I was following a school bus this morning down a local road on which the Council has installed islands on alternate sides to create chicanes.
The bus started to pull out to go round one of these islands and then stopped on the wrong side of the road.
When I managed to look past it down the inside, I found that the bus had actually got into a head-on situation with a car coming the other way.
The car was in the right, the bus at fault and they both stopped a few feet from colliding.
IMHO these things are potentially lethal. If either the bus or car had been going at the 30mph limit I dread to think of the consequences.
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I couldn't agree more. I prefer to refer to them as 'Traffic Harming Measures'.
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\"Nothing less than 8 cylinders will do\"
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Where I live they've put a lot of islands in the middle of the road, fine for pedestrians crossing but not when you come up behind a cyclist as he approaches one!
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Not being funny PR but surely all you have to do in that situation is slow down momentarily, let the cyclist through and then carry on and overtake where safe.
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Agreed as long as there isn't a car up your behind, and its dark, and the bike isn't well lit
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PR - yes that's true. I I've lived close to a similar road to that you describe for almost 20 years now but in that scenario it's not the traffic engineers or the pedestrian refuges which are at fault it's the driver who's speeding, on his phone, up your tailpipe or whatever and/or the cyclist who's got no lights. I've very few problems with most traffic calming measures but much more of a problem with idiots (like those you describe) who behave irresponsibly and then try to blame the measures that are put in to try and curb their behaviour.
I once heard someone try to argue that a motorcyclist (who was seriously speeding at the time) wouldn't have been killed when he lost control of his bike if he hadn't hit a pedestrian refuge. I sympathised of course but couldn't help making the point that he probably wouldn't have lost control and been killed if he'd been observing the 30mph speed limit. The truth is that it's bad drivers who are to blame for most traffic calming measures.
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These chicanes are lethal.
I live in a town in Oxfordshire that installed them last year.
The first week they were in use,i was nearly hit head on by cars that refused to give way.There were two head on crashes and a cyclist was knocked off their bycycle.
I rang and spoke to the council traffic planning officer, who dismissed out of hand my concerns and he expreesed the opinion that he was only interested in stopping traffic flow through the town and that he was not concerned about any accidents!!.Needless to say i was flabberghasted.
I do have the council officers name and when somebody is killed at thes chicanes i shall be giving this story to the local press.
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I live in a town in Oxfordshire that installed them last year.
Bicester? Banbury Road? lethal....
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Henley or Wallingford, I expect.
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Yup, couldn't agree more.
In my town there is a chicane with no priority in either direction; it simply puts traffic on a collision course. On my daily trip to the pub there are two priority chicanes in a village; I've lost count of the near-collisions I've seen, partly because the standard signs for these things are inherently confusing. Those who understand the signposting often race for the gap; others will assert their right of way regardless of the consequences (e.g. when someone else has mistakenly got into the chicane against the priority).
Sometimes I wonder how many traffic engineers are sharing the one brain cell. Funny how "traffic-calming" devices enrage most drivers.
Elsewhere I have called for evidence and expert opinion on damage caused by speed humps. Please can I have some more?
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Try the ABD website.
www.abd.org.uk/index.htm
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\"Nothing less than 8 cylinders will do\"
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I almost failed my test on those.
I was behind a big artic and left plenty of room but as we rounded a bend, he turned and I slammed on because in the middle of the road was a stupid chicane, absolutely massive, with bashed bollards on it, stretching to the pavement.
I stopped in time, and actually said to the examiner "Sorry - I've never been around here before but I should have stopped earlier" I couldn't but that's irrelevant.
I passed with 1 minor, and she said "Well done for realising about the chicanes."
Dumb it down a little and it sounds ridiculous. Putting concrete all along half of the road on a bend in the name of....*chuckle* road safety.
Hilarious when you think about it.
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Adam
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In my town there is a chicane with no priority in either direction;
Signed chicanes are littered around my locale. Unfortunately, no-one ever remembers what the "you have priority" and "give way to traffic coming at you" signs look like, if they notice them at all. These monuments to road design stupidity might as well be unsigned. The illuminated bollards never seem to last more than a few days at a time.
Hawkeye
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Stranger in a strange land
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