A Type of Road Junction that Kills Cyclists • Hacker News Board

Re: A Type of Road Junction that Kills Cyclists

#311

Post by astura » Wed, Jan 10, 2018, 12:53 PM UTC

thirdsun wrote: post #142

hamandcheese wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a lot of situations where a two way stop would cause traffic to get backed up in the direction of the stop sign. A great example is a 4 way stop at my former high school. Twice a day, everyone came and left causing a bit of a traffic jam. A two way stop would leave people in one direction waiting indefinitely, whereas a 4 way kept things chugging along rather nicely in both directions.

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…

Yes it's very easy to keep track of who goes first.

Re: A Type of Road Junction that Kills Cyclists

#312

Post by kqr » Wed, Jan 10, 2018, 12:54 PM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #301

gideonparanoid wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no such thing as road tax, roads are paid for out of general taxation [0]. What they're thinking is vehicle excise duty, which doesn't apply to all vehicles, so that point is moot. [0] http://ipayroadtax.com/

I would assume drivers are also thinking of the fuel tax they pay, not solely the excise tax. The UK has some of the highest rates of fuel taxation in the world.

Which is something you pay, at least in abstract, for someone else to clean up the carbon dioxide you litter the atmosphere with. If you dpn't want to pay the cleaning fee, don't litter -- take the bike!

Re: A Type of Road Junction that Kills Cyclists

#313

Post by alkonaut » Wed, Jan 10, 2018, 12:56 PM UTC

dsego wrote: post #308

alkonaut wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure I understand what you are saying here...

Imagine driving towards an intersection. There is no sign telling you if you have priority or not. There is a red car coming from the right. Then you notice that the red car has a stop sign in front of him (you recognize the shape). You infer that you are on the main road and you can ignore the right-hand rule.

Sorry, I understood what you meant, just not what the relevance was. What you are saying applies, and applies universally (regardless of whether there also exists multi-way-stops).

Re: A Type of Road Junction that Kills Cyclists

#314

Post by kqr » Wed, Jan 10, 2018, 12:57 PM UTC

michaelt wrote: post #305

lmm wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's be careful not to conflate two things: conforming to red lights isn't a goal in itself, safety is the goal. A lot of drivers get exercised about "cyclists running red lights" in cases that are actually safer than the alternatives, e.g. cyclists crossing a junction ahead of motor traffic when the junction doesn't have a dedicated light phase for cyclists. Cyclists running up the inside mostly happens because wai…

waiting in a queue of traffic at a light or junction is very dangerous for a cyclist When I'm approaching traffic lights and there's a queue of traffic and no bike box, I stop my bike at the tail of the queue, in the middle of the lane - just like I would on my motorbike or in my car. I'm curious as to what you think the danger is in that situation?

I'm also surprised by that. I do not feel safe trying to filter through traffic unless I know the light periods very well. And in a queue is one of the places I feel safest starting and stopping. I can accept an argument about how a slow bicycle is wobbly, but from a pure power standpoint, there is much less acceleration involved in a queue than in many other cases. If motorists have a problem with cyclists, its often about acceleration.

Re: A Type of Road Junction that Kills Cyclists

#315

Post by usrusr » Wed, Jan 10, 2018, 1:00 PM UTC

marcus_holmes wrote: post #103

ajmurmann wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A roundabout is a much better solution than a stop sign. I still believe that the ubiquous stop signs in the US are there due to the oil lobby. Bringing a car to a full stop is incredibly wasteful.

For cyclists, roundabouts aren't that much better unless we're given separate lanes. Motorists still tend to blow through roundabouts at speed if they can't see anything coming. From personal experience you can easily navigate a roundabout at 35+ mph.

Roundabouts are the very last place where I would consider a bike lane to be a possible net win in safety. If the bike lane has priority at exits, then it will be constantly ignored, if it doesn't, then cyclists would be at the mercy of exciting drivers never forgetting to indicate, resulting in similar bloodshed. Besides being totally shitty towards cyclists who would then have to yield three times for going left at a crossroad-equivalent, at a very uncomfortable viewing angle and with permanent risk of un-indicated exits.

Re: A Type of Road Junction that Kills Cyclists

#316

Post by kqr » Wed, Jan 10, 2018, 1:04 PM UTC

Scarblac wrote: post #270

lmm wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Often these "dedicated bike roads" become not-so-dedicated at junctions. Also motorists frequently ignore painted lines marking bicycle lanes. (You can argue for physically segregated bike lanes instead of painted lines, but as a cyclist I won't use physically segregated bike lanes unless I know how they end, because all too often you get a "bike lane to nowhere" with no way to get off it).

So you mean dedicated bike lanes , I think. Dedicated bike roads implies physically segregated to me.

You ask great questions and they have been answered by someone else already! These dedicated bike roads do not have grade separated junctions, so in intersections sometimes motor traffic has to use a part of the cycleway, and sometimes cycle traffic has to use part of the regular roadway.

