Was going out for the day in the peak district and on my way to the place when my Sat Nav took my down a perfectly normal but typical rural A-road, nothing unusual there.
The road had recently been stone chipped but it had bedded in. Still, took it easy was doing half the limit, 30mph maybe 40mph with nothing around so i wasn't holding anyone up.
All of a sudden i realised i was on a different road. All kinds of horrible thoughts, worry and dissapointment came flooding in. I try to drive safely and to my best abilities and when i realised i just shot a junction at nearly 40mph i was very disappointed, maybe with myself, maybe partly with the stone chipped road.
There were no official road signs indicating a junction, no road markings, presumably covered up by the stone chip (i know they temporarily sign up to say to this effect but with the absence of official junction signs i wasn't to know the road ended), no visual indication the road was changing as there was a small crest and one could just assume the stone chip ended and the road looked like a continuation of the road i was already on. Even the Sat Nav didn't tell me anything not that i rely on that. I reliased at the last second i just shot a junction and quickly glanced left, luckily nothing was coming.
Gutted, and got my thinking that day and now i will learn from my mistakes and the next time i travel on a gravel bed road i will be aware of any other roads
I was traveling on the road marked A when i shot the junction:
maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=53.008...9
Has anyone else had these types of freak occurances when driving?
|
>>Has anyone else had these types of freak occurances when driving?
Yes, in very similar cicumstances, somewhere on the Llewyn peninsular IIRC. Fortunately(?) there was a high-sided artic approaching from my left on the road I should have been giving way to. If it had been something smaller, I doubt I would have seen it. Thank heavens for ABS.
|
|
Should i report this to the local police, my concerns or could i be giving them ammunition?
Edited by OldSkoOL on 26/05/2009 at 16:38
|
Has anyone else... ?
A few times probably. Sometimes with less excuse than that too. Never come to grief on an occasion like that though, only when driving properly in places where nothing untoward was to be expected...
Edited by Lud on 26/05/2009 at 16:43
|
I travelled the same road this weekend, although, knowing the junction was there, I gave way. I cannot remember what the signage was like - I'm fairly sure there is a triangular give way sign on the left hand side.
However, cresting that brow at over 30 - you certainly couldn't stop in the distance you could see to be safe - junction or not!
|
Yes its happened to me, in almost exectly the same circumstances. The only difference was I hit a bus and wrote off my vehicle, the bus and injured three people.
Since my accident the road layout has been changed, a 1/4 mile section of road has been made one way leading away from the hazard. I dont suppose they did it just on my accident, I assume I was one of many.
|
|
|
I too keep trying to remember whether there was a give way sign there of not.
I find it hard to believe i would have missed it as i try to be observant as possible. I couldn't make one out on google maps either.
The crest in the road was just like many rural humps i drove over all weekend, it just didn't seem like a junction. I'm 40 mins away now so i can't go back and check where i went wrong.
Edited by OldSkoOL on 26/05/2009 at 21:07
|
I did the same at a crossroads in a residential area of East London.
The road - and pretty much everything else - was covered in snow.
|
|
I did it in Wales on a lane between Gwaenysgor and Trelawnyd on a CB100 motor bike a long, long time ago - a lesson learnt.
Edited by Pugugly on 27/05/2009 at 17:42
|
One of the first times I drove in Germany before I got used to the different traffic light layouts here resulted in an experience that still brings me out in a cold sweat when I think about it. In Germany the traffic lights are always in front of a junction, not the other side (I've since learned).
Anyway, I was stopped at a red light at a junction with 4 lanes of traffic crossing (one side of a big dual carriageway). The traffic light the other side of the junction turned green and I drove through what turned out to be a gap in the traffic crossing the junction. The green light, of course, was for crossing the other part of the dual carriageway which was about 20m the far side of the lanes I'd just crossed. My traffic light, judging by the hooting of the cars behind me and the volume of heavily braking traffic to my left, was still very firmly on red.
|
Yep - in England Cornwall & in Scotland Galloway
Lots of the back roads & junctions there that have very little even no form of white paint or signage at all.
Learnt the hard way & now drive using the Satnav map as a visible guide to the road layout and to clarify the route I am on.
OS - looking at the road junction in the map you have provided - would it be worth contacting the highways agency to advise them of the missing white lines & signs?
Edited by Tron on 27/05/2009 at 21:22
|
There is a crossroads near home which was plagued with accidents years ago in spite of the ' give way ' signs'
Eventually the powers that be realised what was causing the problem.
The colour of the road surface of the minor road was continuous across the major road. A stretch of re-colouring on the major road sorted it out....eventually
Ted
|
Someone I know slightly, an English rock musician, for a couple of years in the seventies entered a Range Rover, its only modification a high-level exhaust pipe extension running up the rear corner of the car, in the Argungu Rally in Nigeria.
Most of the course was on unmade roads. But in the far North, competitors would sometimes see crowds of spectators in the distance, enthusiastically waving the speeding motors on. In the middle of the crowd, too late to slow down much, drivers would suddenly see that they were about to cross a main road at right angles to the track they were hammering along. The effect was like going over a giant speed bump. After being fired into the air several times like this while leading the rally, my acquaintance retired suddenly with a smashed front axle.
He was very funny about the spectators and their enthusiasm. Also about the three Toyotas that got trapped in a rural village and burst through its brushwood perimeter walls simultaneously in three different places and raced off into the desert in three different directions... No doubt leaving behind clouds of chicken feathers and furious local householders hurling rocks and imprecations.
|
|
|
_COLON_no_upscale()/cdn.uk.prod.group-mobility-trader.com/images/fallback/coming-soon.jpg)
