Why do they always blame the road
Discussion
We have had a few serious crashes around our village. One a poor chap was coming home from work and a drunk driver wiped him out, this week a eighteen year old decided to go straight on at a bend and attempted to fell a tree ( he lost the tree is still there) . What I find interesting is the local paper and our council, always blame the roads, wanting to erect speed cameras and speed bumps and calling the roads notorious black spots. When they are not, a drunk driver and a teenager who has run out of talent at three in the morning is not the fault of the road 
Edited by Lordglenmorangie on Thursday 8th September 19:31
They did that around me. Had a spate of crashes in the dark, rain, ice - a temporary limit was imposed of 40mph in what was originally a national limit. It's now a permanent 40, after an extended 30 limit. A safe area for overtakes has gone, all because a few didn't observe the bend signs - or indeed the original 30 limit - two of the crashes were in the original 30!
Bri
Bri
Std knee jerk procedure i'm afraid. Since no one is allowed to be just "unlucky" and die any longer, we have to always blame something for the death.
On my fav B road commute, the local council have plastered the entire thing in sharp bend signs, 50mph limits, speed camera, hi grip surface, extra white lines and marking, warning signs for every eventually, and guess what, yup, just as many people still crash as before. Why? Well, just as before 10% are probably going to fast and fall off, 90& just aren't paying attention to what they are doing. Unfortunately, in both cases, none of the "improvements" to the road actually help.
On my fav B road commute, the local council have plastered the entire thing in sharp bend signs, 50mph limits, speed camera, hi grip surface, extra white lines and marking, warning signs for every eventually, and guess what, yup, just as many people still crash as before. Why? Well, just as before 10% are probably going to fast and fall off, 90& just aren't paying attention to what they are doing. Unfortunately, in both cases, none of the "improvements" to the road actually help.
Got a really dangerous road near me. It rears up in front of you without warning, you think it's going to go left then, suddenly at the last minute it develops a chasm that you fall into. If you stop in a layby, spikes shoot up under your car and the surface is tarmac but changes to stainless steel covered in vaseline around every bend.
There is no such thing as a dangerous road. What's dangerous are the incompetent idiots using it.
There is no such thing as a dangerous road. What's dangerous are the incompetent idiots using it.
There are bits of road which are going to be more dangerous by nature. It's no coincidence that our motorways are per car mile the safest roads in the country.
When you get things like unmarked hidden dips, road realignments where the original hedgerows have been left in place, white lines down the middle of roads that aren't quite wide enough for two cars, and similar, you will get more accidents solely because the road layout does not help the driver make correct decisions, even if they are not a fundamentally bad driver.
Quite often these sorts of layouts have come about completely by accident, and due to the low traffic density it's never realised how bad the situation actually is.
When you get things like unmarked hidden dips, road realignments where the original hedgerows have been left in place, white lines down the middle of roads that aren't quite wide enough for two cars, and similar, you will get more accidents solely because the road layout does not help the driver make correct decisions, even if they are not a fundamentally bad driver.
Quite often these sorts of layouts have come about completely by accident, and due to the low traffic density it's never realised how bad the situation actually is.
Lordglenmorangie said:
We have had a few serious crashes around our village. One a poor chap was coming home from work and a drunk driver wiped him out, this week a eighteen year old decided to go straight on at a bend and attempted to fell a tree ( he lost the tree is still there) . What I find interesting is the local paper and our council, always blame the roads, wanting to erect speed cameras and speed bumps and calling the roads notorious black spots. When they are not, a drunk driver and a teenager who has run out of talent at three in the morning is not the fault of the road
You don't live in or around Dunfermline do you?ajsphead said:
Got a really dangerous road near me. It rears up in front of you without warning, you think it's going to go left then, suddenly at the last minute it develops a chasm that you fall into. If you stop in a layby, spikes shoot up under your car and the surface is tarmac but changes to stainless steel covered in vaseline around every bend.
There is no such thing as a dangerous road. What's dangerous are the incompetent idiots using it.
There is no such thing as a dangerous road. What's dangerous are the incompetent idiots using it.
Always makes me laugh when we get into winter and roads are, by default, described as 'treacherous'.
That means the roads themselves are committing pre-meditated acts of treachery and treason.
The A6, for example, once hatched a plot to kill Prince Phillip.
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