General Road and Highway Discussion

[jamincan]

In a way, we do have some zones that function kind of like calmed neighbourhoods where vehicles go slow and there is no separation between cars/pedestrians/cyclists. It's basically what you often find in private townhouse developments. I suppose most parking lots are a perverse form of this too.

The point is that there are spaces in North American cities where drivers do slow down and where there isn't a clear hierarchy of users, and I'm willing to bet that that generally collisions are fairly rare in them and when they happen, the risk of fatalities is low and the cost of damages is also low. The question is why we aren't willing to extend that into the public sphere.

[panamaniac]

There are plenty of options to allow this without making the circle larger.  Mountable medians, lane straddling, and the like.

UK is full of roundabouts like this (image mirrored for driving on the right):



They fit in nearly any intersection, obstruct neither large vehicles nor vision, and cost approximately 15 minutes of paint crew next time they redo the lines.

I can't even imagine how many people would die if they attempted something like that in K-W.

[jamincan]

Yeah, I don't think roundabouts are ingrained enough in our driving behaviour. Too many people would barrel through at full speed.

[panamaniac]

Yeah, I don't think roundabouts are ingrained enough in our driving behaviour. Too many people would barrel through at full speed.

Or just treat it as a four-way stop, which would rather defeat the purpose even if it resulted in fewer casualties.

[danbrotherston]

Yeah, I don't think roundabouts are ingrained enough in our driving behaviour. Too many people would barrel through at full speed.

Or just treat it as a four-way stop, which would rather defeat the purpose even if it resulted in fewer casualties.

Depends on what the purpose is.  Fewer casualties is at least one of the purposes of putting in a roundabout.  

But surely there is middle ground between full stop and not slowing down at all.  Quite frankly if some licensed drivers here are incapable of achieving that middle ground, then they really shouldn't qualify for a license.

[MidTowner]

"But surely there is middle ground between full stop and not slowing down at all. Quite frankly if some licensed drivers here are incapable of achieving that middle ground, then they really shouldn't qualify for a license."

Isn't being given a driver's license a protected right in Canada?

And: don't most drivers here achieve that middle ground at any stop sign they encounter? They do slow down, but no need for a full stop for most of them.

[danbrotherston]

"But surely there is middle ground between full stop and not slowing down at all.  Quite frankly if some licensed drivers here are incapable of achieving that middle ground, then they really shouldn't qualify for a license."

Isn't being given a driver's license a protected right in Canada?

And: don't most drivers here achieve that middle ground at any stop sign they encounter? They do slow down, but no need for a full stop for most of them.

Uhh, no, a driver's license is not a "right", in any sense of the word.  Not sure why you're implying with "protected" but the usual discrimination laws apply (a province couldn't decide to restrict licenses based on gender, or cultural identity) but they have no requirement to guarantee licensing to everyone.

We do have the right or freedom of travel, which is totally different.

You're right, most drivers do rolling stops here anyway.  Ironically, those same drivers freak out when cyclists do the same thing.  Regardless, I'm not sure of the right solution, redefining the word stop to mean yield, I don't think is a good solution, and this is the direction we're heading now.

However, WRT my sentence, it was in response to the idea that we needed to treat the traffic circles as "four way stops".  I agree that most (well, probably most) drivers are capable of yielding.  In fact, the vast majority of drivers are quite competent.  Sadly, it only takes 1 to blow through any intersection and wipe out a whole family worth of pedestrians.

The only solution is to somehow make it appear that traveling so fast through the intersection would be dangerous or difficult for the driver in question.  In fact, even better if the entire road appears difficult to drive fast on.  Wider lanes and more comfortable angles don't achieve this, in fact, they make the problem worse.

[ijmorlan]

"But surely there is middle ground between full stop and not slowing down at all.  Quite frankly if some licensed drivers here are incapable of achieving that middle ground, then they really shouldn't qualify for a license."

Isn't being given a driver's license a protected right in Canada?

And: don't most drivers here achieve that middle ground at any stop sign they encounter? They do slow down, but no need for a full stop for most of them.

Uhh, no, a driver's license is not a "right", in any sense of the word.  Not sure why you're implying with "protected" but the usual discrimination laws apply (a province couldn't decide to restrict licenses based on gender, or cultural identity) but they have no requirement to guarantee licensing to everyone.

We do have the right or freedom of travel, which is totally different.

You're right, most drivers do rolling stops here anyway.  Ironically, those same drivers freak out when cyclists do the same thing.  Regardless, I'm not sure of the right solution, redefining the word stop to mean yield, I don't think is a good solution, and this is the direction we're heading now.

However, WRT my sentence, it was in response to the idea that we needed to treat the traffic circles as "four way stops".  I agree that most (well, probably most) drivers are capable of yielding.  In fact, the vast majority of drivers are quite competent.  Sadly, it only takes 1 to blow through any intersection and wipe out a whole family worth of pedestrians.

The only solution is to somehow make it appear that traveling so fast through the intersection would be dangerous or difficult for the driver in question.  In fact, even better if the entire road appears difficult to drive fast on.  Wider lanes and more comfortable angles don't achieve this, in fact, they make the problem worse.

We could install corduroy roads.

[jamincan]

I saw this picture on twitter and it seems apropos:

[Pheidippides]

By the chunks out of the hydro poles around the roundabout at Margaret and Union (https://www.google.ca/maps/@43.4672537,-...312!8i6656 and https://www.google.ca/maps/@43.467255,-8...312!8i6656), it's clear some large vehicles have difficulty maneuvering this tighter roundabout.

The second looks like snowplow damage.

[panamaniac]

Or just treat it as a four-way stop, which would rather defeat the purpose even if it resulted in fewer casualties.

Depends on what the purpose is.  Fewer casualties is at least one of the purposes of putting in a roundabout.  

But surely there is middle ground between full stop and not slowing down at all.  Quite frankly if some licensed drivers here are incapable of achieving that middle ground, then they really shouldn't qualify for a license.

I agree entirely.  Imho, a significant number of drivers in the Region simply should not be behind the wheel of an automobile.

[tomh009]

Quite frankly if some licensed drivers here are incapable of achieving that middle ground, then they really shouldn't qualify for a license.

I agree entirely.  Imho, a significant number of drivers in the Region simply should not be behind the wheel of an automobile.

Really we need better driver education and more stringent driver licensing.  In all of North America.

[Canard]

...and/or far stricter enforcement. Most of the stuff you see happen here would get your car impounded in Europe.

[SammyOES2]

I think people exaggerate the badness of drivers (I'm as guilty as anyone else), but I agree there are some obvious changes necessary.

For example, I don't really understood the opposition to photo radar - ESPECIALLY in pedestrian heavy areas, school zones, and other low speed areas.  It seems like that would be pretty effective in controller drivers (or giving us enough information to remove the bad drivers from the road) w/o a lot of the downsides of things like speed bumps / super narrow roads / etc.

[tomh009]

For example, I don't really understood the opposition to photo radar - ESPECIALLY in pedestrian heavy areas, school zones, and other low speed areas.  It seems like that would be pretty effective in controller drivers (or giving us enough information to remove the bad drivers from the road) w/o a lot of the downsides of things like speed bumps / super narrow roads / etc.

Photo radar (as previously implemented here) doesn't really do much more than a conventional police speed trap, other than generate more revenue: it's in one spot on the side of the highway, and catches people speeding in that spot.

Now, if we're talking about speed cameras (as implemented in many countries in Europe), it's a different thing.  There will be camera boxes liberally scattered over the larger highways, and drivers don't know which ones are active so they tend to drive slow for all of them.  It provides much more of a slowing down effect than the former method, but it does have an infrastructure cost of installing camera boxes.

The camera boxes could be implemented in cities (such as school zones, as you suggest), but cost is likely prohibitive to have them in all the city neighbourhoods.  And I don't know how well they cope with urban traffic in dense downtown areas.

My fearless prediction is that speeding will start to become much less of an issue in the 2020s with the advent of autonomous vehicles.