Traffic Calming Road Redesign, BiB Question
Discussion
Of late, our local council have been spending money willy nilly on minor junction redesign in residential areas (despite the fact that the majority of the local roads resemble a rally stage, but that's another gripe entirely).
What they have been doing is sharpening the turnings onto estates from main roads, often narrowing both roads at this point.
Whilst this has been an excellent excuse to hone my handbrake turning technique it has become a source of annoyance; where once safe and comfortable (30mph) progress was previously made, now the traffic often grinds to a halt whilst people have to negotiate said junctions at sub 10mph.
"So what?" you may think however, yesterday I nearly had a head on collision with an impatient halfwit who, rather than wait a minute decided to overtake on my side of the road.
Anyway, ramble over, my question for the resident BiBs is, have you noticed an increase in numbers and severity of collisions at redesigned junctions like this?
What they have been doing is sharpening the turnings onto estates from main roads, often narrowing both roads at this point.
Whilst this has been an excellent excuse to hone my handbrake turning technique it has become a source of annoyance; where once safe and comfortable (30mph) progress was previously made, now the traffic often grinds to a halt whilst people have to negotiate said junctions at sub 10mph.
"So what?" you may think however, yesterday I nearly had a head on collision with an impatient halfwit who, rather than wait a minute decided to overtake on my side of the road.
Anyway, ramble over, my question for the resident BiBs is, have you noticed an increase in numbers and severity of collisions at redesigned junctions like this?
I'd imagine there are an increase in the number of minor collisions, there has to be.
Some of the "redesigned" junctions I've seen are so tight that it's impossible to turn into the side road if there's a car waiting to turn out. Makes for queues, holdups, people overtaking round the outside of the waiting cars - seen it all happen.
Since when did road safety mean redesigning our roads to make them as awkward as possible?
I mean, the other week, my girlfriend and I were driving down a road in the exeter suburbs. It was dark, and there was a car coming the other way. No problem you'd think, but we'd never driven the road before, and all of a sudden, a traffic calming "chicane" with iron bollards appeared out of the dark in front of us. The poxy reflective strips had been completely masked out by the lights of the car coming the other way, and we had to make a proper emergency stop from 30mph in a matter of feet... Yeah, that's really contributing to safety
Some of the "redesigned" junctions I've seen are so tight that it's impossible to turn into the side road if there's a car waiting to turn out. Makes for queues, holdups, people overtaking round the outside of the waiting cars - seen it all happen.
Since when did road safety mean redesigning our roads to make them as awkward as possible?
I mean, the other week, my girlfriend and I were driving down a road in the exeter suburbs. It was dark, and there was a car coming the other way. No problem you'd think, but we'd never driven the road before, and all of a sudden, a traffic calming "chicane" with iron bollards appeared out of the dark in front of us. The poxy reflective strips had been completely masked out by the lights of the car coming the other way, and we had to make a proper emergency stop from 30mph in a matter of feet... Yeah, that's really contributing to safety
Around my area there have been many instances of filter lanes being hatched out, forcing 90 degree turns off the road. Now these filter lanes were on roads with 50 and 60 limits and enabled turning vehicles to pull off the main drag and slow down without incomoding following traffic. Now those turning vehicles must brake to under 30, causing a ripple back as everybody brakes. Safer? Please explain. Oh, and BTW, I ignore them in the interests of my safety.
On another 50 limit there was a very wide junction on the left that allowed vehicles to sweep off the main road without slowing. Now it has been blocked off and a semi-hard-back turn created. To negotiate this in an average saloon requires you to slow to some 20mph ... with the same consequences as mentioned above. Vehicles towing trailers, long rigids and articulated lorries have to swing out to the right across the centre line of the main road and take a large bite out of the opposite side of the road they are turning into (so of course if there is a vehicle there waiting to turn right onto the main road there is a serious bu99eration factor). Is this safer? I don't think so!
I have always belived that direction signs should be located by someone who does not live in the area. Now I have a stronger belief ... that road engineers should be motorists; should reside in the area for which they are engineering roads; and should be made to drive through their creations in real life, not just on a computer simulation.
