Rob B

DavidRB - I agree entirely about the chequer board (at the speed they played the footage at anyway) - there wasn't much indication that you had to stop - as the footage was played I could almost feel myself in the car in the middle of the Fosse Way - very frightening.

Hopefully, even if the spending on the roads isn't there, then programmes like these will remind us to keep more aware of possible bad road design and raise driver concentration.

Rob B

Forgive me if this has been covered before, but without the search I couldn't check.

Watching the Penny Valory prog on C4 set me off a rant to my girlfriend about road design and how to pay for improvements.

They featured an accident blackspot where there had been numerous accidents and some fatalities. The calculated loss to the economy of one death was £800,000 (cost of emergency services, loss of earnings etc)and the costs of an accident must be in the region of £20,000. The ideal remedy was to build a large roundabout to slow the traffic down and include a number of warning signs so that drivers were aware of the approaching dangers. Unfortunately the roads budget for the entire year in that area was only £100,000 so a compromise road re-structuring was done that was not going to be as safe as constructing the roundabout.

To spend the money on extensive road re-structuring is both in the interests of road safety and also makes economic sense. Why then do the powers that be insist on spending money on the emergency services, mopping up the messes that happen because of bad road design, instead of addressing the cause and spending the money that we give them on improving road safety?

DrEvil

.. just the way they work isnt it .. if they havent got the money to do the big changes they do the small non-effective ones...

DavidRB

Because, sadly, the changes are not always guaranteed to bring about a reduction in deaths.

As was pointed out in the programme, sometimes, the accident rates drop, then rise again, or a new type of accident starts occurring.

Still, I do agree with you that they'd have more than £100k per year to spend if they didn't keep spending money on all those accidents.

Two other interesting points that I picked up on.

1) I got the feeling that some of the drivers involved in the accidents had made no attempt to slow, despite the presence of other vehicles. Like, for example, the guy who saw one vehicle jump out in front of him and who then hit the second one that shot out. It's speculation, but it sounded like some of the accidents could have been avoided if the drivers had just lifted off slightly.

2) Did you watch the speeded up footage of the Fosse Way approach to the crossroads that was made into a roundabout? It really looked like the road just carried on, there were no obvious clues that there was a dead-stop ahead (other than the give-way sign). Even the modified bend & chequer-board still made it look like the road just continued. In that case, the roundabout seemed entirely justified.

IntegraR

Frightening, I cant believe it was in the budget to keep the Millenium Dome open, yet things like making the roads safer are given a budget so low that proper solutions are impossible!!
Makes me mad, I was nearly involved in an accident similar to the one they described, on Monday. A car pulled out of a T Junction, hadnt seen the Pug coming along at a fair speed, and braked, but the Pug braked very hard, swerved to miss the other car, and ended up becomming part of the bank, on my side of the road (I was heading towards the Pug).
No-one hurt thank god, but boy, the pug driver was pissed off!! I got out to help, and he was ready to pummel the other driver, so I quietly backed away and let them sort it out.
You know, at that accident blackspot with Penny "Im ugly so I learnt to be a rally driver" Vallory, why didnt they put a set of traffic lights, so that at timed intervals, it stops the main road traffic, and allows the right turners to filter through safely.
There's no excuse for penny pinching when it come to obvious safety needs, that road has cost a lot of live, so it should have been addressed a few years ago.
Moan, moan moan, sorry, let me get down from my high horse.

boomer

Another excellent program, presented fairly and encouraging drivers to think just a little about their surroundings and road conditions (rather than simply tell 'em to slow down).

£100K per year for road improvements is a joke! Heck they must spend more on the salaries of the engineers (at least i hope that they don't come out of the same pot!).

On the main subject/junction of the program, landspace permitting, i feel that a roundabout would definitely be best. Not only from a road safety point of view, but hopefully to reduce the massive tailback of cars (which causes impatience, frustration, and hence a greater likelihood of more accidents).

However, roundabouts are not always appropriate. The last time that i drive from Chelmsford to Brum via Cambridge, the clear and almost empty A road seemed to have a roundabout at every minor junction - it must really p*ss of HGV drivers. Maybe the roundabout budget for the next years has already been spent down there

mb

mutant_matt

Chaps,

I had a chat with two Newham Council (East London) planners recently and they told me that on average, each and EVERY accident costs "society" £55,000 and that each fatal accident costs £1million. So that would imply that they only have enough money to stop two accidents per year from happening - extrapolation, it's a wonderful thing!

Also, judging from the same conversations, you could employ a fair few planners for that £100,000 budget but no, I think the money does come from different pots.

The other impression I have got from this series of programs is that most of the accidents (but not all) could have been easily avioded if the people involved had been paying just a little bit of attention to the task in hand - i.e. driving!!

Cheers,

Matt.

DaveD

iTrader: (2)

Whilst agreeing with the above points, I couldn't help thinking that the best way of improving the junction in question would have been to remove the left-turn filter, and convert the junction into a simple T formation.

Minimal cost - a few road cones.

It's sad that our highway planners do come up with some increadibly crap designs for junctions!

StanS

iTrader: (3)

I cannot stand watching that idiot Mallory.
She may be an "expert" rally driver but she has poor roadcraft skills - it gives me extreme armchair rage watching her doing her piece to camera whilst apparantly driving - concentrating on what she is saying rather than the road, and looking into camera instead of where she is going (or into mirrors). I can imagine what an police driver would say if he was sitting next to her !! I think she gives an incredably bad message to viewers.
Rant over.
Stan