Road design, safety and Vision Zero

[jamincan]

Why would this be better than ranking them by absolute number of deaths and injuries?  What is the goal?  Achieve no deaths or injuries, as Sweden aims to do?  Because if that's the goal then that is not a good way to rank intersections.  In fact, that ranking seeks to achieve the goal of kill or injure this number of people.

Please, answer for me, why are people in Sweden not willing to kill people, but we are?

Maybe I should move there...

It’s not an exclusive choice we have to make.  We can (and do!) do both.  But if you have a low usage intersection that is producing a relatively large number of fatalities there - we should look at that!  There’s more likely to be low hanging fruit changes that can be made there.  

Remember, our resources are limited and perfection is impossible.

People in Sweden are willing to kill people. That why they still have a lot of fatalities (in an absolute sense) from roads and are in no way close to actually having zero fatalities.

You can’t give the majority of a population complete control over a high mass device that can travel at speeds of 100km/h or more and actually think there’s a way to never have fatalities.  Sorry.

Edit: Reading the other posts it seems pretty clear this isn’t worth continuing.  I think peoples actions reflect their beliefs and not the words they use.  Semantics means little to me if it doesn’t change actions.  Sweden can *say* they don’t accept casualties but their actual actions don’t reflect that.

As for the barrier idea, it’s probablu a good idea in many places here.  It’s probably a bad idea in many other places.  It again comes down to a cost/benefit analysis.

The important thing about #visionzero isn't so much about having zero fatalities. It's more about shifting the way we think about our built environment, how we operate within it, and our response to fatalities. ie. it's more about cultural change leading to changes in the built environment. I don't know if it's origins come from industry, but it's definitely the approach to safety I've seen in industry. The goal is to change the thinking so that building a safe environment is always present in our minds. Every decision that is made about how infrastructure is built has some sort of affect on the safety of its users, and there should be an awareness of that at all stages of the process and methodologies and standards should be continuously revised and improved to reflect what we have learned from past incidents.

It may seem like a subtle difference, but I think it can have pretty significant effects. No one goes out trying to build something that may contribute to a fatality at a later date, but that is different than actively trying to build something that minimizes casualties. As an example, I don't think slip ramps would be built on non-separated roadways if a #visionzero culture existed. They are objectively less safe for all road users and are a relic of an approach to engineering roadways that first focused on efficient car movement, I'm guessing in response to the 70s oil crisis, and then secondarily on things like safety.

The whole King Street Bike Lanes saga is an excellent example of how #visionzero thinking was not applied. Engineers and planners argued against full separation and pointed out that the lanes supposedly represented best practices. Understanding the situation on the ground and the North American context we are working in should have made it clear that those best practices might not be the best practices in North America. But it seems that instead of thinking about risks and ways to mitigate them independently, they blindly followed some sort of published standard. The industry analogy, I think, would be for a worker to blindly follow procedures without independently assessing the risk.

I like to come back to the Transportation Commissioner statement along the lines of #visionzero being untenable because it would lead to too many traffic delays (or something along those lines) as I think it really demonstrates how he is unqualified to lead his department within the modern understanding of transportation planning. It entirely misses the point of what #visionzero is. It's an understanding of fatalities as a parameter in the design, and if you set fatalities = 0, the design doesn't work. Instead, the approach should be that we have to engineer a solution to a problem (intersection, for example) - how now can we engineer it safely? I'm adding a stop light, what does that mean for safety? I'm adding a left-turn lane, what does that mean for safety?

This type of thinking already exists in engineering in terms of efficiency. Efficient traffic movement is a primary variable that they are designing for and constantly trying to improve. Safety is a secondary variable that they need to keep within an acceptable level. Most improvements are made at a broader standards level instead of continually every day on the ground. #visionzero simply means that safety becomes one of the primary factors they engineer for. It allows for an environment where safety continually improves instead of one where safety remains at a status quo.

[SammyOES]

It's an understanding of fatalities as a parameter in the design, and if you set fatalities = 0, the design doesn't work. Instead, the approach should be that we have to engineer a solution to a problem (intersection, for example) - how now can we engineer it safely? I'm adding a stop light, what does that mean for safety? I'm adding a left-turn lane, what does that mean for safety?

