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What makes a road a 25mph road? One dangerous enough that people don't feel comfortable driving faster -- how is that a solution?
by wvenable 10y ago
What makes a road a 25mph road? One dangerous enough that people don't feel comfortable driving faster -- how is that a solution?
- smileysteve 10y agoYes. This is a reason why a lot of one way streets are being made into 2 way streets. And why closing streets temporarily increases traffic but decreases fatalities (and eventually decreases traffic)
- mirimir 10y agoYes, basically. You make traffic lanes narrower, with much wider shoulders that are textured to discourage use. If there are bike lanes, you separate them with rounded dividers. Trees in the center divider also help. As do curves, and bumpouts around on-street parking.
- jdavis703 10y agoPeople will just drive over textured bumps, I've seen it. You need to design the road such that people will damage their vehicle if they drive dangerously (things like on street parking, concrete bollards, tall curbs etc).
- mirimir 10y agoThose are good points. Bollards, tall curbs, etc are appropriate for urban streets, because they protect pedestrians on sidewalks. But curbs are hazardous to bicyclists. More generally, you want streets that seem more dangerous than they actually are.
- masklinn 10y ago> But curbs are hazardous to bicyclists. You can easily cut a bypass through the curb or chicane.
- mirimir 10y agoTrue. I've gone down hard, though. At night, they can be hard to see.
- sqeaky 10y agoIn neighborhoods near me we have gently sloping curbs. They are about a foot wider than the normal 90 degree curbs I see in more dense urban areas. It is easy to notice from the car if you pull partially up onto them. I suspect it also makes it slightly easier for cars to go of the road, but that hasn't been a real problem. Cars, bike and people seem to be at less risk from the curb directly.
- dwighttk 10y ago"seems more dangerous" probably only works for so long... Surely people would get used to the "dangerous" streets and realize they aren't as dangerous as they seem.
- Animats 10y agoBollards 3, bozos 0. [1] The Sidney Harbor Tunnel had a serious problem with oversized trucks getting wedged in the tunnel. Watch a truck drive past two sets of giant flashing overhead warning signs. They stop only when they reach the final sign at the tunnel mouth, a water curtain with a giant STOP sign projected on it.[2] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_Cw0QJU8ro https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_Cw0QJU8ro [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRKA7m-tbqM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRKA7m-tbqM
- ropeladder 10y agoThat water screen is really brilliant.
- bbcbasic 10y agoAn earlier bridge for them to crash into will also do the job quite nicely. To be nice make it out of crumpling noisy material, not concrete.
- masklinn 10y ago> An earlier bridge for them to crash into will also do the job quite nicely. Except for the part where it requires significantly more maintenance to fix up the bridge and it's incredibly dangerous for drivers following, whether the truck hard-stops or gets its top sheared off.
- matthewdgreen 10y agoHanging bars seem to solve this problem. Makes a loud terrifying noise when you hit them, but doesn't leave any permanent damage.
- Animats 10y agoTruckers may not notice if the problem is at the rear trailer, as it was in the video. The water curtain, although unusual, is not expensive. It's just a sprinkler pipe and a very bright slide projector.
- Gracana 10y agoThere are tricks to making roads feel smaller / trickier / slower. Search for the phrase "traffic calming" to find material on the subject.
- felipelemos 10y agoYou could think this way: When you are driving at day on a parking lot full of cars you drive slowly, right? And when you drive on a empty highway you drive fast. Regardless of law or street signals, you would drive at this same speed, right? Why? Because the environment are different. This is the point of the article. We have been giving tickets since forever and yet nothing has really changed, and nothing will change, unless we started to design the roads with the speed they need to have.
- wvenable 10y agoYes but I don't see how making every road as safe to drive in as a parking lot (i.e. not very safe) vs. a big empty highway is a solution. The problem we're trying to solve is safety, not speed. Slowing people down by making roads less safe misses the point.
- syncsynchalt 10y agoA neckdown or narrow lanes do not make a road less safe. Instead we see the opposite, traffic naturally slows down and thus the road becomes safer.
- wvenable 10y agoThey also make the road less useful -- you have to balance safety with something. If not, it's just safer if everybody stays at home.
- Kluny 10y agoIf the road has to close because of a traffic accident, that makes it less useful too - especially when it seems to happen almost every day. A road with less throughput that at least keeps moving can be better.
- mason240 10y ago>They also make the road less useful And that's the real goal here. This is just another avenue of attack for anti-car zealots.
- yxhuvud 10y agoWell, here in Sweden the 30km/h roads are often enforced by speed bumps if the cars wouldn't slow down enough by themselves.
- tropo 10y agoHere in the USA, we have speed bumps too. This is why we need to buy huge SUVs with high clearance. With a big enough vehicle, the speed bumps are not an issue. You should try it. I often wonder what the environmental cost of speed bumps is. It is normal to drive huge SUVs. It is normal to slam on the brakes, go over the speed bump, and then hit the gas. There is also an environmental cost for broken parts that need to be replaced and oil that leaks from broken oil pans.
- r00fus 10y agoI bet if you combined speed bumps with a decent gas tax (with tax discounts for business use) and eliminated the "light truck" tax loophole for SUVs [1], you'd probably wipe out the huge SUV syndrome. Of course, SUVs are highly profitable for the auto and petroleum industries, heavily represented in lobbyist circles, so it's pretty much a no-go. [1] https://turbotax.intuit.com/tax-tools/tax-tips/Small-Business-Taxes/Business-Use-of-Vehicles/INF12071.html https://turbotax.intuit.com/tax-tools/tax-tips/Small-Busines...
- flyingfences 10y ago> gas tax "How to not get re-elected in the USA 101"
- ReverseCold 10y agoCombining two things Americans hate very much, gas prices and taxes.
- reitanqild 10y agoWhile I generally think speed bumps are a good thing your comment made me think. Also I like the matter-of-factly / deadpan style.
- jon_adler 10y agoThere is evieence that removing safety devices reduces speeds. Drivers compensate to the conditions. I found this article interesting: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/feb/04/removal-road-markings-safer-fewer-accidents-drivers https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/feb/04/remova...
- pjbster 10y agoCase in point: the traffic lights at the bottom of Ludgate Hill were out this morning so cars and bicyles had to negotiate the intersection without any form of communication or signalling. Nobody died.
- emj 10y agoTraffic lights are not there for safety, they are there to make cars go faster, while being dangerous for pedestrians and cyclists. People are often killed by cars turning right at traffic lights.
- rocqua 10y agoThere is a layer of perception here. People drive faster when they see lots of open space. For example, adding some barriers that obstruct sight but aren't horrible to crash into makes people drive slower without making the road much more dangerous to drive on. Adding some trees and shrubbery between the road and the sidewalk also does a lot. Because sidewalks next to a road visually widen the road. This has the added benefit of making pedestrians feel a lot safer. No-one likes walking 2 meters next to cars driving at near-highway speeds.
- bkkssnn 10y ago>For example, adding some barriers that obstruct sight This sounds like a recipe to increase accidents, just saying.
- masklinn 10y agoExperience shows they're just the opposite.
- rocqua 10y agoThe point is not to have much of the environment hidden from sight. The point is to prevent the 'All I see is open road' feeling. On a slightly too simple note, the point is to make you feel like you need to be more careful without actually adding a lot of risk. One might say the current road design makes roads feel so safe that the actual safety benefits get canceled out by changed behaviour.
- njharman 10y agoIt's a solution, obviously, because people will drive the speed you want them to, 25mph, on it!