Safe Speed Forums

I agree, prhaps they should make horns that with a quick prod give a friendly beep and by holding the horn give a louder more noticeable blast for emergency warnings. I used to have a car, a Ford i believe, that had the horn on the end of the indicator stalk. It was both easier to use than the steering wheel horns (which, in my experience, you have to thump quite aggressively, on some vehicles, to get to work successfully...taking one hand off the wheel too,) and at the same time allowed you to give a little beep-beep by gentle finger work or a long blast by holding your finger on the button....ahhh progress !


Admin added - this thread has been split from here How the Dutch got their cycle paths

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My views do not represent Safespeed but those of a driver who has driven for 39 yrs, in all conditions, at all times of the day & night on every type of road and covered well over a million miles, so knows a bit about what makes for safety on the road,what is really dangerous and needs to be observed when driving and quite frankly, the speedo is way down on my list of things to observe to negotiate Britain's roads safely, but I don't expect some fool who sits behind a desk all day to appreciate that.

I used to have a whistle when riding in busy central London and that worked well as you could control the length, strength and tone of it to warn or advise.
With car horns I can still do this too although it is harder. Many seem to use a short double toot for thank you and a short one toot for an advisory warning and a longer full blast for an emergency immediate warning. That seems to work well.
how long before lights have flashing lights to show 'meaning' too ?
With indicators available for cyclists I'd like to see the 'flashing lights' removed, and plain lights only as more sophisticated lights are added.

Since Holland has built their cycle lanes into their road structure, can we really squeeze them into our much smaller roads ? Surely we have to only place them on new road structures and only where really 'necessary'.
I like that many unused rail lines are now country paths and cycle routes as that is a sensible use of an otherwise potentially wasted or little used, strip of land.

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Safe Speed for Intelligent Road Safety through proper research, experience & guidance.

Go off topic all you like -it's a matter of training and attitude ,mostly attitude . Blokes on track hearing a train horn ,are trained to get out of it's way .If the train driver reports - it's loss of ticket /and or retraining ,which could mean loss of job or disciplinery proceedures . Attitude to hearing a vehicle horn is that it's a warning of vehicle presence ( see highway code before seeing red) and be aware that there is danger .
I used to compare tourists to black faced sheep - est way of moving them on was to slap drivers door with flat of hand .

Pedestrians /cyclists take it as a threat to their presence ,and instead of a reaction to lookout for safety of all , get stroppy .

As I said -when ALL combine to consider the safety of ALL roadusers ,then we wu=ill become a safer nation . However ,we've seen the last governmnt split all sections of roadusers to divide and rule .

On a more comical note - in a Highland village I used to live in ,in summer, the postmaster drove to the rail station to pick up mail . In summer , the roads were clogged by tourists . He used to clear a path by shouting "Mind yer ass missus" - certainly worked for him .

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

The difference is that when your gang are working on a track you are impinging on a facility which is normally 100% dedicated to use by trains so it is entirely reasonable that your lads should leap out of the way of trains. But a public road is a shared facility, shared between motor vehicles, pedestrians and others, so it is quite reasonable for the pedestrian to expect to "negotiate" with the driver for his share of the road rather than immediately hiding until the vehicle has gone.

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

Yes, I've negotiated with the traffic all my life. I stand on the kerb rather than walking straight into the road, look out and listen for vehicles and when I observe that the way is clear and safe I cross the road. This has worked well; I am still alive. I commend it to others.

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Malcolm W.
The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not represent the views of Safespeed.

I did this the other day, on a green man for me too.

Cab came out of nowhere at full propeller, a bit shocked to see me in the road (where I rightfully was), expecting me to run/jump out of his way, I even saw the arm movement he made to virtually swipe me from his intended path, he clearly thought I shouldn't be there.

I didn't jump out of his way, I think I heard the crack when his head hit the windscreen.

Can I understand this incident clearly.

You were crossing the road on a "green man" signal. This means you were at traffic lights which were red for the cab. The cab came round a corner from an unobservable position and went through the red light, braked hard and just missed you.

or

The cab stopped at the red light according you the rightful priority and you are just commenting on the extent of his braking.

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Malcolm W.
The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not represent the views of Safespeed.

