What is the purpose of the pairs of "tubes" across the road surface? Do they measure vehicle speed or do they count the number of vehicles, or are they for some other purpose?
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L\'escargot.
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Yes, they are linked to a PDA inside a secure box which counts the time, the speed, and the quantity of traffic. It's usually a precursor to some hare-brained scheme such as humps. Sometimes they keep getting put back until they get the figures they want.
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I used to live in a small village that straddles a busy B road, as it fed J6 of the M40. Despite some bends through the village it was clear that some traffic went through far too fast. We had the speed/counting device down for a fortnight, and it measured cars going though at up to 85 mph. It showed graphically the high volumes of traffic between 0700-0900 and 1600-1900.
Oxfordshire CC then decided to impose a 30 mph limit, which was lucky for one young lad, who a year or so later was hit by a car, and survived.
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They can also record the type of vehicles using the road based on the distance between axles.
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Oxfordshire CC then decided to impose a 30 mph limit which was lucky for one young lad who a year or so later was hit by a car and survived.
A shame they didnt spend the money on making kids more aware that not looking before crossing the road is dangerous. He might not have even been hurt in that case.
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A shame they didnt spend the money on making kids more aware that not looking before crossing the road is dangerous. He might not have even been hurt in that case.
What a stupid comment. Every child knows it's dangerous to cross the road without looking. Getting the state to tell them that is a waste of time.
You have no idea the circumstances of this incident; the OP was saying it might have saved his life, but you've got other theories.
I have no idea why people some get so defensive about any suggestion that it might be better if traffic slowed down in certain areas.
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Lets not forget that adults are taken out by cars often too not just kids
Education on dangers is not the answer - we all get pre occupied with our lives - how do you educate for that?
I was 'touched' by a damn big red double decker bus that I hadnt seen coming - my fault, driver aware and I got away with a nasty shock - all because the woman walking in front of me was wearing a skirt about 1 inch longer than her underwear
Have always thought that it wouldnt have been the ideal send off but a lot of men would have silently nodded with understanding :)
PS The reason the germans brought in the 'jay walking laws' was they believed that if people used specific areas to cross raods it would 'bring into their mind' a 'saftey protocol' of 'right Im going to cross a road now so I should be careful' - would that work in the uk?
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Every child knows it's dangerous to cross the road without looking.
Yes, but I'm not sure they're aware of how dangerous it can be. Children these days spend so little time on the roads that they don't get a lot of experience. Most of their free time seems to be spent either cycling on the pavement, playing on a playstation, watching the telly, or being ferried about in their parents' car. In my younger days, when we had to make your own enjoyment, the roads formed a large part of our "playground". Just as with driving, there's no substitute for experience when it comes to crossing the road.
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L\'escargot.
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SNIPQUOTE! A shame they didnt spend the money on making kids more aware that not looking before crossing the road is dangerous. He might not have even been hurt in that case.
Yes, because a kid is obviously going to be looking out for a car doing 85mph through a village.
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MichaelR: "A shame they didnt spend the money on making kids more aware that not looking before crossing the road is dangerous. He might not have even been hurt in that case."
Whgat a staggeringly stupid response. My son's five. He's VERY aware of roads - I live on a suburban sidestreet used as a cut-through. If he was walking doen the street and a football bounced out of a garden into the road in front of him, I suspect it would be 50:50 whether his training ("Don't run into the road") or his instinct ("look, a football!") would guide him for the next few seconds. What do you think?
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>>We had the speed/counting device down for a fortnight, and it measured cars going though at
>>up to 85 mph.
Obviously the speed element is calculated by time it takes for each axle to pass over the two tubes which are often seem to be around 12 inches apart. But how does it manage to do this with any degree of reliability?
For example if a car was to tow a twin axle caravan across the 'tubes' (think very short distance between the two axles on the caravan), how can it distinguish a difference between it being either a very short wheelbase vehicle such as this caravan travelling at the correct speed or say a normal car travelling at double the speed?
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"For example if a car was to tow a twin axle caravan across the 'tubes' (think very short distance between the two axles on the caravan), how can it distinguish a difference between it being either a very short wheelbase vehicle such as this caravan travelling at the correct speed or say a normal car travelling at double the speed?"
The ones I've seen, the wires were about a foot apart, so no problem.
V
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One evening I saw a policeman wielding a hand held camera in a road not noted locally for speeding. As he wasn't busy I asked him why he was on that stretch and he said they had had the lines to check car speeds/volume of traffic and it showed over a certain percentage of offenders hence his random presence over the next few weeks. Wonder if their figures accounted for the number of dinghies and other boats being towed up and down there?
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I would imagine that the majority of the vehicles going over are 'standard' vehicles. The counts are done over a long period of time, so the odd caravan / trailer will not have a significant impact on the results.
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i used to jump on those rubber bellow things at traffic lights when i was a kid but never got the lights to change
obviously this is of no help whatsoever but its saturday and its very quiet on the streets are all the kids being given their end of holiday baths for school monday?
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These devices were around more than 40 years ago when I was a kid.
When we spotted one we used to spend time riding our bikes to and fro over them to prove we could outwit new technology...
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Yes used to ride over them in circles to muck up their stats. Probably explains why they built ten motorways into our village.
Also used to ride over the rubber tubes on the petrol station forecourt too just to annoy the old bloke who worked there.
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i used to jump on those rubber bellow things at traffic lights when i was a kid but never got the lights to change
I had forgotten about those bb. Very unyielding to the young human foot they were, now you come to mention it. They were slippery when wet too, and just before they were all taken away quite a lot of them burst and shed their innards like tyres showing canvas...
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