Re: A Type of Road Junction that Kills Cyclists

#317

Post by elbows » Wed, Jan 10, 2018, 1:04 PM UTC

michaelt wrote: post #305

lmm wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's be careful not to conflate two things: conforming to red lights isn't a goal in itself, safety is the goal. A lot of drivers get exercised about "cyclists running red lights" in cases that are actually safer than the alternatives, e.g. cyclists crossing a junction ahead of motor traffic when the junction doesn't have a dedicated light phase for cyclists. Cyclists running up the inside mostly happens because wai…

waiting in a queue of traffic at a light or junction is very dangerous for a cyclist When I'm approaching traffic lights and there's a queue of traffic and no bike box, I stop my bike at the tail of the queue, in the middle of the lane - just like I would on my motorbike or in my car. I'm curious as to what you think the danger is in that situation?

Depends on the length of the queue. I find if I'm too far back from the intersection, cars will get up to speed and want to overtake me before I get through. If I continue to take the lane the driver behind me is likely to start honking and/or pass me dangerously. If I move over then I risk getting hooked as I go through the intersection.

So I find that it's usually safer to filter to the front at intersections. Even in the absence of a bike box I can squeeze into the crosswalk and get ahead of the lead car, allowing me to go safely through.

Re: A Type of Road Junction that Kills Cyclists

#318

Post by Xylakant » Wed, Jan 10, 2018, 1:06 PM UTC

pafje wrote: post #304

ioulian wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in Belgium. We have a lot of cyclists here, but I think 80% of them don't know their weak position on the road. As my father said, "They think they are terminators, that if a car crashes into them, the car will break and they will be OK". And that's what I almost always see on the road. We have a lot of cycling lanes, thank god for that, but sometimes they are not in a good state so all those people tend to sh…

Whatever the speed limit, you should never go 90 km/h in a blind turn if it is too fast to avoid a cyclist. You're the one responsible as long as cyclists are allowed on the road (and for good reason). For example, on the tiny winding mountain roads of Corsica, the speed limit is generally 90 km/h but it would be crazy for a non-local to go more than 50 or 60 km/h (if only because of the random encounters with wild b…

> Whatever the speed limit, you should never go 90 km/h in a blind turn if it is too fast to avoid a cyclist.

It might just as well be some other obstacle: slow moving vehicle, car stuck on the road, end of a traffic jam. People really really need to learn that you need to be able to come to a dead stop within the distance that you can see.

Re: A Type of Road Junction that Kills Cyclists

#319

Post by Xylakant » Wed, Jan 10, 2018, 1:10 PM UTC

papermule wrote: post #238

keir-rex wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s a subset of drivers in the UK who have a resentment to sharing the road with cyclists. Their primary arguments follow; “car drivers pay road tax...” or “cyclists should be forced to sit a driving/road test...” blah blah. There are certainly cyclists who do nothing to help the reputation for the rest but car drivers fail to realise how vulnerable cyclists and motorcyclists are.

Why shouldn’t cyclists need a license to ride on the road? Others road users must have one. ---- It's a shame I'm getting downvoted, but the current state of affairs is that in cities like London bicycles, cars and trucks will be sharing the road for the near-mid future. I'd rather not have trucks or cars in the city, and ideally cyclists would have their own road separate from cars and pedestrians, but I think that'…

> Until then what else can do we? At least if we require tests for cyclists, like we do for cars, buses and trucks, it might help reduce the number of cyclists doing risky things that perhaps they aren't even aware of?

Statistics show that in the large majority of cases of accidents between cycles and motor vehicles, the driver of the motor vehicle is at fault. Requiring a license for cycles will do just about nothing to fix this. Just yesterday I was nearly run over by a car turning left into the oncoming cycle lane and by another one who thought that the pedestrians traffic light applies to bicycles. My knowledge that I was correct in both cases did not help the least bit.

So maybe yearly retraining for drivers of motor vehicles would be a better move.

Re: A Type of Road Junction that Kills Cyclists

#320

Post by jackvalentine » Wed, Jan 10, 2018, 1:11 PM UTC

lagadu wrote: post #299

lmm wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because, while it does occasionally happen, the risk of a cyclist killing or seriously injuring another road user is much lower than the risk of a car driver doing so. Unlicensed cyclists are a much lower risk to other road users than licensed drivers; if anything we should be looking to impose stricter licensing requirements on drivers.

They're still a risk. Not knowing the rules can cause a motorist who did absolutely nothing wrong to kill said cyclist or swerve away from the cyclist and kill someone else not even involved, all because of a negligent cyclist. That said, demanding a license for cyclists I agree is completely unreasonable.

In my country all school children are taught the rules of the road at traffic school where they ride their bikes around a miniature road layout that comprises of most road scenarios.