1 I am amazed that local authorities can spend a fortune on speed reduction measures, to make things safer? for all users and then landscape 'grass super mini' roundabouts with massive lumps of granite with near vertical faces! Anybody hitting this veritable immovable object even at 25 mph will be lucky to walk away. A cyclist or motorcyclist will probably be dead!
2 I have often wondered why in our area on many sections of roads the lamp standards are frequently placed on only the outside of bends, in the natural impact point for anybody losing control, whereas placing on the inside would result in minimal damage. I have seen one standard that has certainly been replaced x2!
Is there a good (illumination) reason for this or is it just a job creation program? In which case, moving them all to the inner radius will create even more jobs......
can anybody make this to diesel lemons in 2?
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This is not quite the same safety issue, but equally daft.
In South Gloucestershire the B4509 is a steep hill from J14 of the M5, to Charfield and at 2 points going up the hill there are signs on the left saying "steep hill - keep in low gear" (or words to that effect). Quite clearly the bozos should have put them on the downhill side.
If you're driving a Citroen diesel up this hill with a boot full of lemons then you know you have to be in low gear, you don't need to be told!
Can I collect my prize?
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Coming by on the virtual conveyor belt .............. now
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Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm :-I" (now see what you've started ;-)
At a guess, two reasons:
1. As the outside is less tight, and so faster, it needs more light.
2. If they are on the inside they help to block the view round (across) the bend.
But neither, or even both, outweigh your safety point I would have thought.
But then again, if a motorcyclist is going fast and tight round a left hander ?!?!?!
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And there are not a few roundabouts which a driver can't see across, either because someone designed a hump in the middle, or because the grass hasn't been mown this year.
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Round our way there is a short stretch of 50 limited dual carrigageway that ends in a roundabout with a single carriageway after it. Really, the RH lane should be arrowed for turning right into a posh school, but it isn't. What they've done instead is grow dense bushes down the central reservation so car drivers approaching the roundabout can't see oncoming traffic turning right at the roundabout until they are actually at the roundabout. It simply creates un-necessary danger.
HJ
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Havering Council have seen fit to plant some pretty looking shrubs along the side of a road near me. These are on a verge between the road and the pavement. They are about waist high to an adult, but tall enough to completely hide a child waiting to cross the road. And in that same road is a junior school.......
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Wouldn't it good to get a reply from somebody who is responsible for this type of safety by design thinking!
Adding these examples together with other similar non thinking solutions, with a formal response from O ( new smiley for faceless bureaucrat?) this almost warrants a Telegraph Motoring Section Article.
HJ can you use your contacts or influence. (I only want 10% of the writers fee...)
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I think a lot of these design changes are part of the "current logic" (in quotes for obvious reasons) that if you make a road *appear* more hazardous then people will be more aware, slow down (might not be the correct solution but thats what they want us to do) and generally be more careful. Unfortunately some of these landscaping efforts to make it *appear* more hazardous *actually increase* the danger.
Again unfortunately what they have not yet realised is that an awfully high % of the great British public would not recognise an actual hazard (let alone potential hazards) until it leapt up smacked 'em between the eyes and demanded last minute phenomenal avoidance complete with expressions like "what the etc."
Because everone, well almost everyone believes they are the bees knees when it comes to driving. Its not me that's at fault it's all those other b*******.
So if someone, as I saw yesterday, cannot see an ambulance coming at them with everything going, yet it still had to stop to let madame mimser in her 4x4 look at her makeup are they going to think "ooh the sight lines on this islands a bit poor I better take extra care."
And as for 10% of writers fee thats not much then is it HJ. Thats a disgrace that is IMHO.
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Yes, but aren't the examples given really pedestrians driving cars, not real drivers ;-)
Could explain why up to 86% of pedestrian accidents are caused by pedestrians, 0.3% by drivers.
There's a fast bit of road between two clusters of schools in my area.
The pavements are yards away behind high banks.
Then "they" decided to create a seperate cycle path.
