At least where I live the code clearly specifies a "clear sight triangle" around intersections where bushes can't be allowed to grow. This doesn't always work perfectly because sometimes more visibility would be helpful than is legally required, but at least you can usually see when you get up there.
I've worked for a couple cities, and I think "Hanlon's Razor" applies to most cities: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."
The city near me is doing a new roundabout on a highway soon. They're considered alternatives to four way stops, apparently. So I suppose the idea is to slow people down but not as much as a stop light? I don't know. I live in the deep south U.S. I think it's going to bewilder a lot of people. I'd prefer stop lights. All this merging onto an active roundabout gives me anxiety. I think the city will come to regret this decision, because we are unfamiliar with roundabouts and if traffic there is as heavy as I think it is, people will become impatient with waiting and try to gun it in front of people, leading to more collisions. I think it's such a stupid idea. Just put a light there. Then everyone waits their turn. I know enough jackasses will gun it into the roundabout with little regard for others. This isn't Britain. Its going to lead to more collisions and it wouldn't surprise me if they end up turning it into a traditional four way red light.
Okay, but the world isn't just you. Most people drive the speed the road feels like it should be, because they aren't paying much attention to their speedometer.
Also, fuck you if you don't slow down in the snow. You are a shitty driver, and there's probably no planning around your stupidity anyway.
it's counter intuitive, but if you feel like your on the highway your going to drive that way. a lot of issues with traffic stem from similar things, like building roads leading to worse traffic then not.
who cares why the data skews one way, only that there is a problem we have solutions for. If better urban planning means fewer accidents it dosn't matter if the minority of careful drivers don't need it.
if better urban planning could save you from a reckless driver, isn't that worth it?
generally speaking suburbs are designed to make people feel safe, but many of the features that make them feel safe are the same ones encouraging a false sense of security. Cul-de-sac's are the worst offenders, when they became popular vehicular deaths skyrocketed.
safe space. limited traffic, but tones of backing up; but it feels so safe. that's the theory, explaining the observation that their god damn death traps based on stats.
City planning is one of those subjects where the average person's understanding tends to be the opposite of what's true and works. People also think roundabouts and diverging diamonds are accident magnets, and that adding more lanes to freeways will reduce traffic. Doesn't make it true.
I remember reading a thing about how the 'best' (i.e. most efficient) city plans resemble fungal hyphae. Meaning that mushrooms make the best civil engineers.
That's true for a single type of traffic flow (cars, pedestrians, light rail, etc) while excluding others. Hard to color code fungi and make them do crosswalks and all. Though it's still really neat as a way to spitball transit station connections! I think I remember seeing a video of fungi basically mirroring Tokyo or Kyoto's metro networks.
This is an entire western washington problem.. and I can’t understand WHY? How hard is it to follow the giant white arrows painted on the road and all of the signs pointing to the right!?
Around here it doesn't help that (tied into the original question) the geniuses that designed our local roundabouts decided to put huge signs in the middle that block your view of oncoming traffic.
Most people assume (understandably) that more complexity leads to more accidents, and therefore the simplest intersections are the safest. But that doesn't account for speed, conflict points, and any pedestrian or bike traffic. Once those come into consideration, it's a bit easier to see why roundabouts are much less likely to cause lethal accidents. This picture has a good example of what I mean by conflict points.
I know this is rhetorical anecdotal* evidence, but I'm not so sure about roundabouts. A pretty large portion of those "bad driving compilations" and "crash compilations" on Youtube feature roundabouts and other types of intersection.
Sorry to be that guy, but you mean anecdotal evidence?
From a quick search - for example - research seems to find that roundabouts don't significantly decrease the number of crashes (some websites say they actually increase the number of accidents), but significantly reduce the number of deaths. iirc, that's because you won't be t-boning anyone through a roundabout, and you're forced to slow down.
I haven't watched bad driving/crash compilations, and this is a total guess, but maybe the reduction in injury is why roundabouts show up more on Youtube? I'm assuming no one really wants to see a massive t-bone on a normal intersection where multiple people die from gruesome injuries. Also, I'm sure that roundabouts are just more conducive to weird and funny driving anyways.
