Can a road actually be 'dangerous'?

[Beer Man]

It's forever in the press, especially that useless excuse for a 'news'paper that is our local rag where this article comes from but is a road ever 'dangerous'?

It's surely not the road but the manner of driving?

I'm sure a few of you will know this particular stretch of the A285 especially if you've been to Goodwood and there's NOTHING dangerous about it, in fact it's a bloody good, fun drive.

http://www.theargus.co.uk/news/11574928.Britain_s_most_dangerous_stretch_of_road_is_in_Sussex_but_not_where_you_might_think/

[tenohfive]

Link above working here.

Some roads are badly designed and can in of themselves be dangerous - blind junctions on bends or concealed behind obstructions - but a lot touted as dangerous aren't inherently so, but do require the attention of those driving on it. A fair percentage of drivers aren't as attentive as they should be, and councils have to cater for them. Not least because more often than not it seems that their victims fare much worse than they.

[jamieduff1981]

Yes of course. There are plenty roads out there with very poor layouts which land T-junctions in places where there isn't adequate visibility of the ajoined road, for example.

Any road with disproportionate accident rates cannot be coincidences. Drivers can be blamed so far but sometimes there are roads which mislead a disproportionate number of normal drivers and not just the lowest tiers of competency.

[Kozy]

A road local to me all but fell into the sea recently, taking a few houses with it. Likewise, the road outside my parents cliff top property is also falling away.

So yes, some certainly can be!

[TheHound]

This road looks pretty dangerous to me...

http://nosher.net/images/1987/1987-09-14SeanVisitA...

http://aquariumofvulcan.blogspot.co.uk/2010/08/bus...

[kiseca]

Same drivers yet some roads have more accidents than others. That rules out driver behaviour as a sole cause. Changing driver behaviour to suit that road may solve the problem, but that action in itself acknowledges that the road in question is more likely to expose weaknesses in a driver - and being human we all have weaknesses - than others. Or to put it another way, some roads justgive you more opportunities to screw up.

Predictability is safer. That's why it's safer to use your indicators, to pull away at an ordinary pace, to drive at or around the speed limit (or rather the speed of the cars around you), not to racing line over roundabouts, all that stuff. Do what everyone around you expects you to do and they are less likely to crash into you.

Same thing with roads. Ones that compensate for common mistakes are safer than ones that don't. Conversely, if you keep throwing tricky situations at even the most careful person, eventually they will drop their guard just once, and slip up, simply because you improved the odds of catching them out in a weak or inattentive moment.

[ging84]

Yes a road can be dangerous, because one of the features of a road is fast moving vehicles.
Trying to argue it's not is like trying to argue that a jungle isn't dangerous, it's just some of the creatures that live in it that can be

[paranoid airbag]

Yes (but it depends on context).

If you've crashed, blaming the road layout makes you a tit. Your job is to deal with the road layout.

If you've designed a road where people are crashing a lot, blaming them makes you a tit. Your job is to deal with the drivers.

So if someone's crashed, saying "roads are dangerous" enables only the road users who are tits and blame others. If a statistically worring number of crashes are happening, saying "roads aren't dangerous" enables only the road designers who are tits.

As a general rule.

[SLCZ3]

The old A9 was regarded as dangerous and to some degree still is, I used to drive it regular, in a enthusiastic manner, and I am still alive today, a road is dangerous when the driver using it does not drive to the road condition, overtaking on blind bends etc or, as I saw once, not anticipating that the humpy section North of Perth will, if you do not ease off over the summits, cause you after about three of them to try and achieveflight, leaving your car approx. 50 yards into a field which was only accessable by clearing a six foot dry stone wall topped with 2 foot of wire netting.

[Baryonyx]

jamieduff1981 said:

Yes of course.

Indeed, I'm thinking of a few local country rounds now with badly placed junctions, concealed sideroads, exits to tracks on blind bends etc etc. Even just some with cambers that look flat, but exert quite a drag on your car or bike when you ride over then and see they're actually quite adverse! Things like this are a result of B roads just springing up they go, without much planning, and they're better for the unpredictability.

Some urban roads, which are supposed to be 'planned' are just badly designed from the off. No UK road in inherently dangerous, it's the drivers that make it so but most drivers just following about 10% of the signs signs, look at their speedo and follow the car in front. Very little thinking or planning, which is where the problems start.