Are speed cameras too conspicuous?

[Bletchleyite]

Narrowing roads need not cost much, appropriately parked vehicles have the same effect as expensive traffic-calming works
A value can be put on a life saved though, several million

I believe the figure used for road safety purposes is about £1.5m.

 

[ABB125]

I believe the figure used for road safety purposes is about £1.5m.

I wonder what the railway equivalent is...
£1 billion?

On a more serious note, I don't think spending money to make roads more dangerous* is a good idea.

*New roads need to be 3.65m wide per lane (although it is possible reduce this); there must be some good reason for this standard (although I'm struggling to think of any myself), otherwise why would we spend a fortune building new roads to this standard? So narrowing existing roads doesn't seem a particularly logical suggestion from this perspective.
Having said that, I'd be in favour of a "B road standard" (not as wide, sharper curves allowed etc) as well as the current DMRB** standard in order to reduce costs. I've never come across one if it already exists and I doubt one would ever be created.

**Design Manual for Roads and Bridges

 

[Ted633]

Would narrow roads slow people down who are speeding now? I must of imagined all the idiots hurtling around the narrow country roads....

 

[Bletchleyite]

Would narrow roads slow people down who are speeding now? I must of imagined all the idiots hurtling around the narrow country roads....

"Natural traffic calming" does work, and is quite effective because it doesn't cause the frustration that things like ramps do. Also, you only need paint to implement it. Basically you alternate the side of the road on which parking is allowed (and bays marked) and the parked cars become chicanes.

 

[ABB125]

The other option is "shared space", where there are no boundaries (!) between the road and the pavement. The logic behind this is that no-one has a clue as to who has right of way, where they need to go etc, so cars go slowly and pedestrians milling about in confusion make the cars go even slower for fear of running someone over.

Actually, that's probably not the official logic, but it's what most people would think!

 

[Bald Rick]

I wonder what the railway equivalent is...
£1 billion?

On a more serious note, I don't think spending money to make roads more dangerous* is a good idea.

*New roads need to be 3.65m wide per lane (although it is possible reduce this); there must be some good reason for this standard (although I'm struggling to think of any myself), otherwise why would we spend a fortune building new roads to this standard? So narrowing existing roads doesn't seem a particularly logical suggestion from this perspective.
Having said that, I'd be in favour of a "B road standard" (not as wide, sharper curves allowed etc) as well as the current DMRB** standard in order to reduce costs. I've never come across one if it already exists and I doubt one would ever be created.

**Design Manual for Roads and Bridges

It’s £1.563m, and is the same for road and rail.

Of course any scheme that is intended to reduce road casualties would have to demonstrate that it does not have unintended consequences that actually worsen matters.

 

[Ianno87]

Would narrow roads slow people down who are speeding now? I must of imagined all the idiots hurtling around the narrow country roads....

We live just down the road from a wide 40mph single carriageway, but where 50mph+ speeding is commonplace.

A few years back the road was resurfaced and (for some reason) took nearly a month to repaint the white lines.

The temporary traffic-calming effect was very noticesble!

 

[nlogax]

The other option is "shared space", where there are no boundaries (!) between the road and the pavement. The logic behind this is that no-one has a clue as to who has right of way, where they need to go etc, so cars go slowly and pedestrians milling about in confusion make the cars go even slower for fear of running someone over.

As per South Kensington around the museums. It seems to work pretty well.

 

[LSWR Cavalier]

Shared space: the rules are, there are no rules
Took the train to visit a shraed space town. On the road into town there are tactile strips left and right for visually handicapped people, +1!

Both strips were blocked by parked vehicles ,-99

 

[OneOffDave]

The Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee (DPTAC) have come down fairly hard against 'shared spaces'

DPTAC Position on Shared Spaces

The government - via collaborative working between the DFT and DCLG - should take a lead role in the shared space agenda, including commissioning further research, and should not leave matters entirely to be dealt with by local authorities.
LTN 1/11 should be replaced by new guidance, with extensive input from disabled people.
Existing shared space schemes should be the subject of detailed independent evaluation, evidence gathering and impact assessments, with the involvement of disabled people.
Evidence gathering should include accidents occurring within shared space schemes, together with comparative data from other road layouts. This could be achieved by redesigning the STATS 19 form used by the police to record road traffic collisions.
The implementation of shared space schemes should be paused, until the independent evaluation referred to above has taken place.
If shared space schemes are to continue in the future, disabled people need to be fully involved in their conception, planning, design, implementation and evaluation.
Those involved in shared space schemes need to be cognisant of the need to comply with the Public Sector Equality Duty and the duty to implement reasonable adjustments.
The interests of those with a wide range of conditions, including mental health and neuro-diverse conditions, and learning disability, need to be considered in the wider context of shared space schemes

 

[SynthD]

The idea of reducing the width of the road outside Reading West station didn’t go down well, on this forum.

 

[Bletchleyite]

The idea of reducing the width of the road outside Reading West station didn’t go down well, on this forum.

That was because it was reducing it to install an ugly shipping container (near enough) and would also remove the possibility of installing cycle lanes.

This is rather different from traffic calming on residential streets. Traffic calming isn't appropriate to non-residential/non-town-centre streets; you want to use cameras in those settings as you don't want to create congestion.

 

[DelW]

*New roads need to be 3.65m wide per lane (although it is possible reduce this); there must be some good reason for this standard (although I'm struggling to think of any myself), otherwise why would we spend a fortune building new roads to this standard?

I don't know how long ago that dimension was decided, but it's certainly longer ago than when I was first setting out road alignments in 1973. As for the value itself, it's a slightly approximate metrication of the previous lane width of 12 feet (I.e. 24ft carriageway width).

 

[gswindale]

I find that selecting the gear which is the first number of the lower limit you want to adhere to works fairly well on most cars.

That is 2nd for 20, 3rd for 30, 4th for 40, 5th for 50 and 6th for cruising at 60 or above.

On the 30 sections of road round here, my old Petrol Auris was more efficient in 4th or 5th gear than 3rd! And in fact the gear change indicator encouraged the higher gears.

 

[Bletchleyite]

On the 30 sections of road round here, my old Petrol Auris was more efficient in 4th or 5th gear than 3rd! And in fact the gear change indicator encouraged the higher gears.

It wasn't about efficiency, it was about which gear gave the best level of control at that speed, i.e. which made it easiest to adhere to that speed.

Gear change indicators are just annoying. Wish I could turn it off (other than by way of a piece of black insulation tape). I bought a manual car because I wanted to control it (and to be fair because it was cheaper), if I'd wanted an auto I'd have bought one.

 

[ainsworth74]

Gear change indicators are just annoying. Wish I could turn it off (other than by way of a piece of black insulation tape). I bought a manual car because I wanted to control it (and to be fair because it was cheaper), if I'd wanted an auto I'd have bought one.

Yes I've only driven a car with one of those a handful of times (my mum had a Toyota Aygo a few years ago with all the whizzbangs from Enterprise as courtesy car whilst hers got fixed after a minor accident) and I must admit I didn't see the point, particular as it was extremely keen to change up a gear meaning it ran you up to fifth very quickly and meant you had very little power if you followed its instructions. Then again maybe that was deliberate, I remember it being very nippy and quite good fun to drive (when you ignored the gear change indicator)!o

 

[ChrisC]

Over the last 20 years most of the main roads across rural areas of Nottinghamshire have one by one had 50mph limits put on them. Many of the earlier examples also have average speed cameras but these don’t seem to have been installed on roads that have more recently been given a 50mph limit. There’s now very few major A roads across the county that don’t have a 50mph limit and now many B roads are also getting 50mph limits. This is ok, and probably a good thing during most of the day when the roads are busy, but is very frustrating at quiet times when there are few cars on the road. The difference between 50 and 60 mph is so noticeable when doing a long journey across the county of 20-30 miles in the evening when many of these wide roads with many long straight stretches are empty. I don’t drive particularly fast and always try to keep to the limit but it’s now become a joy to cross over into neighbouring counties of Lincolnshire and Derbyshire to be able to drive safely at between 50 and 60 mph.

 

[edwin_m]

Over the last 20 years most of the main roads across rural areas of Nottinghamshire have one by one had 50mph limits put on them. Many of the earlier examples also have average speed cameras but these don’t seem to have been installed on roads that have more recently been given a 50mph limit. There’s now very few major A roads across the county that don’t have a 50mph limit and now many B roads are also getting 50mph limits. This is ok, and probably a good thing during most of the day when the roads are busy, but is very frustrating at quiet times when there are few cars on the road. The difference between 50 and 60 mph is so noticeable when doing a long journey across the county of 20-30 miles in the evening when many of these wide roads with many long straight stretches are empty. I don’t drive particularly fast and always try to keep to the limit but it’s now become a joy to cross over into neighbouring counties of Lincolnshire and Derbyshire to be able to drive safely at between 50 and 60 mph.

Rural single-carriageway A roads are of course amongst the most dangerous, partly because many drivers rarely experience them so have lost the judgement necessary to overtake safely, but also because they're busier in general so overtaking becomes more difficult. An accident at 60mph has about nearly 40% more energy than at 50mph. I've also noted the 50mph on A roads in Notts but would point out that dual carriageways are mostly unaffected, apart from the A610.

I wonder if the lack of enforcement is related to the night time thing, that a blind eye is turned if people drive safely. It also means that overtaking is easier if you don't mind braking the limit while doing so ... though of course you have to think about whether that approaching car in the distance is sticking to the 50mph or not.

 

[typefish]

I wonder if the lack of enforcement is related to the night time thing, that a blind eye is turned if people drive safely. It also means that overtaking is easier if you don't mind braking the limit while doing so ... though of course you have to think about whether that approaching car in the distance is sticking to the 50mph or not.

Not necessarily, it's either a lack of funding and/or camera van operator safety.

 

[PeterC]

It wasn't about efficiency, it was about which gear gave the best level of control at that speed, i.e. which made it easiest to adhere to that speed.

Gear change indicators are just annoying. Wish I could turn it off (other than by way of a piece of black insulation tape). I bought a manual car because I wanted to control it (and to be fair because it was cheaper), if I'd wanted an auto I'd have bought one.

I found them very useful when driving a hired van with six gears after driving a car with 5. On my current car there is a lot of overlap in the compfortable speeds for each gear and I do sometimes find myself cruising one gear down from the optimum if I don't look down at the dash.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I found them very useful when driving a hired van with six gears after driving a car with 5. On my current car there is a lot of overlap in the compfortable speeds for each gear and I do sometimes find myself cruising one gear down from the optimum if I don't look down at the dash.

I find that with a combination of a dual mass flywheel and a slightly slow turbo, if I drive my Kuga diesel in 6th when it tells me to on a 60mph road I have a brief but really irritating loss of power and jerk on reaching a hill (or on the aircon compressor kicking in) while the turbo spins back up. This is avoided by driving in 5th because you can use fractionally more power so the turbo stays spun up.

6th seems very much intended for cruising at 70mph (or more, should I drive it to mainland Europe at any point) - but the gearchange indicator doesn't agree.

 

[cactustwirly]

I find that with a combination of a dual mass flywheel and a slightly slow turbo, if I drive my Kuga diesel in 6th when it tells me to on a 60mph road I have a brief but really irritating loss of power and jerk on reaching a hill (or on the aircon compressor kicking in) while the turbo spins back up. This is avoided by driving in 5th because you can use fractionally more power so the turbo stays spun up.

6th seems very much intended for cruising at 70mph (or more, should I drive it to mainland Europe at any point) - but the gearchange indicator doesn't agree.

That just sounds like you've got a crap engine with dodgy ratios.
You shouldn't have any noticeable loss of power when cruising at 60, the car should have enough power.

My 1.8 petrol 5 speed car, has enough power to cruise in 5th at 40mph, and definitely needs a 6th gear for motorways.

 

[A0wen]

Narrowing roads need not cost much, appropriately parked vehicles have the same effect as expensive traffic-calming works
A value can be put on a life saved though, several million

I think the emergency services may have something to say about the effects of road narrowing and their ability to get to incidents quickly - too often ambulances and fire engines are blocked or delayed as a result of such short-sighted engineering.

 

[LSWR Cavalier]

In an emergency vehicles could mount the kerb to make space. If traffic were slowed and laws were enforced, the emergency services would have much less work in any case
I think halving 'accidents', deaths and injuries in the short term is realistic
900+ deaths a year would still be far too many, they could quite easily be halved again

 

[Bald Rick]

If traffic were slowed and laws were enforced, the emergency services would have much less work in any case

I think that is a gross misunderstanding of what the emergency services respond to on a day to day basis. Traffic incidents are a rather small proportion of their work.

 

[LSWR Cavalier]

If traffic law were enforced leading to a halving of 'accidental' deaths and reductions of many thousands in 'accidents', the emergency services would have far fewer journies to make
A win-win situation

 

[ainsworth74]

If traffic law were enforced leading to a halving of 'accidental' deaths and reductions of many thousands in 'accidents', the emergency services would have far fewer journies to make
A win-win situation

What laws would you like to see enforced that aren't currently?

 

[Bald Rick]

If traffic law were enforced leading to a halving of 'accidental' deaths and reductions of many thousands in 'accidents', the emergency services would have far fewer journies to make
A win-win situation

Fewer, yes. Far fewer, no.

The emergency services are not just responding to traffic incidents. A very significant majority of police response is domestic violence, drugs and street crime. Ambulance response is almost entirely people falling ill at home or work. Fire and Rescue don’t even attend most road accidents, including many with fatalities or serious injuries, only those that involve heavy collisions, and / or fire (as their name implies). Mountain rescue and coastguard have no involvement in road accidents (accepting that I am being facetious).

 

[LSWR Cavalier]

What laws would you like to see enforced that aren't currently?

Maximum speed limits of course, phone use, following distances, passing distances, stop signs, pavement parking, incorrect use of flashing headlights etc &c
Aim would be to significantly reduce the number of licence holders

 

[edwin_m]

If traffic laws were enforced then roads could be straight and allow rapid access by emergency services etc. But that also encourages speeding by people who either aren't aware of their speed or have made their own assessment that they know better than the people setting the limits.