Streaky
On another 50 limit there was a very wide junction on the left that allowed vehicles to sweep off the main road without slowing. Now it has been blocked off and a semi-hard-back turn created. To negotiate this in an average saloon requires you to slow to some 20mph ... with the same consequences as mentioned above. Vehicles towing trailers, long rigids and articulated lorries have to swing out to the right across the centre line of the main road and take a large bite out of the opposite side of the road they are turning into (so of course if there is a vehicle there waiting to turn right onto the main road there is a serious bu99eration factor). Is this safer? I don't think so!
I have always belived that direction signs should be located by someone who does not live in the area. Now I have a stronger belief ... that road engineers should be motorists; should reside in the area for which they are engineering roads; and should be made to drive through their creations in real life, not just on a computer simulation.
Streaky
The traffic calming on the perimiter road of the estate I live is appaling. There are a number of pinch points which are be bad enough on a road with good visability, but this particular road has a constant bend to it meaning you don't have good visability past most of them. If someone happened to be going too fast coming the other way, you wouldn't be able to see them as you go through the pinch point and then you end up with a head on collision.
And if that wasn't badly designed enough, there are a few of these pinch points just yards from junctions for side roads too.
What are they going to come up with next - crashing rocks (like out of Jason and the Argonauts) at traffic lights? Or how about large axes, swinging like pendulums on motorways - these could be used to promote leaving a safe gap between yourself and the car in front.
And if that wasn't badly designed enough, there are a few of these pinch points just yards from junctions for side roads too.
What are they going to come up with next - crashing rocks (like out of Jason and the Argonauts) at traffic lights? Or how about large axes, swinging like pendulums on motorways - these could be used to promote leaving a safe gap between yourself and the car in front.
My daily drive involves a country road with bollards intentionally placed into the left hand side of the road to force traffic onto the other side of the road.
There are fresh pieces of glass/indicator lense on the road by these bollards each week and a nasty accident at least once a month, usually a vehicle pulling the wing or bumper off a vehicle coming in the opposite direction.
The people who design (and approve for implementation) these need a sharp, barbed rod inserted into their anus and rammed up and down for 30 minutes.
There are fresh pieces of glass/indicator lense on the road by these bollards each week and a nasty accident at least once a month, usually a vehicle pulling the wing or bumper off a vehicle coming in the opposite direction.
The people who design (and approve for implementation) these need a sharp, barbed rod inserted into their anus and rammed up and down for 30 minutes.
Stand to get shot at but needs saying.
The job of a Traffic Management Enginner is not easy. He has to comply with directives from you know where which is currently heavily towards road safety and reduction of severity of accidents by curtailing speed. (Or hadn't you noticed).
They may well be implementing schemes on certian feed back from certain quarters.
It is refreshing to note concern of drivers as mentioned in this thread but why not extend your experiences by WRITING to the Authority and expressing your concerns. They may take notice or supply a reasonable account as to why they have done what they have. Sure as hell they are not going to take notice of your posts on here.
DVD
The job of a Traffic Management Enginner is not easy. He has to comply with directives from you know where which is currently heavily towards road safety and reduction of severity of accidents by curtailing speed. (Or hadn't you noticed).
They may well be implementing schemes on certian feed back from certain quarters.
It is refreshing to note concern of drivers as mentioned in this thread but why not extend your experiences by WRITING to the Authority and expressing your concerns. They may take notice or supply a reasonable account as to why they have done what they have. Sure as hell they are not going to take notice of your posts on here.
DVD
Dwight VanDriver said:
Stand to get shot at but needs saying.
It is refreshing to note concern of drivers as mentioned in this thread but why not extend your experiences by WRITING to the Authority and expressing your concerns. They may take notice or supply a reasonable account as to why they have done what they have. Sure as hell they are not going to take notice of your posts on here.
DVD
What the man said. Write to your local traffic engineers and offer some constructive suggestions for improving things - don't just blast them with "you're a car-hating t
t' letters, because most of them (believe it or not) aren't. You may have to battle through a few letters/e-mails to get your point across, but it's worth it.busa_rush said:
The people who design (and approve for implementation) these need a sharp, barbed rod inserted into their anus and rammed up and down for 30 minutes.
Agreed, but with one amendment.
The rod should be red hot.
Additionally, if the council were financially responsible, with their jobs on the line, for the increased congestion and number of accidents as a result of their utter stupidity, that may also alter their "management" of traffic flow somewhat.