My problem here is that there is generally no design that actually accomplishes fatalities of 0.  Why?  Because we, as a society, don't actually believe safety should be the only consideration.  Practicality matters.  And to have a design that really, truly, guarantees 0 fatalities (to something like the same level of confidence of a bridge collapsing due to load factors) would make our current transportation system (and by extension our quality of life, economy, etc.) grind to a halt.

So "zero fatalities" is great as a high level goal and guiding principle.  It's garbage if you want to treat it as an actual hard engineering constraint. [And, I'll note again that literally nowhere in the world that I know of, including Sweden, is anyone actually treating this as a hard engineering constraint].

This type of thinking already exists in engineering in terms of efficiency. Efficient traffic movement is a primary variable that they are designing for and constantly trying to improve. Safety is a secondary variable that they need to keep within an acceptable level.

I disagree with this premise that safety and efficiency are treated fundamentally differently.  Both are variables that are bring optimized and kept within acceptable levels.  Now, we can certainly argue that the trade offs being made now aren't the "best" ones.  And in that aspect, something like Vision Zero is great.  Bringing awareness to the trade offs and pointing out that maybe we're siding too often on efficiency and not safety.

[MacBerry]

It’s not an exclusive choice we have to make.  We can (and do!) do both.  But if you have a low usage intersection that is producing a relatively large number of fatalities there - we should look at that!  There’s more likely to be low hanging fruit changes that can be made there.  

Remember, our resources are limited and perfection is impossible.

People in Sweden are willing to kill people. That why they still have a lot of fatalities (in an absolute sense) from roads and are in no way close to actually having zero fatalities.

You can’t give the majority of a population complete control over a high mass device that can travel at speeds of 100km/h or more and actually think there’s a way to never have fatalities.  Sorry.

Edit: Reading the other posts it seems pretty clear this isn’t worth continuing.  I think peoples actions reflect their beliefs and not the words they use.  Semantics means little to me if it doesn’t change actions.  Sweden can *say* they don’t accept casualties but their actual actions don’t reflect that.

As for the barrier idea, it’s probablu a good idea in many places here.  It’s probably a bad idea in many other places.  It again comes down to a cost/benefit analysis.

The important thing about #visionzero isn't so much about having zero fatalities. It's more about shifting the way we think about our built environment, how we operate within it, and our response to fatalities. ie. it's more about cultural change leading to changes in the built environment. I don't know if it's origins come from industry, but it's definitely the approach to safety I've seen in industry. The goal is to change the thinking so that building a safe environment is always present in our minds. Every decision that is made about how infrastructure is built has some sort of affect on the safety of its users, and there should be an awareness of that at all stages of the process and methodologies and standards should be continuously revised and improved to reflect what we have learned from past incidents.

It may seem like a subtle difference, but I think it can have pretty significant effects. No one goes out trying to build something that may contribute to a fatality at a later date, but that is different than actively trying to build something that minimizes casualties. As an example, I don't think slip ramps would be built on non-separated roadways if a #visionzero culture existed. They are objectively less safe for all road users and are a relic of an approach to engineering roadways that first focused on efficient car movement, I'm guessing in response to the 70s oil crisis, and then secondarily on things like safety.

The whole King Street Bike Lanes saga is an excellent example of how #visionzero thinking was not applied. Engineers and planners argued against full separation and pointed out that the lanes supposedly represented best practices. Understanding the situation on the ground and the North American context we are working in should have made it clear that those best practices might not be the best practices in North America. But it seems that instead of thinking about risks and ways to mitigate them independently, they blindly followed some sort of published standard. The industry analogy, I think, would be for a worker to blindly follow procedures without independently assessing the risk.

I like to come back to the Transportation Commissioner statement along the lines of #visionzero being untenable because it would lead to too many traffic delays (or something along those lines) as I think it really demonstrates how he is unqualified to lead his department within the modern understanding of transportation planning. It entirely misses the point of what #visionzero is. It's an understanding of fatalities as a parameter in the design, and if you set fatalities = 0, the design doesn't work. Instead, the approach should be that we have to engineer a solution to a problem (intersection, for example) - how now can we engineer it safely? I'm adding a stop light, what does that mean for safety? I'm adding a left-turn lane, what does that mean for safety?

