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There'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 blockin

• bdamm 9y ago
  Indeed, a stop sign would solve this, wouldn’t it? Simplist & cheapest solution first. The point about the geometry is that it doesn’t matter at which point the driver can see over the hill and brush; they still won’t see the cyclist.
  • maxerickson 9y ago
    The UK hates stop signs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_sign#United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_sign#United_Kingdom
    • deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    • ajmurmann 9y ago
      I thought only the US loved stop signs.
      • viraptor 9y ago
        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_p.jpeg https://d-w24.ppstatic.pl/g2/6b/6f/65/116789_1258901612_33ec...
        • ajmurmann 9y ago
          Wow, that is crazy! Now imagine those were US style signs that are covered in text instead abstract symbols...
        • ygra 9y ago
          Well, one reason for that amount of signage is that there are multiple roads from the right and some of those signs only extend to the next junction. There's simply no way to have fewer of those signs. Same for the pedestrian crossings. Some of the signs are only relevant to pedestrians and cyclists, or motorists looking for a place to park, so it's not that bad.
          • viraptor 9y ago
            It can be way better. Some ideas: - pedestrian/cyclists signs can be made on the pavement instead - which lane goes where is repeated 3 times - if it's so that you know them when you join the road, 2 can be moved to the side roads instead - one of the right of way signs can go - no parking can be replaced with a chain / bolards - the end of pedestrian/cyclist path is useless since it's reopened after the crossing Poland puts the repeated signs after each and every tiny side road. Many countries don't do that. Instead they rely on more informative big signs over the intersections that can be visible from further away.
            • ygra 9y ago
              I'm not sure the signs on the pavement have the same meaning as the actual signs. In many places (Germany for example) »signs« on the ground are merely a courtesy (e.g. the 30 in 30 zones), but not legally binding, and the actual signs define the rules.
    • bambax 9y ago
      Thanks for the link but it doesn't say why?
    • mnw21cam 9y ago
      Most UK cities will have one single stop sign somewhere, just so that the driving lessons can go past one.
  • protomyth 9y ago
    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.
    • u801e 9y ago
      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 time they're properly treated like stop signs is when it's not possible to see cross traffic before you approach the intersection.
      • bo1024 9y ago
        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.
        • cmurf 9y ago
          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 perpendicular to your lane and you're supposed to stop completely before this imaginary line. Almost no one knows this is the law. And sure as fuck no one actually does it. I'd love to have a light saber for the sole purpose of cutting off everyone's goddamn front end of their car right along this imaginary line. Oh, your front seat is in the imaginary line? So sad...
  • kevin_thibedeau 9y ago
    There are stop signs now (as of June 2017) and STOP markings in the road. Streetview shows old imagery from 2015 when viewed from the offending road but Beaulieu Rd. is newer.
  • tim333 9y ago
    Apparently not. I had a very similar junction outside my house where cars crashed constantly though usually non fatally as it was in a 30 zone. I wrote to the road engineer folk asking for a stop sign and apparently motorists don't take much more notice than of give ways. In the end the cross roads were replaced with two mini roundabouts which have fixed the problem. Physical obstacles are much better at making cars slow down than signs.
  • usrusr 9y ago
    When the sight lines are blocked, the false sense of safety which is undermined by theconstant speed/constant bearing blind spot simply would not happen. If you don't think that you know that the other road is empty (because you can't see it), a yield sign is enough.
• deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
• ajmurmann 9y ago
  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.
  • lostlogin 9y ago
    It might be wasteful, but so is killing people. Stop signs and some speed bumps would soon slow them.
    • ajmurmann 9y ago
      True, but as I pointed out, so would a roundabout. In the area where I grew up we also had a dangerous piece of road that got "fixed" by setting up a "dangerous curve" sign with a warning light on top. It went from multiple fatalities every year to zero.
  • nostrademons 9y ago
    Roundabouts and 4-way stops are used in different situations - a 4-way stop is typically used in residential neighborhoods or street grids where the roads are only single-lane and the lack of available space prohibits a roundabout.
    • ajmurmann 9y ago
      In Europe the residential area would either 1. Have no signs resulting in the car to the right getting the right of way 2. One road gets a right of way sign and the other road had to yield. I strongly prefer those setups because they are much more fuel efficient. However, I don't think any of that would work in the UD because it would require real driving classes and tests. I had to drive around for close to 20 hours with a professional driving teacher on to of dozens of hours of theoretical classes. All that end in a 30min+ examination with a examiner in the back of the car putting me through as many challenging situations as possible.