Planting hedges and erecting fences in the median on approaches to roundabouts has to rank as the most halfwitted example of this trend. The idea must be that you HAVE to slow down because you have no idea if there is any traffic on the roundabout until you get there. Great, but Mr 32 tonne behind can see clean over them and he ain't stoppin!
Total f*kw*ts.
Since when was creating a hazard an acceptable way of improving safety? Would these "measures" pass any reasonable risk assessment? I think not.
All part of the anti-motorist trend. Lentil munching scum.
Total f*kw*ts.
Since when was creating a hazard an acceptable way of improving safety? Would these "measures" pass any reasonable risk assessment? I think not.
All part of the anti-motorist trend. Lentil munching scum.
Since when did a "safety modification" ever deliberately put approaching objects on a collision course?
They have just put some pedestrian railings up near me, despite there never being a pedestrian casualty in the area. Very laudable, except they now obscure your view out of the junction. It's only a matter of time before they cause a crash
If any of these idiots get jobs in air safety, I'm quitting flying for ever
They have just put some pedestrian railings up near me, despite there never being a pedestrian casualty in the area. Very laudable, except they now obscure your view out of the junction. It's only a matter of time before they cause a crash
If any of these idiots get jobs in air safety, I'm quitting flying for ever
Dwight VanDriver said:
Stand to get shot at but needs saying.
The job of a Traffic Management Enginner is not easy. He has to comply with directives from you know where which is currently heavily towards road safety and reduction of severity of accidents by curtailing speed. (Or hadn't you noticed).
They may well be implementing schemes on certian feed back from certain quarters.
It is refreshing to note concern of drivers as mentioned in this thread but why not extend your experiences by WRITING to the Authority and expressing your concerns. They may take notice or supply a reasonable account as to why they have done what they have. Sure as hell they are not going to take notice of your posts on here.
DVD
This has been done, the local paper even got involved a few years ago but the lentil munchers put up the usual anti-car arguments and it's not PC to make life easy for car drivers, so they remain.
Have any of you done the old 'chicane' right-of-way calming measures in thick fog? it makes for an 'interesting' experience to say the least... how is putting vehicles on a direct collision course ever safe?!?!
Why are they trying to make driving on the roads even MORE problematic than it has to be? i makes no logical sense! bah! the commies have won after all..
Why are they trying to make driving on the roads even MORE problematic than it has to be? i makes no logical sense! bah! the commies have won after all..
I enquired to a cornish council who put black & white alternating kerb stones on otherwise unmarked obstructions such as these.
I forwarded a photograph of one under a tree in bright daylight, it was totally invisible. I also found out the week before a motorcyclist was airlifted away from the same road after hitting one only weeks before.
Who the hell is liable??
I forwarded a photograph of one under a tree in bright daylight, it was totally invisible. I also found out the week before a motorcyclist was airlifted away from the same road after hitting one only weeks before.
Who the hell is liable??
Dwight VanDriver said:
Stand to get shot at but needs saying.
The job of a Traffic Management Enginner is not easy. He has to comply with directives from you know where which is currently heavily towards road safety and reduction of severity of accidents by curtailing speed. (Or hadn't you noticed).
They may well be implementing schemes on certian feed back from certain quarters.
It is refreshing to note concern of drivers as mentioned in this thread but why not extend your experiences by WRITING to the Authority and expressing your concerns. They may take notice or supply a reasonable account as to why they have done what they have. Sure as hell they are not going to take notice of your posts on here.
DVD
DVD, your heart is undoubtedly in the right place with this and I take on board what you infer rather subtly about political pressure on Traffic Engineers.
What a great many people don't know and what is utterly shocking, is the accurate overall picture of what is happening here.
Almost all the resources to carry out what is mistakenly known, and grossly inappropriately termed as "Traffic Calming" is coming from Brussels.
The local authorities have huge hand outs to carry out what MUST be deemed as road safety measures, this is the criteria to get your hands on the funds; and they are all in it up to their scrawny, dirty necks.
You see DVD, Brussels will not, under any circumstances, give the British tax payer funds to carry out road maintenance, simply because the same tax payer is the highest taxed motorist in Europe, possibly the world.