Reading that, if I didn't know it was Weepej, I would guess it was the sort of nonesensical, grossly exaggerated phrase the local non driving nimby would spout for reasons to have a 20MPH limit put up in their local hamlet, instead of the 40MPH they have now, citing ....."traffic always does at least 90 though here!"

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My views do not represent Safespeed but those of a driver who has driven for 39 yrs, in all conditions, at all times of the day & night on every type of road and covered well over a million miles, so knows a bit about what makes for safety on the road,what is really dangerous and needs to be observed when driving and quite frankly, the speedo is way down on my list of things to observe to negotiate Britain's roads safely, but I don't expect some fool who sits behind a desk all day to appreciate that.

Yet another close shave weepej?
Why do these events only happen to you? I've never had anything like that happen to me in my entire lifetime.

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Views expressed are personal opinions and are not necessarily shared by the Safe Speed campaign

read again - once on solid ground ( ie off track) the same standards also applied , from pedestrians/drivers/cyclists ( yep we did have some security staff on long access on cycles-and they were not track trained -jus picked up on etiquette ). aND NEXT QUESTION - WHY - all down to something missing on UK roads - training for safety / esire for safety , and the realisation that safety comes from working and loking out for the safety of all .

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

He (I think, I didn't see) turned out of a queue on a junction (I think he;'d probably already crossed his light and got stuck) , looking to dive down another road, I figure when he broke free he saw clear air and floored it, straight at me, clearly thinking I shouldn't have been in his way.

But then you spent years cycling around London and state you never saw anybody walking right along the edge of the pavement, or even in the road by the side of the pavement, I see that every day, multiple times.

Oh weepej, you have been getting so many simple facts wrong recently, such as your stawman hypocrisy, and then your strict silliness. I think this is going to be another ...

Perhaps you were thinking of these:
pedestrians tend not to walk on the kerbstones.
obstruction of travelling 'along'
How many people walk on the kerbstones?

Did you see what I did there? I referenced all the posts in question, something you conveniently don't do.

If you didn't mean any of these, then I absolutely insist that you link or quote the specific text to back up your claims.
Will you do that, go quiet, or use one of your own brand of logic and ask me to prove that I didn't say it!



Your thought process seems to be a little reckless. That, coupled with your frequent errors and stubbornness to admit them, means we might have found your problem!

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Views expressed are personal opinions and are not necessarily shared by the Safe Speed campaign

To follow the side track of crossings for a moment there has been an increase in the number of lights that change almost as soon as the ped hits the button which provides little time for driver to react IMHO. I went over a ped crossing the other day and as I crossed the lady hit the button and the lights changed within a second of her press! That IMHO is dangerous and un-necessary as it gives too little warning.

The Highway Code here when crossing reminds all drivers to proceed with caution even when the lights are green amber, never to overtake cars that are waiting for peds to cross, and here (Rule 18 onwards) where rule 21 applies, although 19 is useful at all times.
Weepej what type of crossing was it?
To be reasonable I am not sure how you can 'know' what that driver thought for sure. What if he has a serious sick person or some other emergency situation going on and was unable to communicate this with you and needed you to move? Whilst this might be uncommon it does happen.
Certainly if you have a green light and as long as the lights (which ever type) are a solid green that indicates that you ought to be able to cross safely, (and as specified in the HC above link) he ought to have a red light and he should have stopped, unless he was on a mercy run, or was an emergency vehicles, he ought to have slowed and stopped. If you started crossing on a green flashing man then his light may have been an amber and this can lead to a 'false sense of safety' situations and would have been your fault had he hit you. The flashing green is only for those already crossing as a warning that time is running out.
However if he really intended 'going' no matter what, surely for your own safety, why would you not give way or at least stop with room for him to still travel through? From a risk management perspective, I know that I would have ! Why take that chance?
Whilst you may have been legally entitled to walk across, surely for your own safety was it really the best action?

We must all look out and be aware at all times. In busy urban areas it would be most unwise to assume everyone had seen us, and always proceed with great caution for our own safety and also looking out for others too.
Whist we have rules and regs to help deal with the legalities of incidents, when something has gone very wrong, it would be wrong to assume that everyone was perfect and capable of never making a mistake.

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Safe Speed for Intelligent Road Safety through proper research, experience & guidance.

