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How Britain built some of the world’s safest roads

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Re: How Britain built some of the world’s safest roads

#121

Post by jonplackett »

tialaramex wrote: post #93
berryg wrote: post #82

Driving in the UK can be quite a shock when you're used to the roads in the Netherlands. The speed at which people navigate roundabouts can feel terrifying, and the maximum speed in the countryside is something else. Going *60 mph* on narrow roads with limited visibility is just crazy. The locals just speed by. I guess it's just what you're used to.

You're not supposed to drive 60mph on those tiny roads. Why are they 60mph? Well, the symbol they display doesn't say 60mph, it's basically just a slash symbol - it should be read "National Limit Applies" or perhaps "Derestricted" and it so happens that the law in the UK says that if there's no other rule in place that limit is 60mph and on these tiny roads nobody has put in place a more specific limit so that's the…

I hate driving on these roads. I just refuse to drive a speed where I can’t stop if there’s someone in the road on a blind corner - call me an idiot and beep your horn at me if you want.

Re: How Britain built some of the world’s safest roads

#122

Post by bluGill »

rkomorn wrote: post #36
PaulRobinson wrote: post #22

As somebody who has driven in a few places around the World, I would say that overall the standard of driving and safety is remarkably high in the UK given that the road layouts are often quite confusing (we have roads in use today from Roman, Saxon, Norman, Medieval, Tudor and more modern phases of development, so it can get confusing), and the level of signage around some confusing layouts is much lower than, say,…

Getting my driver's license in France required 20 hours of instruction by an accredited driving school. Getting my license in the US (CA and NJ) required... showing up with my own car. And in New Jersey, they even forgot to make me take the actual driving test.

iowa requires 30 hours of classroom training if you are under 18 - which almost everyone is when first getting a license. Once you have a licenese anywhere though you just show up. So your classroom time in frace counted in the us

Re: How Britain built some of the world’s safest roads

#123

Post by tialaramex »

sas224dbm wrote: post #97
berryg wrote: post #82

Driving in the UK can be quite a shock when you're used to the roads in the Netherlands. The speed at which people navigate roundabouts can feel terrifying, and the maximum speed in the countryside is something else. Going *60 mph* on narrow roads with limited visibility is just crazy. The locals just speed by. I guess it's just what you're used to.

A favorite past-time back in the day was driving at night from pub to pub along the 'back roads' (B-roads specifically in the UK) as fast as 'possible'. There were typically no street lights, however lights from other vehicles showed up alerting you to any possible danger. It was fun at the time, but i wouldn't do it now .. lol ..

Right, there were no street lights where I grew up because street lights cost money and the people where I lived were rich partly because they paid few taxes, so no money for street lights. I happened to move to a city when it wasn't yet concerned about the environmental impact or cost, so I went from "Of course the main road doesn't have lights, what are we made of money?" to "Of course jogging tracks in the city parks have 24/7 street lighting. what if you wanted to go jogging at midnight, you can't jog in the dark!". Today those tracks don't have lighting 'cos there's no money and the wildlife hates it but thirty years ago, sure.

However some back roads aren't even B roads, the classification keeps going through C and D but it's local numbering, the numbers are just for local maintenance crews - so a C-1234 could be duplicated a few miles away in another local government territory and that would be confusing for drivers so they won't write C-1234 on a sign, they'll just say what's in that direction or maybe a local name for the road.

Re: How Britain built some of the world’s safest roads

#124

Post by gerdesj »

zik wrote: post #10
PaulRobinson wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our AC plugs are, however, the safest design on the planet. I think if these guys are honest about their numbers - and the main number they're calling out is a 22-fold decline in road deaths per mile driven in the last 75 years, which is remarkable - and shows those other safer regions in their comparisons, what is the problem?

> Our AC plugs are, however, the safest design on the planet. Not if you step on them with bare feet - those things are worse than LEGO. They could punch through a horse's hoof.

In 55 years I've never managed to do that, nor has anyone else I know. Plugs normally stay in the wall socket because they have a switch - each wall socket for general use must have a switch. The switch is quite hefty and very obviously off or on, with a red stripe. You get a satisfying audible and tactile click feedback when it is switched.

Recently a person brought in a laptop that had apparently been accidentally brushed off a desk, whilst closed, and had apparently fallen on an upturned plug. The plug had managed to hit the back of the screen, left quite a dent and spider cracking on the screen. The centre of the cracking did not match the dent ...

I'll have to do some trials but even if a plug is left on the ground, will it actually lie prongs upwards? I'll have to investigate lead torsion and all sorts of effects. Its on the to do list but not very high.

Re: How Britain built some of the world’s safest roads

#125

Post by Dylan16807 »

closewith wrote: post #66
JdeBP wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that it's the A836, it's worth constrasting this with the fact that in 2025 many of the people committing traffic offences on the coastal part of that road just to the north were locals, not "townies" unfamiliar with the area. * https://www.johnogroat-journal.co.uk/news/vast-majority-of-s... And then, of course, there's the part of the A836 further south known as the Balblair Straight. * https://news.stv.tv/hig…

Yeah. I do think 15mi/h or 24km/h is appropriate speed for that road if you want it to be usable by vulnerable road users. I just wondered what hdgvhicv considered appropriate.

