Grass verges obscuring view

[Silvanus]

K4sper said:

fatjon said:

K4sper said:

roundabout near me where the have actually planted substantial shrubbery on the verge leading up to the roundabout deliberately in order to obscure the view and force approaching vehicles to slow down

link here

absolutely ridiculous. WTF is wrong with the people making decisions like this.

It's excellent - people used to absolutely fly onto that roundabout and it's no bad thing that are forced to lift off a before they arrive...

Once you actually get to the roundabout there is a large clear area with loads of visibility.

[shtu]

fwiw, round my way the council cut a roughly 12" wide strip at the edge of the verge, once a year.

As I don't want the verges outside looking like the Borneo jungle, I cut the rest myself even though I don't own the land. I even pick up the litter.

No cease and desist so far.

[Randy Winkman]

Silvanus said:

K4sper said:

fatjon said:

K4sper said:

roundabout near me where the have actually planted substantial shrubbery on the verge leading up to the roundabout deliberately in order to obscure the view and force approaching vehicles to slow down

link here

absolutely ridiculous. WTF is wrong with the people making decisions like this.

It's excellent - people used to absolutely fly onto that roundabout and it's no bad thing that are forced to lift off a before they arrive...

Once you actually get to the roundabout there is a large clear area with loads of visibility.

Which is when visibility is needed. I can see there's potentially some benefit in obscuring vison further back so people arrive at a reasonable speed.

[MickC]

K4sper said:

fatjon said:

K4sper said:

roundabout near me where the have actually planted substantial shrubbery on the verge leading up to the roundabout deliberately in order to obscure the view and force approaching vehicles to slow down

link here

absolutely ridiculous. WTF is wrong with the people making decisions like this.

It's excellent - people used to absolutely fly onto that roundabout and it's no bad thing that are forced to lift off a before they arrive...

It really isn't, its just control freakery by the council, all they know how to do is 'SLOW DOWN!'. Maybe you should read roadcraft and learn about cross views? Round here, there are none because the council has done exactly the same and intentionally blocked them so you have to stop to be able to see traffic on the roundabout. Lowest common denominator as usual, which doesn't even work because morons will be morons so they still approach at speed and slam on the anchors if there is traffic on the roundabout, crossviews or not.

[Roofless Toothless]

K4sper said:

fatjon said:

K4sper said:

roundabout near me where the have actually planted substantial shrubbery on the verge leading up to the roundabout deliberately in order to obscure the view and force approaching vehicles to slow down

link here

absolutely ridiculous. WTF is wrong with the people making decisions like this.

It's excellent - people used to absolutely fly onto that roundabout and it's no bad thing that are forced to lift off a before they arrive...

I absolutely agree with K4sper.

This is a roundabout near me at the Sandon interchange on the A12. Coming up the slip road from the A12 the view to the right is obscured by trees.




This means you can’t see what’s coming off the two lane National Speed Limit road to the right. Approaching the same spot from that direction, there is an unobstructed view of the roundabout.



So traffic bombs onto the roundabout at unabated speed. If you are trying to get out of the slip road you just have to pull out and pray that nobody is tanking towards you unseen such that they have to pull up. Of course, when this happens it is all the other guy’s fault, and they never ever seem to understand what your predicament was. Much hooting and gesturing.

The layout desperately needs some barriers or vegetation to slow the traffic onto the roundabout from the two lane stretch.

By the way, tall vegetation obstructing the view onto a roundabout is one thing in a normal car, in something as low as a Caterham quite another. Plenty of times I had vans struggling to stop behind me because they couldn’t understand why I was stopping when any fool could see the roundabout was clear. I learned how to manage down the speed of vehicles behind me when I saw one of these situations coming up.

[InitialDave]

Randy Winkman said:

so people arrive at a reasonable speed.

Sensible drivers will arrive at the roundabouts at a reasonable speed even if you let them have really good visibility all the way along the approach.

tts will steam into them too aggressively even if you totally block their view of other traffic until they're at the line.

All that gets achieved is less opportunity for sensible drivers to spot and avoid the tts.

[nvubu]

I've just reported this junction to the Council in Welwyn Garden City. Lived here for 17 years, never been like this.

[oyster]

K4sper said:

roundabout near me where the have actually planted substantial shrubbery on the verge leading up to the roundabout deliberately in order to obscure the view and force approaching vehicles to slow down

link here

Thereby increasing fuel consumption and increasing emissions and local pollutants. Genius.

[oyster]

One of the main roads local to me has the grass verge trimmed back at junctions and on left-hand curves to aid view of the road ahead. Elsewhere it's left to grow wild.

Sensible.

This road is run by TfL.

[ATG]

InitialDave said:

Randy Winkman said:

so people arrive at a reasonable speed.

Sensible drivers will arrive at the roundabouts at a reasonable speed even if you let them have really good visibility all the way along the approach.

tts will steam into them too aggressively even if you totally block their view of other traffic until they're at the line.

All that gets achieved is less opportunity for sensible drivers to spot and avoid the tts.

Absolute tts will behave as you describe, but there are a large number of mildly ttish drivers who will slow down as a result of restricted visibility.

[ATG]

oyster said:

One of the main roads local to me has the grass verge trimmed back at junctions and on left-hand curves to aid view of the road ahead. Elsewhere it's left to grow wild.

Sensible.

This road is run by TfL.

That's exactly what you want. Cut it back where it needs to be cut back for visibility, but otherwise manage it as a habitat and wildlife corridor.

You can get some really interesting stuff growing on the verges often precisely because the soil is fairly poor. "Drive-by botanising" turns out to be a thing.

[Pica-Pica]

Randy Winkman said:

Silvanus said:

K4sper said:

fatjon said:

K4sper said:

roundabout near me where the have actually planted substantial shrubbery on the verge leading up to the roundabout deliberately in order to obscure the view and force approaching vehicles to slow down

link here

absolutely ridiculous. WTF is wrong with the people making decisions like this.

It's excellent - people used to absolutely fly onto that roundabout and it's no bad thing that are forced to lift off a before they arrive...

Once you actually get to the roundabout there is a large clear area with loads of visibility.

Which is when visibility is needed. I can see there's potentially some benefit in obscuring vison further back so people arrive at a reasonable speed.

Agreed.

[Pica-Pica]

Red9zero said:

Our local council does No Mow May, which basically means all the grass in the village looks like crap for 90% of the year. Last year they didn't start cutting the grass again until July and as they don't pick up the cut grass, it just lies on top until it rots away. Rubbish tends to get stuck in the long grass too, and some dog owners use it as an excuse to not pick their crap as they can't find it. But yeah, think of the bees

Yeah, it’s not if bees do anything useful, like … oh yeah, pollinate most crops and plants.

[dundarach]

Why not go and cut it back?

I'm sure you could borrow a petrol strimmer if you don't have one?

I maintain quite a bit near me, I even emailed the council for insurance purposes and asked if they minded, they were more than happy.

It annoyed me, now it doesn't and I enjoy looking after it.

Just a thought.

[PistonBroker]

shtu said:

fwiw, round my way the council cut a roughly 12" wide strip at the edge of the verge, once a year.

As I don't want the verges outside looking like the Borneo jungle, I cut the rest myself even though I don't own the land. I even pick up the litter.

No cease and desist so far.

As a kid, if we couldn't find my old man of an evening we knew to stroll down the road as he'd be trimming the hedge.

He didn't used to hang about in his Nova SR and cutting it back meant he had a bit more room to dive to the left if he encountered someone else on the country lane we lived on.

No cease and desist either, but then this was 30-odd years ago!