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A Type of Road Junction that Kills Cyclists

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Re: A Type of Road Junction that Kills Cyclists

#191

Post by gaius »

SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #184
Svip wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. The main type of accident involving cyclists in Denmark are so called 'right turn accidents', where a lorry turning right at a junction hits a cyclists because they are in their blind spot. This obviously happens exclusively in cities. The media has made a big deal about how tragic it is for the cyclists - which it is, but much less about how tragic it is for the driver. Remember, it's not like drivers want t…

> The main type of accident involving cyclists in Denmark are so called 'right turn accidents' It's the same in London, a city with notoriously poor cycling infrastructure and narrow streets due to long history. Ok, it's the "left turn" mirror image version due to driving on the left not right side of the road, but otherwise the same.

It’s not helped by cyclists habit of going straight on from a left turn lane.

Re: A Type of Road Junction that Kills Cyclists

#192

Post by tombrossman »

matte_black wrote: post #4

Wow, after all these years I finally learned the name of this phenomenon, constant bearing decreasing range. I recall a scene in the movie Sin City where two cars crash and the camera was moving in CBDR to the perpendicular car as it zoomed into the impact site. I thought it was a cool shot. Also I’ve almost hit pedestrians several times when they were obscured by my A pillar. Sometimes I wonder if I would have actua…

Driver training should teach you to 'lean and look', to move your head more than just rotating it left and right. This eliminates blind spots and once you pick up the habit you do catch the occasional cyclist or motorcyclist in a blind spot. They will often be stopped (or at least maintaining their position relative to yours) and looking at you, not expecting you to see them, and it's a nice shared moment when you make eye contact and they realise you actually checked.

Re: A Type of Road Junction that Kills Cyclists

#193

Post by KozmoNau7 »

Svip wrote: post #181
TomMarius wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The drivers shouldn't be punished for bad design of the road. A separate bike road should be constructed.

Indeed. The main type of accident involving cyclists in Denmark are so called 'right turn accidents', where a lorry turning right at a junction hits a cyclists because they are in their blind spot. This obviously happens exclusively in cities. The media has made a big deal about how tragic it is for the cyclists - which it is, but much less about how tragic it is for the driver. Remember, it's not like drivers want t…

Unfortunately, the cycling organizations don't really like to admit that most right turn accidents happen because cyclists don't seem to understand that motor vehicles have blind spots, and big motor vehicles have bigger blind spots.

As someone who regularly drives, bikes, walks and uses public transport in Copenhagen, it is blatantly obvious that people just don't know how to handle right turns involving both cars and bicycles correctly. Car drivers will leave space open on their right (between the car and the curb), instead of putting the car as close to the curb as possible (which is taught in driver's ed). Bicyclists will pile into this space, and when the light turns green, it becomes almost impossible for the driver to turn right, because of the bikes already there, as well as the additional bikes coming from behind, completely ignoring the right blinker on the car.

The mitigation of this problem is two-fold. Firstly, the drivers should not leave open space on their right, when turning right. Secondly, cyclists need to grow a sense of self-preservation and not dive into that space, even if it's open. Large vehicles need to have some distance from the curb in order to complete the turn, but that should not be seen as an invitation to cyclists.

Re: A Type of Road Junction that Kills Cyclists

#194

Post by 7952 »

Svip wrote: post #133

I feel a lot of commenters are simply focusing on what signs can do or what sort of junction to build, rather than focus on the fact that on high speed primary country roads, bicycles shouldn't be sharing the road with the cars. In Denmark, a lot of high speed roads (excluding motorways, of course) out in the country have separate dual-way bicycle lanes near it but not attached to it. (Example: https://i.imgur.com/dS…

Most roads in the UK are perfectly well designed to handle bike traffic. But they are not designed for the massive quantity of vehicle traffic travelling at relatively high speed on roads originally designed for a different age. Danger to cyclists are a symptom of this wider problem which we have no real solution for.

Also, this particular junction is terribly designed for cars and will result in collisions.