Any slow speed can be appropriate for those vulnerable users, if they let other people pass them where appropriate. (On roads that don't have a speed minimum.)

That doesn't make it appropriate in general. 15mph is not appropriate for a paved line through nothing with gentle curves and great visibility.

Re: How Britain built some of the world’s safest roads

#126

Post by andrepd »

gambiting wrote: post #90
PaulRobinson wrote: post #22

As somebody who has driven in a few places around the World, I would say that overall the standard of driving and safety is remarkably high in the UK given that the road layouts are often quite confusing (we have roads in use today from Roman, Saxon, Norman, Medieval, Tudor and more modern phases of development, so it can get confusing), and the level of signage around some confusing layouts is much lower than, say,…

I've lived in the UK for over 15 years now and I still can't get over people's general allergy for using indicators. And I know the test and training specifically tell you that you must use indicators when changing lanes and turning, but if I had a penny for every time I see someone on the motorway changing lanes without indicating I'd make a very good middle class salary from that alone. But yes, other than this peo…

30mph is an unsafe speed for towns or anywhere where cars coexist with pedestrians or bikes.

Re: How Britain built some of the world’s safest roads

#127

Post by tialaramex »

zdragnar wrote: post #108
tialaramex wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not supposed to drive 60mph on those tiny roads. Why are they 60mph? Well, the symbol they display doesn't say 60mph, it's basically just a slash symbol - it should be read "National Limit Applies" or perhaps "Derestricted" and it so happens that the law in the UK says that if there's no other rule in place that limit is 60mph and on these tiny roads nobody has put in place a more specific limit so that's the…

The same is true in the US. Most (all?) states have state-wide speed limit "defaults" for town/city roads (i.e. 25 mph), highways and rural roads (i.e. 55 mph) and freeways (i.e. 70mph). Instead of having a speed limit sign after each and every intersection, they're placed periodically. If you enter a road and there's no sign, that's the speed limit. If there's a different speed limit than the default, and you cross…

The UK does have default rules, for example if there are houses directly facing onto the street (no front garden or similar maybe hard to imagine in most of the US but common in some UK towns) then the limits are low, if there are no houses at all the default limits are much higher. You are taught some rules of thumb for this when learning to drive. The posted limit signs are in addition to these rules, though they're more obvious.

But the tiny roads are usually where there is no housing - hardly anybody lives there so even the single lane of tarmac is a great expense considering average traffic. The "No housing => faster" is part of why there aren't signs limiting them. It's still a terrible idea to do 60mph though, just not necessarily illegal.

Re: How Britain built some of the world’s safest roads

#128

Post by breadwinner »

As an American tourist in London I found the roundabouts very interesting. In big cities and small, all intersections have a roundabout. Compare that to the US. You have Stop signs which are easy to miss. Sometimes the Stop signs are ignored by people in a hurry. Sometimes people steal the Stop signs to use as decoration in dorms.

Re: How Britain built some of the world’s safest roads

#129

Post by zabzonk »

breadwinner wrote: post #128

As an American tourist in London I found the roundabouts very interesting. In big cities and small, all intersections have a roundabout. Compare that to the US. You have Stop signs which are easy to miss. Sometimes the Stop signs are ignored by people in a hurry. Sometimes people steal the Stop signs to use as decoration in dorms.

> In big cities and small, all intersections have a roundabout.

As someone that has lived in London for nearly 30 years, I can safely say - no they don't. Most intersections have traffic lights.

Re: How Britain built some of the world’s safest roads

#130

Post by gerdesj »

michaelt wrote: post #101
PaulRobinson wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never had an experience in any house or office where anything has ever been unplugged other than to put it away (a kitchen appliance that doesn't need to live on a counter, or a hair dryer, for example). Buy a fused extension cord with more plugs, you have now turned one socket into 4, 6, or 8 sockets. You can even get some that have USB built-in, so you don't use a socket up for a phone or tablet charger. They'…

I've never stepped on a plug myself, so I agree it's not a major problem. However, some older houses in the UK have far fewer sockets than more modern properties - sometimes only one or two per room. And sure, if you need to use a hairdryer and a hair straightener a person with an orderly lifestyle might return them both to a cupboard afterwards - but some people don't mind clutter and just leave them wherever. When…

"When it comes to multiway extension leads - people in the UK are sometimes told it's bad to "overload" sockets but have only a vague understanding of what that means, so some people are reluctant to use them."

To be fair, most people work on the assumption that if the consumer unit doesn't complain, then it is fair game. They are relying on modern standards, which nowadays is quite reasonable. I suppose it is good that we can nowadays rely on standards.

However, I have lived in a couple of houses with fuse wire boards, one of which the previous occupants put in a nail for a circuit that kept burning out.

Good practice is to put a low rated fuse - eg 5A (red) into extension leads for most devices. A tuppence part is easy and cheap to replace but if a few devices not involved with room heating/cooling blow a 5A fuse, you need to investigate. A hair dryer, for example, should not blow a 5A fuse.

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