Plenty of room by (near/with seperation) the pavement.
So guess where "they" (O) built it?
Would that be "faceless bureaucrat covering ears in response to sound advice"?
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Ah......"I'm a real driver but the others aren't".
People who drive daily for business think they are "real" drivers, so do the police, and weekend competition drivers, don't forget those who have reached 75 without an accident, and of course the lorry drivers, mustn't forget the white van drivers who are nearly lorry drivers, bikers as well, those who can put a good post on the forum, BMW drivers, Morris Minor drivers (score double points for driving both those vehicles!).
You see we all think we are the real drivers....and we are. Everyone who has a license to drive is a real driver and has an equal right to be on the roads.
It's just that some of us are different drivers, but that doesn't make us right all the time.
Yes I did see your "wink" but the "real driver" attitude runs very deeply in loads of threads here.
David
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David
Don't know whether that was praise or damnation!
I think a key issue is that, whatever the views, everyone who posts here at least takes an interest in motoring, whether it be technical, taxation, safety, Citroens or any combination of those. Plus, there are those not afraid to ask a question. This is all good, because there's nothing worse than those who use the roads in a fog of disinterest about safety, the rules of the road or the condition of their vehicle. So I can't totally agree that everyone, just because they have a licence are 'real drivers' - many of them are really just 'road users' - which I'd define as those who don't take the correct degree of interest in their behavior on the road, for their sake and everyone else around them. Perhaps they really shouldn't be classed as 'real drivers'. Sure, taking an interest doesn't make you right all the time, but it must improve your chances!
regards
john
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John,
BMW and MM....just mild humour.
OK I think I know the ideal you would like so every "road user" is converted to a "real driver" , despite not agreeing with the difference.
But I always think of a phrase I use over and over again that I attribute to John Lennon (he may have picked it up from somewhere else) which is "Life is what you live while you are making plans".
And that is so true in this situation. It would be great if everyone on the road were Police trained, IAM members, skid-pan experienced, weekend competition drivers with cool minds and razor sharp reactions. The reality (ie.Life) is that 90% are just road users. That is all society and the law requires at present. If the other 10% who are real drivers want to push it then it is their responsibility to look out for themselves and others.
After all in the pouring rain at 60mph on the M25 it is very much a "team effort", one goes and you all go.
David
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david
Don't disagree at all. It's just that I think there is a significant difference in attitude between drivers, and that safety comes from educating all drivers to improve.
Regards
john
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There needs to be a shift from believing everyone has a right to drive on the roads to believing we have a responsibility when we're driving on the roads.
It seems that most people who contribute to The Back Room take driving seriously and responsibly whilst also enjoying their cars or bikes. This attitude doesn't appear to be commonplace. Most drivers aren't prepared to be critical of themselves or to learn how to improve - it's a stark contrast to the sentiments expressed on this site.
Those people who opt for soft roaders because they feel safer: they argue that they feel threatened by other road users - perhaps at some subconscious level they feel they're more likely to be involved in and maybe responsible for a crash.
Some friends, family, and colleagues I've spoken to about the IAM have said they wouldn't try it because they wouldn't like to be told what to do or what they were doing wrong: this is the attitude that needs changing, to move from "I've passed my test, have a licence, and have every right to be on the roads" to "How can I improve?" OK, they're real drivers but they're not good drivers.
Most people need some form of continuous training for work - plenty of people demand training from their employers. Yet, when it comes to driving we're reluctant to take advice, to be better, to be safer (not necessarily slower as my friends and family could confirm).
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David Woollard wrote:
>
> Ah......"I'm a real driver but the others aren't".
>
> People who drive daily for business think they are "real"
> drivers, so do the police, and weekend competition drivers,
> don't forget those who have reached 75 without an accident,
> and of course the lorry drivers, mustn't forget the white van
> drivers who are nearly lorry drivers, bikers as well, those
> who can put a good post on the forum, BMW drivers, Morris
> Minor drivers (score double points for driving both those
> vehicles!).