      • nostrademons 9y ago
• mrb 9y ago
  «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.
  • idoh 9y ago
    Yeah where I live (the outer sunset neighborhood of San Francisco) it feels like half the stops are 2-way and the other half are 4-way. As a cyclist this is dangerous for me, because if I go through an intersection where I am not stopped but cars are subject to the stop, they will stop, not see me, then start going. So consistency is key!
    • aidenn0 9y ago
      It happens the other way around too; I had a bicyclist roll through a 2-way where I had no stop and almost cause a collision. They yelled at me, probably thinking it was a 4-way. It might be my imagination, but I seem to recall nearly all, if not all, 4-ways marked as such with a small rectangular placard below the stop sign in Virginia. I've seen them sometimes in California, but not even at the majority (not really any more common than the opposite sign "Cross traffic does not stop").
      • jessriedel 9y ago
        > It might be my imagination, but I seem to recall nearly all, if not all, 4-ways marked as such with a small rectangular placard below the stop sign in Virginia. This is the key problem. Whether an intersection is a 4-way or 2-way stop sign changes the right-of-way of any person with a stop sign. (If it's 2-way, I must yield, but if it's 4-way and I've reached the intersection first, I have the right-of-way.) It is crazy that in the US, a person at a stop sign can't distinguish these two situations for certainly without looking to see if the other direction has a stop sign. (Similar complaints can be made about flashing-red and flashing-yellow intersections.)
• hvidgaard 9y ago
  For low volume intersections, roundabouts are great at avoiding accidents.
• rateofchange 9y ago
  The math is wrong. It ignores binocular vision and normal head motion.
• ryandrake 9y ago
  As a motorist, the 4-way stop is the most disruptive and maddeningly inefficient traffic control device in the municipality's tool chest. How much fuel and how many brake pads are consumed because towns just default to this kind of intersection. There are many better options (as others have listed in this thread) for almost all traffic situations. Always reaching for the 4-way stop is lazy and irritates motorists.
  • yborg 9y ago
    Because death is an acceptable trade-off for avoiding irritation - as long as it's not your death, of course.
    • dtech 9y ago
      What a bullshit response, he argues that there are a lot of better alternatives, not that there shouldn't be any safety precautions.
  • hamandcheese 9y ago
    There are a lot of situations where a two way stop would cause traffic to get backed up in the direction of the stop sign. A great example is a 4 way stop at my former high school. Twice a day, everyone came and left causing a bit of a traffic jam. A two way stop would leave people in one direction waiting indefinitely, whereas a 4 way kept things chugging along rather nicely in both directions.
    • thirdsun 9y ago
      That is an intersection that needs traffic lights. And if it's just twice a day, default the less used direction to red and have it switch to green only if a car is actually waiting. As a european 4 way stops seem really inefficient to me. If the intersection isn't that busy a 2 way stop (or no stop at all) favouring the more frequently used road is the obvious choice. If it's a busy 4 way stop however, can you really keep track of when other cars arrived at the stop? And if it's busy enough that you have to yield to the car to your right, chances are that everyone has a car to their right - so vague negotiation between drivers is required. Nobody wins in that scenario. Also, roundabouts are the superior 4 way stops.
• gorbachev 9y ago
  4-way-stops aren't really 4-way stops. Nobody stops at them.
• phkahler 9y ago
  >> The 'Give Way' sign is idiotic, put a Stop sign on the other, flatter road, or make it a 4-way stop. The drivers causing accidents were blowing through the intersection, and shame on the wording of the law that they were able to weasel out of harsher punishment. It seems the cyclists are blowing through the intersection as well. To me the problem is simply that it's an uncontrolled intersection where nobody is required to stop. Why blame the driver so much?
  • NLips 9y ago
    The cyclists were on the road that has priority, whereas the motorists were on roads were they are required to give way. Should the road user who has priority give way to the road user who doesn't?
• dingo_bat 9y ago
  100% agreed. This is just basic common sense: don't take a junction at a speed greater than 20km/h, no matter what. That's it. I slow down instinctively at junctions. I literally cannot see the other road because of trees/buildings. How can I assume it is clear? Same is true for bicyclists. Slow. The. Fuck. Down. At. Intersections.
• ptaipale 9y ago
  Blocking the view? Strange, I think the views to the road that crosses this one are remarkably open here. Before looking at this, I thought there could be some hedges or such for which England is famous, but I can't think of any excuse for why a driver doesn't see a bike when approaching from [1] or [2]. The visibility is very good.