I find myself with a somewhat similar problem, if not as dangerous, at four way stops often in San Francisco. When coming to a stop at an intersection where the slopes of the roads involved match certain configurations, most commonly on a road that has descended a slope to meet the intersection, my rear view mirror almost perfectly obscures the space that a car stopped at the road to my right occupies. I glance left, glance right, and see nothing, then suddenly stop short after starting to proceed as the movement reveals a vehicle that was there all along.
A Type of Road Junction that Kills Cyclists
61–70 of 522 posts
Re: A Type of Road Junction that Kills Cyclists
#62Unrelated, 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…
I've driven here late at night going from Albuquerque to Houston and back via Waco - I'd be glad if a southbound truck squared up to me. Note to others - this stretch between Groesbeck and 45 is very poorly lit.
Re: A Type of Road Junction that Kills Cyclists
#63Earlier 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…
This CBDR problem would seem to imply that we actually don't underuse stop signs. I bet if you found a similar junction in the US you'd find a much higher rate of accidents because we're all so lousy at driving.
Re: A Type of Road Junction that Kills Cyclists
#64The conclusion of the article reminds me of the idea behind blameless postmortems for system outages. Human mistakes are inevitable, and it's our responsibility to design resilient systems that acknowledge that simple fact. While software engineering is an immature discipline in many ways, blameless postmortems seem like a counterexample -- they're a well-known best practice in software that don't seem as common in s…
I think blameless post mortem works where you can take time and improve in the future. A more established process from the 80s coming from Toshiba is 5 whys, which is not exactly blameless (you do end up finding the issue), but the blame is usually on the process that needs fixing. The accident in that case is just the initial step and educating the drivers to notice the cyclist would not end up as the solution. Which I do like: people will keep making mistakes - either stop them or make the mistake obvious before it leads to the accident - punishing that driver may make us feel better but it won't improve the situation.
Re: A Type of Road Junction that Kills Cyclists
#65There'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…
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.
Re: A Type of Road Junction that Kills Cyclists
#66There'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…
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.
It might be wasteful, but so is killing people.
Stop signs and some speed bumps would soon slow them.
Re: A Type of Road Junction that Kills Cyclists
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
Even then, they're still not treated like stop signs. Drivers blow past the sign up to the farthest possible point and only stop there, if at all. In particular they speed right over the pedestrian crossing without looking.
That's because in America you grandma can legally teach you how to drive and so you learn all her bad habits. It's a feature, not a bug. And your driving test might cover this type of intersection or it might not. The testing is like 50 out of 5000 possible questions. Again, it's a feature (of idiocy) not a bug. I personally know maybe one other person, who knows that the location of the stop sign defines a line perp…
> the location of the stop sign defines a line perpendicular to your lane and you're supposed to stop completely before this imaginary line. Almost no one knows this is the law.
I am inclined not to believe this. I have been told by a traffic cop before that if there is no marked stop line or crosswalk, there is no legally defined point where the stop must happen: it's just a "use reasonable judgment" kind of thing.
That was in NC. The following is apparently a quote from a statute in Washington State that contradicts your statement:
“every driver of a vehicle approaching a stop sign shall stop at a clearly marked stop line, but if none, before entering a marked crosswalk on the near side of the intersection or, if none, then at the point nearest the intersecting roadway where the driver has a view of approaching traffic on the intersecting roadway.”
Can you point to a statute somewhere supporting your claim?
Re: A Type of Road Junction that Kills Cyclists
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
The UK hates stop signs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_sign#United_Kingdom
I thought only the US loved stop signs.
Poland also loves stop signs. Actually, Poland just loves signs in general which is a problem: https://d-w24.ppstatic.pl/g2/6b/6f/65/116789_1258901612_33ec...
Re: A Type of Road Junction that Kills Cyclists
#69There'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 they may adopt the habit of (1) doing rolling stops and (2) assuming an intersection with a stop sign is almost always a 4-way stop. Both of these 2 habits are dangerous... At least that's my personal experience. I prefer the consistency of my home country where every stop is a 2-way stop, therefore I'm never surprised by non-stopping traffic at an intersection.
Re: A Type of Road Junction that Kills Cyclists
#70Why does this junction not have a roundabout? Would having one there reduce the chances for a crash by forcing vehicles to reduce their speed when approaching the intersection?
It looks like a rural road. I don't think that roundabouts are common on rural roads.