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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

#331

Post by Xylakant »

ptaipale wrote: post #328
Xylakant wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 nothin…

>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. As a regular cyclist, I would say that requiring a license from cyclists would certainly do something to fix this: make cyclists more aware of it. Over here, about 2/3 of collisions between motor vehicle…

> Over here, about 2/3 of collisions between motor vehicle and bicycle are fault of the motor vehicle driver. But that leaves 1/3 where cyclist errors or breaches of traffic code are reason, which is also significant.

You are assuming that this 1/3rd is due to lack of knowledge - I question that assertion. And still, regular retraining of motor vehicle drivers would still be a better investment. They choose to move a ton of steel around in a manner that's potentially dangerous to others and they cause twice as many accidents, despite having a license requirement.

> And then there are actually quite many cyclist accidents that do not involve a motor vehicle.

Those tend to be less severe. Last years stats for Berlin: All cyclists killed were killed in an accident with a motor vehicle. Most common causes: dooring, right turn accidents, mostly trucks, one cyclist running a red light.

Re: A Type of Road Junction that Kills Cyclists

#332

Post by mgbmtl »

papermule wrote: post #253
_0ffh wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because they are not zooming around in a several hundred kilogram steel box? Also, I regularly walk on or over roads, with no license whatsoever. Outside, everyone's participating in traffic, one way or another.

Even so, a bike is capable of moving at speeds high enough to cause severe harm to the rider or pedestrians. What if the threshold for a test was based on the average speeds of the vehicle?

Have there been a lot of pedestrian deaths (or serious injuries) caused by cyclists in your area? How does it compare to deaths/accidents caused by collisions with cars?

I'm also pretty sure that most of those accidents could be avoided by having better cycling infrastructures.

Re: A Type of Road Junction that Kills Cyclists

#333

Post by ygra »

nostrademons wrote: post #75
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.

Roundabouts and 4-way stops are used in different situations - a 4-way stop is typically used in residential neighborhoods or street grids where the roads are only single-lane and the lack of available space prohibits a roundabout.

There are plenty junctions that have been turned into a roundabout simply by painting a circle in the middle and putting up the necessary signs. They don't need that much space, especially in places that are low speed, low traffic volume like residential neighbourhoods.

Re: A Type of Road Junction that Kills Cyclists

#334

Post by NoGravitas »

zimpenfish wrote: post #242
papermule wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'…

> All other road users must have one. Not true. Horse drawn vehicles and horse riders don't. https://www.gov.uk/guidance/the-highway-code/rules-about-ani... Invalid carriages also need no license. https://www.gov.uk/mobility-scooters-and-powered-wheelchairs... I'm sure other examples can be found.

In most of the US (it varies by state), moped riders (where mopeds are generally defined as motorcycles below a certain engine capacity and top speed, often 30 or 40 mph) do not need a license.

Re: A Type of Road Junction that Kills Cyclists

#335

Post by oriolid »

lmm wrote: post #280
Scarblac wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

An (anti)pattern I often see is a road that's physically segregated for plain road, but then merges into and out of the main roadway (sometimes becoming a dedicated lane) for junctions.

It's so that drivers would see the cyclists in junctions. If the bike path is separated until the junction, it's common that drivers don't pay attention at all to what happens on bike paths and turn right into crossing bike traffic. What makes things worse is that usually there are bushes, placards, bus stops and others between road and bike path, all of which block visibility and grab attention.

Re: A Type of Road Junction that Kills Cyclists

#336

Post by sharpercoder »

7952 wrote: post #194
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.

I disagree vehemently. While my experience on UK roads isn't that big, I have not seen any well designed bicycle road. Even the roads in the residential areas I've seen are quite bad; small, many cars parked on them (bad for visibility) and of considerable lacking quality. The bicycle roads in London are just lines painted on top of whatever surface the route encounters: curbs, manholes, poles in the middle of the road, pedestrian areas... Sudden and unmarked bicycle road stops where cyclists can't make out where to go. See also: https://ssj3gohan.tweakblogs.net/blog/11985/city-cycling-in-...

No, if anything, UK roads are specifically not designed to handle bicycle traffic. I wonder what makes you think so?

Re: A Type of Road Junction that Kills Cyclists

#337

Post by ikawe »

u801e wrote: post #36
protomyth wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US, they would put up a stop sign and park a cop near there for some instant, costly learning experiences. Although, if the speed is sufficient you would probably get an overpass, particularly if one road is a known truck route. It would be interesting to build a bicycle only overpass.

The US also tends to overuse stop signs when a yield (give way) sign would suffice. That is, if there is sufficient visibility of approaching traffic, coming to a complete stop is not necessary to safely yield to any conflicting traffic. Also, coming to a complete stop and then proceeding isn't sufficient to properly yield to approaching traffic. In the end, stop signs end up being treated like yield signs. The only…

> The US also tends to overuse stop signs when a yield (give way) sign would suffice. That is, if there is sufficient visibility of approaching traffic, coming to a complete stop is not necessary to safely yield to any conflicting traffic.

From TFA there already is a give-way sign - drivers who should be yielding think they have good visibility, blast through the intersection at full speed, and kill somebody. The article suggests this could be due to the CBRD phenomenon.

Even if people treated the stop sign as a rolling stop sign, slowing down seems like it would help, at least WRT drivers not seeing people due to CBRD.

Of course there are fancier (more expensive) engineering solutions too.

Re: A Type of Road Junction that Kills Cyclists

#338

Post by imglorp »

This is also of high interest to motorcyclists who even have a name for the phenomena: SMIDSY (Sorry, Mate I Didn't See You).

OP was focused on the A pillar and some other effects, while this excellent video goes a little further into some perception psychology about camouflage and how we perceive moving objects across backgrounds. You can ignore the motorcycle stuff but the explanation is enlightening. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqQBubilSXU

Re: A Type of Road Junction that Kills Cyclists

#339

Post by KozmoNau7 »

avip wrote: post #259
PeterisP wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.…

That sounds like an extremely dangerous law... In bike-crowded cities you will never be able to take a safe right-turn that way.

You simply wait for a gap in the flow of bikes, and pull all the way to the curb, so there's no gap. Then you only really have to worry about the bikes in front of you, and any pedestrians in the crossing.

Re: A Type of Road Junction that Kills Cyclists

#340

Post by KozmoNau7 »

kerberos84 wrote: post #239
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…

Yes motor vehicles have blind spots that is why in driving school they teach you checking over shoulder when you turn right. Remember? And yes you should wait for pedestrians and cyclists first if you want to turn right. That is the traffic law. And maybe you can park your car on the curb so that you don't need to wait for pedestrians either!

Pulling right up to the curb is the correct way to prepare for a right turn in a car, while sharing the road with bicycles, as taught in driver's ed here in Denmark.

And yes, obviously you check your mirrors and do a good shoulder check, that goes without saying.

But you ALSO pull to the curb after checking mirrors+over your shoulder, to claim the lane while preparing for your turn. You pull in either in front of or behind the cyclists, because the dangerous situations happen when you're side by side.

If there's a bike lane, you obviously don't pull across that, this only applies for streets without bike lanes.

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