Lincs to cut visibility on the roads.........
Discussion
Reducing visibility to prevent accidents, are they quite mad?
http://www.thisislincolnshire.co.uk:80/displayNode...
'CUT VISIBILITY' PLAN FOR ROADS
08:00 - 03 November 2007
Road bends will be made sharper and drivers' visibility will be reduced using trees and hedges under new council plans.
Signs could be removed, guard rails ripped out and the number of traffic lanes reduced as part of a plan to slow motorists down and prevent accidents.
Lincolnshire County Council says too many roads have been "over-engineered".
And under new draft guidance from the authority road designers will in future be asked to consider reducing visibility on bends.
The aim is to force drivers to take more care.
Alan Freeman, Lincolnshire head of planning and conservation, said: "Looking at some roads and streets you can see that they have been over-engineered in relation to what people actually want and need.
"There has to be a balance between putting the onus on drivers and pedestrians and effective engineering.
"The solution is not always found in stacking up the number of signs and barriers."
Association of British Drivers spokesman Paul Biggs said he did not believe the council plan was good idea.
"Many roads are too cluttered but reducing visibility at junctions is not sensible," he said.
"Observation is an important part of driving safely."
But the council claims that the idea has worked successfully in other counties.
For the full story see Saturday's Lincolnshire Echo.
http://www.thisislincolnshire.co.uk:80/displayNode...
'CUT VISIBILITY' PLAN FOR ROADS
08:00 - 03 November 2007
Road bends will be made sharper and drivers' visibility will be reduced using trees and hedges under new council plans.
Signs could be removed, guard rails ripped out and the number of traffic lanes reduced as part of a plan to slow motorists down and prevent accidents.
Lincolnshire County Council says too many roads have been "over-engineered".
And under new draft guidance from the authority road designers will in future be asked to consider reducing visibility on bends.
The aim is to force drivers to take more care.
Alan Freeman, Lincolnshire head of planning and conservation, said: "Looking at some roads and streets you can see that they have been over-engineered in relation to what people actually want and need.
"There has to be a balance between putting the onus on drivers and pedestrians and effective engineering.
"The solution is not always found in stacking up the number of signs and barriers."
Association of British Drivers spokesman Paul Biggs said he did not believe the council plan was good idea.
"Many roads are too cluttered but reducing visibility at junctions is not sensible," he said.
"Observation is an important part of driving safely."
But the council claims that the idea has worked successfully in other counties.
For the full story see Saturday's Lincolnshire Echo.
catso said:
Hooli said:
reducing visability is bloody stupid, what sort of retarded 
wit came up with one?
"Alan Freeman, Lincolnshire head of planning and conservation" it would seem........ wit came up with one?It sounds utterly stupid to me. But it reminds me of a report about a safety campaign in the US a couple of decades ago. They had lots of ungated level crossings in the middle of nowhere, and found that they were getting lots of people hits by trains. They decided the problem was that the trains were so rare that people more or less ignored the possibility and approached the junction on the assumption they could drive through - by the time they saw the trains it was too late to stop. So they did a lot of work to improve the visibility and sort out the alignment so car drivers could see the trains from hundreds of yards away in plenty of time to stop. It didn't make the slightest difference. Drivers saw the trains, decided they could beat them, and got mowed down by the trains just as often as before.
Going back to junctions, it might not reduce the number of accidents, and I think it is bound to increase traffic noise and congestion and all that involving carbon "footprints", but one thing it probably will do is make the accidents smaller.
Going back to junctions, it might not reduce the number of accidents, and I think it is bound to increase traffic noise and congestion and all that
involving carbon "footprints", but one thing it probably will do is make the accidents smaller.The steep, narrow, twisty moorland roads here in West Yorks have plenty of blind corners already. People still regularly take these blind corners faster than they can handle, stack it into the drystone wall, force oncomers into the ditch as they round the blind corner fast, on the wrong side of the already-narrow road, screech to a halt inches away from a head-on crash and generally drive like a complete tt while getting away with it 99.9% of the time.
Anyone who deliberately tries to build these hazards into the roads deserves to be shot, quite frankly.
t while getting away with it 99.9% of the time. Anyone who deliberately tries to build these hazards into the roads deserves to be shot, quite frankly.
streaky said:
Rob-C said:
Anyone who deliberately tries to build these hazards into the roads deserves to be shot, quite frankly.
I submit that they should be shot quite slowly - Streaky
of their daftness to just peek around their blinkered visions here. Cheshire.. They spent a fortune on the Cat&Fiddle road. They put in lots of paint.. signs. They say the road has been "tamed" by this engineering. It not featuring on Traffic News/ROadwatch as often in past two years since this. They also have .. a regular trafpol having fun on this road too.
Clutter of non-essential signs .. or cluster of road furniture .. bad.
Sensible signage - with properly thought out civil engineering/road engineering.. that the ideal which will not happen as far too simple
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