention this, but claim that Melbournians are afraid to leave the house!

[Sidecar Racer]

 

And still down under a warning about driving to fast for the conditions

while using a phone .

 

LANGUAGE  WARNING .

 

 

 

[PhilJ W]

5 minutes ago, Sidecar Racer said:

 

And still down under a warning about driving to fast for the conditions

while using a phone .

 

LANGUAGE  WARNING .

 

 

 

Why you shouldn't use a mobile phone while driving.