And the Euro boys, in their glorified ignorance, assume that because we pay all this money in road fund duty, which incidentally is also collected using the most brutal enforcement techniques in Europe, possibly the world, we have the most magnificent roads.
Now we all know that nothing, and I mean NOTHING, could be further from the truth.
We probably now have the worst roads in Europe!
At my last count only 17% of the duty collected in road fund licences is spent on the roads; the rest goes....well I really don't know where it goes, neither do any of the local councillors I have asked, or my MP, or the Secretary of State, coz I've asked them all in a letter, no, several letters, many, many times.
Throughout the length and breadth of this country, millions of pounds are being milked from the European funds to carry out the most appallingly dangerous, obstructive road engineering projects; projects that I can prove to you are so dangerous they are killing people in traffic accidents.
Areas where there were virtually no accidents before the works demonstrate an almost instant increase or new incidence of accidents occurring.
And all motivated by the totally ill-founded belief that the draconian control of the speed of traffic will prevent accidents.
Between vehicle damage cause by rutted and pot-holed roads, to drivers finding themselves with nowhere to go in an emergency situation because their vehicle is restricted to a single eight foot wide lane, on to huge, snaking lines of unending traffic and empty bus lanes, our country is quite literally grinding to a standstill.
The government would have you believe that the cause is too many cars, and a great many of us would believe them.
I would prefer to believe my eyes and my research and a hearty mistrust in our grossly incompetent, wholly corrupt government.
Neezer said:
Have any of you done the old 'chicane' right-of-way calming measures in thick fog? it makes for an 'interesting' experience to say the least... how is putting vehicles on a direct collision course ever safe?!?!
Why are they trying to make driving on the roads even MORE problematic than it has to be? i makes no logical sense! bah! the commies have won after all..
That's certainly a very good point Neezer, we have a few of these around here, where half the road is "blocked off".
They DO assume "local knowledge" don't they? a poor stranger wouldn't stand a chance in fog. Something for "claims are us" to consider!
The other thing with these is: ever noticed how the one side of the road that is "open" rapidly degrades into potholes because it's carrying twice it's normal traffic?
IOLAIRE said:
Dwight VanDriver said:
Stand to get shot at but needs saying.
The job of a Traffic Management Enginner is not easy. He has to comply with directives from you know where which is currently heavily towards road safety and reduction of severity of accidents by curtailing speed. (Or hadn't you noticed).
[ ... ]
DVD
DVD, your heart is undoubtedly in the right place with this and I take on board what you infer rather subtly about political pressure on Traffic Engineers.
What a great many people don't know and what is utterly shocking, is the accurate overall picture of what is happening here.
Almost all the resources to carry out what is mistakenly known, and grossly inappropriately termed as "Traffic Calming" is coming from Brussels.
[ ... ]
DVD/IOLAIRE - You both know that the issues are exactly as you individually hint and expand upon. This (in line with the comment made by busa-ruch) means that letters are (often) not replied to or even acknowledged, then (might be) replied to (often ungrammatically, with poor spelling and punctuation): however, regardless of the strength of argument and persuasiveness of the evidence, nothing will be done to rectify the situation ... except possibly a series of further 'enhancements' that actually increase the danger.
I make the point about poor gramnmar, etc., because it worries me: (a) that people with so much ability to interfere in our lives have so little education; (b) that the education they have received has failed them and (me) the tax-payer; and because I hate wading through correspondence and other material where I have to struggle to discern the writer's meaning and intent.
Streaky
Edited to correct a solecism inadvertantly introduced by hasty editing and poor proof-reading
- S >> Edited by streaky on Thursday 5th May 10:41
Iolaire said:
Throughout the length and breadth of this country, millions of pounds are being milked from the European funds to carry out the most appallingly dangerous, obstructive road engineering projects; projects that I can prove to you are so dangerous they are killing people in traffic accidents.
Areas where there were virtually no accidents before the works demonstrate an almost instant increase or new incidence of accidents occurring.
And all motivated by the totally ill-founded belief that the draconian control of the speed of traffic will prevent accidents.
Yet those of us who travel to some other more enlightened EU countries see funds from the same EU source being used in ways which a) increase safety, b) improve traffic flow, c) in some cases even result in increases to the permitted limit.
Meanwhile in Blighty......
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