This type of thinking already exists in engineering in terms of efficiency. Efficient traffic movement is a primary variable that they are designing for and constantly trying to improve. Safety is a secondary variable that they need to keep within an acceptable level. Most improvements are made at a broader standards level instead of continually every day on the ground. #visionzero simply means that safety becomes one of the primary factors they engineer for. It allows for an environment where safety continually improves instead of one where safety remains at a status quo.

Moderator: Can we move all the self righteous discussion thread high-jacked to another thread and leave the general highway discussion thread to the less philosophical readers.

[danbrotherston]

...
Moderator: Can we move all the self righteous discussion thread high-jacked to another thread and leave the general highway discussion thread to the less philosophical readers.

Can you make this request without calling the negativity and incivlity?

[danbrotherston]

It's an understanding of fatalities as a parameter in the design, and if you set fatalities = 0, the design doesn't work. Instead, the approach should be that we have to engineer a solution to a problem (intersection, for example) - how now can we engineer it safely? I'm adding a stop light, what does that mean for safety? I'm adding a left-turn lane, what does that mean for safety?

My problem here is that there is generally no design that actually accomplishes fatalities of 0.  Why?  Because we, as a society, don't actually believe safety should be the only consideration.  Practicality matters.  And to have a design that really, truly, guarantees 0 fatalities (to something like the same level of confidence of a bridge collapsing due to load factors) would make our current transportation system (and by extension our quality of life, economy, etc.) grind to a halt.

So "zero fatalities" is great as a high level goal and guiding principle.  It's garbage if you want to treat it as an actual hard engineering constraint. [And, I'll note again that literally nowhere in the world that I know of, including Sweden, is anyone actually treating this as a hard engineering constraint].

This type of thinking already exists in engineering in terms of efficiency. Efficient traffic movement is a primary variable that they are designing for and constantly trying to improve. Safety is a secondary variable that they need to keep within an acceptable level.

I disagree with this premise that safety and efficiency are treated fundamentally differently.  Both are variables that are bring optimized and kept within acceptable levels.  Now, we can certainly argue that the trade offs being made now aren't the "best" ones.  And in that aspect, something like Vision Zero is great.  Bringing awareness to the trade offs and pointing out that maybe we're siding too often on efficiency and not safety.

First of all, there are no bridge designs, nor airplane designs that guarantee no failure.  What we do have is a process of checks and investigations in place to ensure when we do find a fault with the design, it is corrected.

This does not exist with road engineering.

Your belief such a system would make out transportation system "grind to a halt" is directly contradicted by Sweden, which implements such a system, yet has a fully functional, and in many ways, more functional transportation system than we have.

Claiming that either you "guarantee" zero deaths, or you refuse to make eliminating deaths part of the design process, is a false dichotomy.  People who design and test airplanes do so with the knowledge that there is no acceptable level of failure, but also know that they can and do make mistakes (and they did, recently, with the 787 MAX), yet are still able to design and build airplanes.

If we come back to practice, why is it that you, and people like our transportation commissioner oppose so vehemently, the system that Sweden has implemented. They have proven it is effective in reducing injuries and fatalities, without causing undue inconvenience to their transportation system, and yet here, we try to justify not implementing a similar safety program. Even when I give specific examples, you suggest it's "not always appropriate". So tired of seeing people killed, because people like our transportation commissioner don't consider safety a priority.

[SammyOES]

That’s all been addressed.  No point repeating myself.

Edit: Also, I get a good chuckle from someone bumping a 3 day old discussion to talk about how distracting it is.

[MacBerry]

...
Moderator: Can we move all the self righteous discussion thread high-jacked to another thread and leave the general highway discussion thread to the less philosophical readers.

Can you make this request without calling the negativity and incivlity?

NO ... you always get to be the sober second thought and words. Your negativity and civility also need to be considered.

Thank you for asking.

[danbrotherston]

I'm angry right now, because I'm reading about the multiple fatal and serious collisions in southern Ontario today. Two in London including one pedestrian dead and another in critical condition, a person killed on 7/8 this morning, and in Hamilton, an 11 year old boy run down by a dangerous driver in a pickup truck.

In. ONE. Day.

[tomh009]

I'm angry right now, because I'm reading about the multiple fatal and serious collisions in southern Ontario today.  Two in London including one pedestrian dead and another in critical condition, a person killed on 7/8 this morning, and in Hamilton, an 11 year old boy run down by a dangerous driver in a pickup truck.