Surely the action of pressing the button just starts the usual orange->red sequence ? which would be the same amount of warning regardless of whether it did it straight away or 10seconds later ?

(Obviously if you've observed the pedestrain approaching & pressing the button you might have factored in a guess of how long before you get an orange and therefore feel you've had little time to react, but no less than if the pedestrian was obstructed from view in the first place)

From what I have seen and can deduce, after the lights (for vehicular traffic) have gone back to green, there is a time delay (I guess around 30 seconds) before they can turn to red.
If the “pedestrian request” button is pressed during this period, the pedestrian phase will be delayed until the timeout has passed. If the button is pressed after that period, the pedestrian phase is immediately applied.

So during less busy periods, it may well seem that the pedestrian phase would immediately be applied when requested.

Is this any more of a concern than timed lights at junctions?

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Views expressed are personal opinions and are not necessarily shared by the Safe Speed campaign

My experience as a pedestrian is that, if anything, the minimum gap can be excessive. There are three seats of pedestrian lights I use reasonably regularly and at all of them it is likely that a gap in traffic will open up before the lights change for you. I think these actively wait for a gap in the traffic.

I remember as a student many years ago annoying oncoming motorists by pressing the button and making the lights change to red when I had no intention of crossing, but crossings that work like that are very much a thing of the past.

Most in any case now have traffic and pedestrian detection systems.

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

I do agree that her action to me was clear as she approached and immediately pressed the 2nd part of the ‘Staggered’ pelican crossing. I observed her action easily with the slow/stop/go traffic jam that I was in. But As she pressed it I was surprised at just how fast the lights went into their yellow phase I would have said less than a second. And it is precisely that the following drivers needed to be aware as my car cleared the area that they needed time to observe her and the possibility of the lights changing. On this occasion there was no problem whatsoever, the car behind barely moved forward with the lights changing and just stopped almost as fast as he had gone to move off. But this is not wise management of lights. If I had been a large lorry or other vehicle, following vehicles might not have seen the lights as easily, nor 'predicted' the hazard with good time as vision/awareness (& so anticipation), might have been further impaired.
Most information needs to be 'around for 4 seconds for us to have time to observe it - this is standard image perception awareness that is well known in the film industry. This is there for a reason, you want to audience (in this case busy motorists & road users) to have good time to observe the potential of a need to change their 'action'.
With the lights changing so fast, and going to red so very quickly, it gives little time for road users to have good clear observation and to slow comfortably and carefully. If a vehicle has to brake suddenly as the lights change, others who light not have 'expected' it, may find themselves braking hard and sharp for an unnecessarily non-urgent requirement. In fact emergency fire station lights change less quickly !
Allowing traffic to observe and act in an appropriate manner is important for road safety. Or put anther way the 'need' has been given an 'action' unbecoming of the requirement.

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Safe Speed for Intelligent Road Safety through proper research, experience & guidance.

Have seen similar incidents over the past few days- one today wher the pedestrian didn't look ,she started to cross before the indication was green (and the light were on yellow) .Perhap e now need lights with road sensors to give drivers a chance to react .Too often the peestrian hit the button and the lights change . I always as a pedestrian recognise that driver need a bit of reaction time . Perhaps this is something our roa safety ocieties need to look at . But again , its all about the integration of safety attitudes and a policy of "road safety is for all " .Perhaps we need some legislation ( as in France) for jaywalking ( or jaycycling) .But in ex Labia UK,the culprit is ----as always guilty till proved innocent - the driver .

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

That isn't negotiation it is capitulation. You are effectively asking the motorists permission to use the road; waiting on his convenience ; tacitly accepting that, because he has the power to kill you, you will let him have first call on using the road. You are accepting that , as a pedestrian, are a second class road user; allowed to use the road only with the permission of the motorist. That is appropriate for major trunk roads but not for city streets and minor rural roads.

That second class status was evidence locally in the recent bad weather. The carriageways were cleared of snow within a few hours but several days later the pavements were still sheets of ice except where they were plies of snow from the road. Pedestrians were forced to walk in the road where they were at some danger from passing traffic

And in the way PeLiCon crossings always default to traffic priority rather than pedestrian priority; so that it is always the pedestrian who has to ask permission to use the road, never the motorist.

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown