5 ms·
As a former transportation engineer, I always notice and despise whenever we get overly creative. Could that intersection make us safer? Yes, for all the experi
by ethagknight 10y ago
As a former transportation engineer, I always notice and despise whenever we get overly creative. Could that intersection make us safer? Yes, for all the experienced locals, but absolutely not when you factor in a handful of old, drunk, texting or otherwise unfamiliar drivers, for which it looks like a head-on-collision demolition derby.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- RankingMember 10y agoI just made a separate comment about this but wanted to chime in and agree; locals will learn the new traffic patterns but everyone else will be confused. This confusion can result in panic and, ultimately, accidents. I don't know if you've driven in New Jersey (South Jersey's what I'm familiar with), but it's a good example of some of these types of irregular patterns (e.g. long ramps for turn-offs). They seem to design these for a perfect world where everyone is paying 100% attention to signage (and signage is never obscured/missing/confusing itself).
- JoeAltmaier 10y agoOne source of panic: turning left now you can be faced with 4 or 6 options of where to go, instead of two. If you just get it wrong, you're going the wrong way on a one-way lane.
- lfowles 10y agoAlso, give it a few years for the guiding lines to get nice and faded. Maybe some rainy weather to erase them from vision completely. This intersection would definitely get safer because I would avoid it completely.
- a2tech 10y agoAgreed. I despise locals only solution. The city I live in has passed a new law in the last 2 years that traffic needs to stop for any pedestrian approaching a crosswalk. This has led to a ton of weirdness such as: how do you know if a pedestrian is intending on crossing? do you stop on a fast one way street when someone might be contemplating crossing? People that aren't from the city of course don't know anything about this local law so they drive like normal..which means they don't expect people to come to a complete stop in the middle of a bustling road for no apparent reason. And as a pedestrian its worse-you can't trust the cars to stop (because not everyone knows the law) so you just linger at the edge of the road until everyone stops (hopefully). Its ridiculous.
- varjag 10y agoAmen, regulation like that should be introduced nationwide. Pedestrian priority isn't a new concept and works just fine in many countries, but can't imagine it pocketed to a city and work.
- dhimes 10y agoAgree. We are just having an over-reaction to people stepping in front of cars and getting hit. They seem to think their pedestrian rights will stop a car that is too close for a driver to be able to react. I'm watching people with earbuds walk into an intersection without even looking. We teach defensive driving; we need to teach defensive walking, it seems.
- helthanatos 10y agoCompletely agree. But it can take a lot of time before locals get used to new driving as well. Really, anything besides standard intersections will cause more headache than good because humans don't like change. How safe is the safest intersection - The one without humans. Humans need simple fast intersections that they can take in only enough information that is processed without complicated thought. At this point in infrastructure and human driving, we should not introduce new anything.