In. ONE. Day.

I don't know about London or Hamilton, but I don't think road design is at fault in the incident on 7/8.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/kitchener...-1.5823367

[danbrotherston]

I'm angry right now, because I'm reading about the multiple fatal and serious collisions in southern Ontario today.  Two in London including one pedestrian dead and another in critical condition, a person killed on 7/8 this morning, and in Hamilton, an 11 year old boy run down by a dangerous driver in a pickup truck.

In. ONE. Day.

I don't know about London or Hamilton, but I don't think road design is at fault in the incident on 7/8.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/kitchener...-1.5823367

I'm not saying it is. But a person is dead, and that did not need to happen.

[tomh009]

I don't know about London or Hamilton, but I don't think road design is at fault in the incident on 7/8.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/kitchener...-1.5823367

I'm not saying it is. But a person is dead, and that did not need to happen.

It did not need to happen, no. But driver in the original incident lost control (mistake? summer tires? something else?). And people made the mistake of exiting the car, and standing in a dangerous place, and were hit by another car whose driver was trying to avoid the original incident. Likely the visibility was bad so the driver did not see the people in time.

I don't have an easy solution for this one. Driving slower in poor conditions would make a lot of sense but is difficult to enforce. Putting out a flare or a warning triangle for the accident would be good but most people don't have those (four-way flashers would be better than nothing). Teaching people to avoid danger after an accident is important but many people don't think of this.

[danbrotherston]

I'm not saying it is. But a person is dead, and that did not need to happen.

It did not need to happen, no. But driver in the original incident lost control (mistake? summer tires? something else?). And people made the mistake of exiting the car, and standing in a dangerous place, and were hit by another car whose driver was trying to avoid the original incident. Likely the visibility was bad so the driver did not see the people in time.

I don't have an easy solution for this one. Driving slower in poor conditions would make a lot of sense but is difficult to enforce. Putting out a flare or a warning triangle for the accident would be good but most people don't have those (four-way flashers would be better than nothing). Teaching people to  avoid danger after an accident is important but many people don't think of this.

I don't think there are easy solutions for safety. Even when there are "easy solutions" they are not easy. This is what makes me angry. Why aren't we upset about this. Why do we keep defending it.

London Police as a result of this collision gave a list of ways in which pedestrians can be blamed for being hit including clothing. Hamilton Police actually did lay charges of dangerous driving, likely as a result of the witness testimony about the aggressive driving, but if that driver had not actually hit a child, that same testimony of dangerous driving wouldn't have led to so much as a warning.

So much of our culture is about tolerating and enabling dangerous driving and presenting death as just a natural part of our roads. If we want safer roads, that is what we must change.

[tomh009]

I don't have an easy solution for this one. Driving slower in poor conditions would make a lot of sense but is difficult to enforce. Putting out a flare or a warning triangle for the accident would be good but most people don't have those (four-way flashers would be better than nothing). Teaching people to  avoid danger after an accident is important but many people don't think of this.

I don't think there are easy solutions for safety. Even when there are "easy solutions" they are not easy. This is what makes me angry. Why aren't we upset about this. Why do we keep defending it.

London Police as a result of this collision gave a list of ways in which pedestrians can be blamed for being hit including clothing. Hamilton Police actually did lay charges of dangerous driving, likely as a result of the witness testimony about the aggressive driving, but if that driver had not actually hit a child, that same testimony of dangerous driving wouldn't have led to so much as a warning.

Would you consider telling people to use a flare or a warning triangle to be blaming? This is similar to telling people that more visible clothing improves safety, is it not?

The reality is that a 2000 kg fast-moving object is always going to be dangerous to other users of the road, so we should take all opportunities to improve safety and reduce risk. That includes road design, vehicle safety features, driver/cyclist/pedestrian training/education, traffic rules, improved visibility and more. I don't personally view any of these as "blaming", only as opportunities to improve safety and reduce risk.

[ijmorlan]

Likely the visibility was bad so the driver did not see the people in time.

In other words, they were driving too fast for the conditions.

Correct driving means assuming there could be a boulder in the road around every corner and just beyond the reach of ones headlights at every second.

[tomh009]

It could well be. I was not there and I have no details.