Re: A Type of Road Junction that Kills Cyclists

#195

Post by mnw21cam »

mrb wrote: post #69
temp-dude-87844 wrote: post #8

There's a lot of math in this article about blind spots and car pillars and whatnot, but a Google Maps Street View appears to show the terrain and brush blocking the view on approach [1][2], making all of this math largely moot. That the drivers in question didn't even so much as slow down for this approach is beyond reckless, aside from the other lawbreaking that followed. The 'Give Way' sign is idiotic, put a Stop…

« make it a 4-way stop » You may be unaware, but 4-way stop signs are very uncommon outside of the US. In fact, in the UK they have always been formally prohibited by the Department for Transport in 2002. As a European driver, I discovered the existence of 4-way stop signs when I moved to the US, and I have always found them dangerous in a counter intuitive way: drivers are so used to 4-way stop intersections, that t…

There's a 4-way give way junction here [1]. That's the closest you will get in the UK. It means give way to anything that is in the junction before you are, but the actual effect is for cyclists to frequently be aggressively hooted at and nearly run over by cars.

[1] https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@52.2190575,0.1178374,105m/dat...

Re: A Type of Road Junction that Kills Cyclists

#196

Post by YawningAngel »

gaius wrote: post #191
SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The main type of accident involving cyclists in Denmark are so called 'right turn accidents' It's the same in London, a city with notoriously poor cycling infrastructure and narrow streets due to long history. Ok, it's the "left turn" mirror image version due to driving on the left not right side of the road, but otherwise the same.

It’s not helped by cyclists habit of going straight on from a left turn lane.

That is both legal and necessary to do

Re: A Type of Road Junction that Kills Cyclists

#197

Post by pmontra »

Svip wrote: post #133

I feel a lot of commenters are simply focusing on what signs can do or what sort of junction to build, rather than focus on the fact that on high speed primary country roads, bicycles shouldn't be sharing the road with the cars. In Denmark, a lot of high speed roads (excluding motorways, of course) out in the country have separate dual-way bicycle lanes near it but not attached to it. (Example: https://i.imgur.com/dS…

Can you do 30-40 km/h on those bicycle roads or is there slow traffic such as 10-20 km/h bicycles and runners? In the latter case fast bicycles will stay on the main road no matter what.

In my experience I also have much better visibility at junctions on the main road instead of on bicycle lanes that are closer to walls and hedges and have 3 or 4 meters less of buffer between me and incoming cars from the right. I'm also less visible to them. It means to slow down at every side junction and over 100 km it would make a huge difference in time and wear.

As a matter of fact I tend to stay on the road all the time. A consequence is that in the last years I started going over dirt roads along channels and rivers. It's very quiet and more relaxing than being close to the noise of cars.

Re: A Type of Road Junction that Kills Cyclists

#198

Post by mnw21cam »

klodolph wrote: post #189
girvo wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have a roundabout instead. Easy, safer, and less traffic jams. Seems objectively superior to me.

Are you just conveniently omitting the fact that roundabouts are more expensive and require more land, which may already be used by something else?

That is why mini-roundabouts were invented.

Re: A Type of Road Junction that Kills Cyclists

#199

Post by gozur88 »

QuarterReptile wrote: post #163
Dylan16807 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> rolling stops What's special about a 4-way stop here? And a rolling stop is good enough to prevent a high-speed collision anyway. > assuming an intersection with a stop sign is almost always a 4-way stop Around here there is a good mix and I don't think that happens. > I prefer the consistency of my home country where every stop is a 2-way stop Well I personally hate going through 2-way-stop intersections that are…

A rolling stop is only good enough to prevent a 'high-speed collision' as judged by people wearing steel armor boxes.

Cyclists are supposed to come to a full stop as well. They're easy to see stopped right at the corner.

Re: A Type of Road Junction that Kills Cyclists

#200

Post by kingosticks »

Svip wrote: post #133

I feel a lot of commenters are simply focusing on what signs can do or what sort of junction to build, rather than focus on the fact that on high speed primary country roads, bicycles shouldn't be sharing the road with the cars. In Denmark, a lot of high speed roads (excluding motorways, of course) out in the country have separate dual-way bicycle lanes near it but not attached to it. (Example: https://i.imgur.com/dS…

I don't think that's a fact. We are not even talking about particularly high speed roads here. The same thing happens regardless of speed so that's really nothing to do with it. The cost of separate cycle lanes (everywhere?) is huge compared to simple junction alterations as in this particular case. Traffic lights are even worse! These are vastly over-engineered solutions compared to that proposed in the article. Sure it may not work everywhere but remember the majority of roads and junctions are accident free where the road is shared by all users without issue. It's the easily avoidable accidents we should target. The lack of driver training/awareness is also explicitly called out in the article. It's an interesting read.
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