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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

#211

Post by greenpresident »

kgwgk wrote: post #183
paulie_a wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been curious as to why American roundabouts include unnecessary vegetation or a hill in the middle? Why obscure oncoming traffic?

The obstruction in the middle also makes the existence of a roundabout more obvious.

Here‘s an example of how they are handled in Germany:

https://goo.gl/maps/cmLVxuhViyF2

The space it requires is not much bigger than the traffic light. That town replaced many of its intersections with roundabouts even in central and older parts of the city.

(You might say they went a little overboard with it, looking at the southern limits near that hospital.)

Re: A Type of Road Junction that Kills Cyclists

#212

Post by dagw »

klodolph wrote: post #207
mnw21cam wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is why mini-roundabouts were invented.

America doesn't really have those... they would be as alien and confusing as a four-way stop in Europe. I can't imagine it not being dangerous.

they would be as alien and confusing as a four-way stop in Europe

For the first year or two perhaps, but I wonder if the long term pay-offs might be worth it.

Re: A Type of Road Junction that Kills Cyclists

#213

Post by scottishfiction »

csours wrote: post #22

Unrelated, a few days ago I was thinking about this intersection: https://www.google.com/maps/@31.5075019,-96.3308952,243m/dat... Traffic on Hwy 164 does not stop, Hwy 39 does stop. However Hwy 39 has yield lanes that can be used to enter 164 via a right turn, and only slowing down, and not coming to a complete stop. A few years ago there was a lot of gas drilling in the area, and the trucks working the drilling site…

> In the case of this unsafe intersection, responsibility is diffuse - it is split between driver, cyclist, local government, and the original contractor.

Arguably, the cyclist had right of way and did everything expected of them in the situation. Also, the original contractor was following the specifications given to them by local government. Therefore responsibility can really only be placed with two parties; primarily with local government as they should be designing fault-tolerant intersections, and secondarily with the driver approaching from the east.

Re: A Type of Road Junction that Kills Cyclists

#214

Post by gambiting »

YawningAngel wrote: post #196
gaius wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

That is both legal and necessary to do

I absolutely disagree. If I, as a driver, see someone in a left-only lane, it should ba absolutely safe for me to assume that they are indeed turning left - so I can safely pull out at the junction. Obviously it leads to accidents if the person then goes straight and runs into me. Being in a left-only lane is the same as indicating a turn.

Re: A Type of Road Junction that Kills Cyclists

#215

Post by bialpio »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #171
QuarterReptile wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

If you don't drop to walking speed, it's not a rolling stop, it's flat-out running the stop sign. I think we can agree that 4mph is not high speed.

I always found it hard to understand what's so difficult in actually stopping when the sign clearly says "stop". The wording hardly leaves any room for misinterpretation, doesn't it?

Re: A Type of Road Junction that Kills Cyclists

#216

Post by gambiting »

PeterisP wrote: post #205
KozmoNau7 wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 a…

"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." Isn't that how it should be ? I'm not in DK, but in LV traffic laws in such a situation they should ignore the blinker, the driver must wait and turn right only after everyone going straight e.…

No, the law clearly says that you can never overtake a vehicle on the right - and it applies to cyclist the same as to everyone else, even if the vehicle wasn't turning right it's illegal for the cyclist to overtake it on the wrong side.

Re: A Type of Road Junction that Kills Cyclists

#217

Post by rhn_mk1 »

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'm not sure having bicycle paths is always feasible. The first reason is that building a bicycle path could take years and the problem can be solved much earlier and simpler in the way described.

Second, low-traffic roads may normally be safe enough for cyclists (traffic amount was never stated). The same issue can apply to remote roads of all sizes. Granted, it would be nice to have a bike road next to every high speed road, but for traffic in the range of 20cars/h I've seen that exactly once in my lifetime.

Re: A Type of Road Junction that Kills Cyclists

#218

Post by mnw21cam »

ptaipale wrote: post #203
mnw21cam wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Interesting construction. This wouldn't be legal in Nordics, there can be no direction in give way signs indicated, and there can be no 4-way give way junctions.

To be honest, I was quite surprised that it even existed, and it may possibly not be legal in the UK either.

Re: A Type of Road Junction that Kills Cyclists

#219

Post by gambiting »

__david__ wrote: post #170
thirdsun wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is an intersection that needs traffic lights. And if it's just twice a day, default the less used direction to red and have it switch to green only if a car is actually waiting. As a european 4 way stops seem really inefficient to me. If the intersection isn't that busy a 2 way stop (or no stop at all) favouring the more frequently used road is the obvious choice. If it's a busy 4 way stop however, can you reall…

> Also, roundabouts are the superior 4-way stops. Except on the “compact real estate” axis. A plain intersection is always going to be smaller.

I'm sorry, have you seen some of the British roundabouts? Where the "roundabout" is just a tiny circle painted in the middle? I'm sure it's not bigger than your normal intersection by any measurable standard, and at least everyone knows exactly what the priorities are, you literally can't get it wrong.

Re: A Type of Road Junction that Kills Cyclists

#220

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

gambiting wrote: post #214
YawningAngel wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is both legal and necessary to do

I absolutely disagree. If I, as a driver, see someone in a left-only lane, it should ba absolutely safe for me to assume that they are indeed turning left - so I can safely pull out at the junction. Obviously it leads to accidents if the person then goes straight and runs into me. Being in a left-only lane is the same as indicating a turn.

> If I, as a driver, see someone in a left-only lane, it should be absolutely safe for me to assume that they are indeed turning left

The highway code is a bit more nuanced than you on this topic: http://www.highwaycodeuk.co.uk/road-junctions.html

it is safer for the vehicle driver to not make that assumption, it is safer for the cyclist not to be in that position as you point out; and primarily, it is safer if the road layout does not put these different vehicles in the same space.

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