Telling off duly noted and accepted David.
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Stuart,
Not my place to issue a telling off, just my opinions. Perhaps the threads run out of control the most when we believe our opinions are facts.
David
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">Not my place to issue a telling off<"
It is good to see you know your place David (as all good rural folk should)
Hur,hur
M
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Don't forget a lot of people learn the basics on a driving school metro, then progress to the schoolrun or whatever in a company 4x4 or auto exec, and then go backwards on the same roads thinking that all they have to do is watch their speedos and they will be ok - after all it's worked so far.
And then something happens, or they take a different route, or a wrong turn and end up on the motorway...........................
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Lets get the thread back to the original title for the weekend www users!
My immediate reaction is that if they are using their computer they are at least not in cars, (but on second thoughts is anybody on this site going to admit to posting a response whilst driving?). I feel another prize opportunity........
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Most of the injuries in accidents are caused, not by the initial vehicle to vehicle collision, but by vehicles hitting stationary road-side objects such as lamp-posts, signs, telegraph poles, trees, railings etc..
This accounts for a large part of the better safety record of motorways where the number of roadside objects is minimal and those that are there are protected, so a minor accident, in spite of the higher speeds involved, does not often result in a secondary impact with an immovable object.
Better siting of lamps and poles would cut injuries, as would the overall reduction of roadside "furniture" by using a post for more than one purpose.
So often you see a lamp-post with a no waiting sign on a separate pole a few feet away, followed by another pole with a no left turn sign, followed by.........etc. etc.
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Roadside trees are the biggest hazard. Everything else will bend on impact, absorbing some om the energy in a collision, but a collision with a tree is always serious. A number of drivers locally have been killed in recent years after coming into contact with the same.
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Tom Shaw wrote:
>
> Roadside trees are the biggest hazard. Everything else will
> bend on impact, absorbing some om the energy in a collision,
> but a collision with a tree is always serious. A number of
> drivers locally have been killed in recent years after coming
> into contact with the same.
Thats why the French landscape is changing with millions of those road side trees being removed due to the carnage. I forget the figures but impact with trees is a significant cause of death in French RTA statistics.
Not sure but maybe they are being replanted further back. If they are you can be sure it will the EU that is paying for it and not the French motorist.
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Many contributors to this thread seem to be threatened by inanimate objects. Roundabouts, shrubs, junctions, lumps of granite and so on. All seem to be major hazards to some drivers. Tom Shaw even knows some anti-social trees. (Growing without due care and attention ?). I manage to get by without being assaulted by these things. Am I alone ?
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I would like to confirm that I have never been assaulted by a tree, Steve. The point everyone was making was that accidents do happen, no matter how careful we might like to think we are, and that the various items of street furniture plus any other obstructions add greatly to the damage sustained when one is unfortunate to collide with them.
Perhaps rubber trees are the answer.
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Not threatened by inanimate objects, just concerned at the secondary safety issue. If local authorities add cosmetic immovable objects to a roundabout that was previously 'moving object friendly' do they become partly liable in the event of an avoidable death?
It would be good to get a legal opinion from a qualified individual.
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Back to the madness...
near me there's a narrow (flat) bridge where one vehicle can pass at a time. It's on a slight bend on a rural road that is used as a bit of a rat run. Most drivers who know the road slow down and can easily see if there's a car coming the other way. But no longer! 'They' have decided to put in big reflective yellow warning signs on both sides of the road at both ends of the bridge, that now completely block the view of oncoming traffic. You can't see if there's anything coming until you've committed yourself to proceed...
I'm going to look into who makes these decisions and will report my findings in a new thread....
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I ll be interested in your research. Do you fancy doing a joint article? See my previous posting near the beginning?
If local authorities add cosmetic immovable objects to a roundabout that was previously 'moving object friendly' do they become partly liable in the event of an avoidable death?
It would be good to get a legal opinion from a qualified individual.
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