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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

#491

Post by cornyNetHandle »

inuit12 wrote: post #464
cornyNetHandle wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And they are somehow managing to do so currently without licences. One thing to consider is how much effect licensing has on car safety anyway. Mexico city has no test requirement at all, you just pay for permission to drive rather than sitting any test, while Peru has more road deaths per capita, despite needing a practical test, written test and medical certificate before you get behind the wheel.

so what is the conclusion here? Road tests have no positive impact on road safety because Mexico City has fewer accidents than Peru?

No, just that the effect on safety seems minimal compared to other factors.

Re: A Type of Road Junction that Kills Cyclists

#492

Post by squiggleblaz »

Piskvorrr wrote: post #282
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'…

Who says they don't have one? I drive, cycle, walk, and even use public transport. (Yes, yes, I should pick one of them and stick to it regardless of applicability, I know ;o))

Haven't you heard? We have motorists, cyclists and pedestrians. Not "a person driving a car", "a person riding a bike", "a person walking in public". You must identify with and be one!

Re: A Type of Road Junction that Kills Cyclists

#493

Post by squiggleblaz »

pc86 wrote: post #370
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'…

They should but the reason it will never happen is political. Just look at the comments here. Dozens of cyclists throwing a fit because you have the gall to suggest someone operating a vehicle on a public road might be subject to licensure. They'd never vote for a politician supporting that, and they'd work to defeat any who did. On the flip side, the folks who agree with this are not going to vote for a politician t…

Ahh.... It's actually happened. Various governments have promised to introduce licensing schemes. I don't think there's any current ones around. New South Wales had a plan, but they abandoned it just before implementing it. Not because of the voting power of the lycra lobby, but because it's bad public policy.

As for how good an idea it is to have a licensing system for people travelling without lethal weapons, papers please! It's a fantastic idea. You probably also should have a chip in you so the government can track you and see if you've travelled to a part of town you don't have a licence to be in. After all, we've got to cut down on crime.

Re: A Type of Road Junction that Kills Cyclists

#494

Post by squiggleblaz »

oriolid wrote: post #335
lmm wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I like your optimism. I've heard that in the Netherlands, the solve this problem by having a red turning arrow when people (on foot, on bike or in cars) are allowed to go forward. So in drive-on-the-left terms, vehicle traffic is allowed to go from the south to the north or east or from the east to the south. Since people who are driving cars from the south and want to turn to the west are obliged to stop, there's no possibility they'll unintentionally charge into people walking or riding bikes across the western entrance. The disadvantage is it requires four cycles not two, and therefore reduces the time pedestrians can cross.

On Albert St and Swanston St in (East) Melbourne, the separated lane stops at intersections so that cars can use the bike lane to turn left. People riding bikes are supposed to give way to people driving cars and then filter around the stopped cars into the bike box ahead of the cars. I never really feel safe using the Albert St lane for this and other reasons. Fortunately I have other options.

Re: A Type of Road Junction that Kills Cyclists

#495

Post by squiggleblaz »

TomMarius wrote: post #414
zimpenfish wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The drivers shouldn't be punished for bad design of the road. No excuse of "bad design" can work for blowing across a crossroaded "Give Way" at 37mph. That's reckless in any situation.

No it isn't, I do it daily in Prague together with police cars that are coming from a nearby police station. The difference is that I can be sure no bicycles are on the road. If I stopped or slowed down it would be very unsafe but this way I just merge into the traffic seamlessly.

I think you're referring to a different situation. It sounds like you're talking about a merge into a freeway or something similar. Your parent referred quite specifically to a cross road. The goal is not to merge, it's to get across. I agree with your parent; the action was necessarily dangerous. A person approaching a cross road must slow down, more so if there's a give way sign.

Re: A Type of Road Junction that Kills Cyclists

#496

Post by squiggleblaz »

mnw21cam wrote: post #195
mrb wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

« 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...

I think the UK has a lot of "mini roundabouts" where they just paint a circle on the road and mount roundabout signs. Traffic paths are similar to what they would be without the circle. Of course, the give-way rule is different: give-way to your left (easy), rather than give-way to those who arrived first (hard).

Re: A Type of Road Junction that Kills Cyclists

#497

Post by squiggleblaz »

klodolph wrote: post #187
Karnickel wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I won't dispute it because of the general "If you've never seen a black swan, is that proof that none exists? (No)" fallacy, but speaking as a German, I cannot remember having seen one in Germany, ever. So even if one exists it's an exceedingly rare thing. When I lived in the US I always found it unnecessary that everybody has to stop. In Germany we always have a "main" road and a "secondary" road, and those on the m…

In the places where I see four-way stop, there is some constant but not heavy traffic during parts of the day, so if you had a primary / secondary road with only a two-way stop, the secondary road would not flow well. However, the traffic was not high enough to warrant a signal. This makes sense to me, and I don't see how other systems would be anything but worse. A signal would have a short cycle and only delay peop…

Australia is more similar to the US than Germany, but we don't have four way stops here; they case is provided for by roundabouts. Even still perhaps we have less because we rarely have pure grids.

Re: A Type of Road Junction that Kills Cyclists

#498

Post by ioulian »

NLips wrote: post #442
vvillena wrote: post #416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Whatever the speed limit, you should never go 90 km/h in a blind turn if it is too fast to avoid a cyclist. I suppose it depends on the country, but usually roads mandate minimum speeds (tipically half the max speed) in order to avoid issues like this. Anything lower than the minimum speed should be treated like a static obstacle, so maximum speed should always take into account unexpected hazards. Given that cycli…

Which countries have minimum speed limits? Not the US or UK to my knowledge? (Yes, there are plenty of other countries, but those seem to be the two most discussed here)

In Belgium on the highway, the minimum speed is 70km/h (max is 120km/h)

Re: A Type of Road Junction that Kills Cyclists

#499

Post by ygra »

viraptor wrote: post #472
ygra wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, one reason for that amount of signage is that there are multiple roads from the right and some of those signs only extend to the next junction. There's simply no way to have fewer of those signs. Same for the pedestrian crossings. Some of the signs are only relevant to pedestrians and cyclists, or motorists looking for a place to park, so it's not that bad.

It can be way better. Some ideas: - pedestrian/cyclists signs can be made on the pavement instead - which lane goes where is repeated 3 times - if it's so that you know them when you join the road, 2 can be moved to the side roads instead - one of the right of way signs can go - no parking can be replaced with a chain / bolards - the end of pedestrian/cyclist path is useless since it's reopened after the crossing Pol…

I'm not sure the signs on the pavement have the same meaning as the actual signs. In many places (Germany for example) »signs« on the ground are merely a courtesy (e.g. the 30 in 30 zones), but not legally binding, and the actual signs define the rules.

Re: A Type of Road Junction that Kills Cyclists

#500

Post by ck425 »

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'…

Statistically the best thing for cyclist safety is increasing the number of cyclists on the roads. So any safety rules that decrease the number of cyclists (like requiring a license) has to be offset against the increased risk caused by having less cyclists. This is the reason that mandatory helmet use makes roads less safe for cyclists.

The other aspect is that you still have pedestrians, who may have little or no knowledge of road safety, so you still have to train drivers to be extremely careful regardless.

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