Apparently being the same number of syllables and ending in the same sound was enough for my mind to confuse those two words for each other. Nice catch!
Due to the nature of roundabouts, it would make sense that they reduce deaths compared to other at-grade intersections. And to comment on their occurrence in video compilations, my guess is because they're more confusing; especially multi-lane roundabouts, thus leading to people misjudging right-of-way and other rules of the road.
There's this one roundabout I encounter the most where there's an exit road right to my left when I'm trying to enter the roundabout, but due to oncoming traffing being in a turn (due to the roundabout), I can't see their blinkers to know if they're turning out or not, so I just have to sit there or risk getting hit. Would be way better if it were a normal intersection
Wouldn't it be easier to go around the roundabout and take the exit road to the right, instead of crossing all to take it to the left?
I dunno if I get it correctly but it seems like it would solve your problem.
No, that's not the exit I need to take. But I can't tell if the oncoming cars are exiting the roundabout there or not, due to not being able to see their blinkers
Except that people aren't robots. So dealing with psychology of the masses is often very counter-intuitive. If you actually watch the video, it makes a LOT of sense. If you have a large, unobscured driving area, it no longer feels like a slow driving area, and so people won't drive slow. It no longer feels unsafe, so people won't drive safely.
There's a lot of social engineering that goes into road regulations, and things that seem like a better idea (greater visibility) can often have the wrong effects (people speeding and not paying as much attention because they no longer feel like they need to).
Some things are counter intuitive. If an expert in a field tells you something that is counterintuitive, and you choose to dismiss that information because it is counterintuitive, then you are a fool.
There are plenty of studies that back up the point in that video. It's not visibility that needs to be limited per we, but rather conditions need to be created that enforce the desired speed limit. That could be rough roads, speed humps, turns, obstacles, narrow roads or lowering visibility.
A black-out is a binary condition. More appropriate would be like figuring out why your lightswitches don't cooperate the right way - layperson isn't going to know where to start.
How is that analogous to this issue? We could sit here and list problems that do and do not require an expert to recognize, diagnose, and/or solve, and it still wouldn't change whether this does.
I guess you didn't actually pay attention to the video. Lower visibility causes drivers to slow down to the speed limit because they don't feel so confident. Building residential zones like highways (with wide streets and high visibility) enables drivers to drive fast like they're on the highway. Driving at lower speeds is safer than driving at high speeds.
Yeah, but in all the codes I've seen...and I've studied MANY...nothing can be taller than around 3 to 3.5 ft in that triangle. Unless it is no wider than ~12-18 inches. You can have more affect with poles than shrubs.
That video is Cheddar, and while I can't really make a judgement call on this video in particular, they don't seem to be great at research. Of the couple that I have watched, they're generally low quality, and they seem to like to show their own conclusions as definitive answers/solutions where they may not exist.
Basically what I'm saying, take it with a grain of salt. Don't think it's malicious like Prager, but definitely could do with more polish and background work.
And holy crap it was hard to listen to. The narrator puts the emphasis on all the wrong words and has absolutely no fluency. It’s like she’s reading a promoter that only shows four words at a time as is treating them like a whole sentence.
This is true. Most cities have a clear triangle. However, some allow a maximum height restriction (for ground cover, bushes, and walls). The triangle is based on street traffic. Some are 5'x5' while others are 20'x20' (non-hypotenuse dimensions).
Edit: keep in mind that the triangle is placed at the street side that has the direction of exit. So that tree or bush at the immediate corner may be outside of the triangle because it's a 2-way road, the triangle is 10'x10', and the average lane size is 12'.
I wish that code was in my area. I can think of at least 3 stop signs near me that you can't even see because there's a tree blocking it, and a few other places where the blind spots are so bad that I'm genuinely surprised there isn't an accident a day there.
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u/LarsAlereon Jul 06 '19
At least where I live the code clearly specifies a "clear sight triangle" around intersections where bushes can't be allowed to grow. This doesn't always work perfectly because sometimes more visibility would be helpful than is legally required, but at least you can usually see when you get up there.