Safe Speed Forums

What about the person who jumped off a bridge on to the M4? That's a big danger.
The cyclist I saw going the wrong way down the dual carriageway by Bournemouth Railway Station could have caused issues too. Let's hope they didn't continue along the Wessex Way!
I'd prefer if people didn't cycle into me either.


How do you injure a motor vehicle? - sorry, couldn't help it

I've still heard no good reason for the restriction these death bollards are there to enforce. Why disallow motor vehicles but allow buses (which, err, are motor vehicles) and cyclists? It doesn't make sense. If they are doing it to get more people from A to B going on the theory that buses carry lots of people then that's silly, to get more people through they should allow all vehicles to pass!

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Andrew.

This is a silly comment

Sometimes cyclists and pedestrians hit motor vehicles, because they are not looking. How is this the motorists fault?

A friend was once driving(at 15-20mph in a 30mph) along and a pedestrian ran out between two cars into the the side of her car, roughly by the wing mirror. Yes the pedestrian was worse off, but it was hardly the car drivers fault.

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Oct 11 Birmingham Half Marathon. I am running for the British Heart Foundation.
http://www.justgiving.com/Rob-Taylor

After twenty years of accident-free motoring, I've had two shunts in the last couple of years (neither of which was "my fault"). The worst of these was caused by the sort of cyclist that gives cycling a bad name. As I was approaching a roundabout I adjusted my speed so that my arrival at the roundabout would coincide with a gap in the circulatory traffic. I was about to join the roundabout when I caught a glimpse of something in my left, peripheral vision. A quick check revealed lycra lout riding on the pavement the wrong way around the roundabout too fast to stop and heading straight for me. Had I continued my manoeuvre, I've no doubt he would have "T-boned" into the nearside of my car. I stopped, the guy behind me didn't and his car sustained a couple of hundred quid's worth of damage. The lycra lout continued his criminal riding unscathed.

Three days ago, I was walking along the pavement of a one-way street a few yards from the junction with a main road when another cycling miscreant came haring round the corner on the pavement. By the time he passed me and another pedestrian who also had to jump out of his way he was travelling ten to fifteen mph, on the pavement, the wrong way up a one-way street.

In both cases, the cyclists' actions were far more dangerous than were those of the car drivers speared by the bollards.

_________________
Will

Ever been knocked over by another pedestrian in a rush?
Are buses okay because they are full of pedestrains?

_________________
Oct 11 Birmingham Half Marathon. I am running for the British Heart Foundation.
http://www.justgiving.com/Rob-Taylor

Yes - regularly in our town centre - always thought it was because they couldn't see me - till the day i walked through the town centre (on market day ) with a curtain pole in my hand - like the opening of the Red Sea -

I should post up a photo of my deep wound which required a load of stitches then

How did I get this deep wound? Was walking on a pavement in a town centre when..

....idiot on a bicycle decided to push me into the deep trench of the gas works.. when he barged past ILLEGALLY on the pavement .. It was a long drop ...

on the plus side.. played up the walking wounded so that my "concerned" wife would slave to my every whim In me dreams ..

But it was jolly painful .. and I still have a scar... It also ruined a decent pair of trousers.. all that blood

Er.. you were saying?



Pah!

Oh .. and from my "junior doc" days - whilst on an A&E stint .. we used to get a fair old number of cyclists injured by other cyclists.. people and kids injured by cyclists either riding on pavements.. doing wheelies on speed humps (still get these.. )




By the way.. enough bicycles on say a critical mass and those bollards could easily be duped into "sensorising" that all them bikes "are like a car width" They've already got it wrong for a bus .. .

There is more.. my sister tells me that a main shopping street between an Aldi supermarket and an Asda store is set to get some of these bollards to prevent all cars and bikes from travelling down the road .. bikes -- um - perhaps - motorbikes - but somehow my two sisters in the vicinity are unwilling to test this out on their "shopping" bicycles (They have those twee things with the wicker basket :rolleyes: For all their practice on these bikes.. they finished before me on the "recent epic" That blasted cyclist who gashed my leg .. ggrrrr! last year It's his fault! grrrr! OK the real reason I finished last.. .. bloke with Classic 1950s Merc .. We got talking.. ) )

Howver, per the "Bolton News" paper report two weeks or so ago ... the bollards are supposed to allow delivery vans down this road..

Question people are asking.. taxis used to be allowed down the road to pick up shoppers - especially elderly and disabled as this is quite a long shopping street apparently.

These bollards will compromise that facility for them :rolleyes:



It is not appropriate to have cyclists cycling in pedestrianised zones or on footpaths either

But as for goods vehicles?

How do goods actually arrive in the shops? and just sometimes you may have bought something heavy and need to use the road to pick up the goods as well



Manchester was recently gridlocked by competing buses per the Manchester press.. hardly an "efficient use of road space.. nobody .. not even cyclists could move ... according to the newspaper's report .. twomn months' or so ago ...



One of those drivers was disabled .. she saw a free disabled bay at the other side of the "taboo" area .. and asked for permission via the intercom. She's the one whose baby could have been killed by these :f:censored: efforts

I am sure you would say the baby and her disabled mother and disabled grandmother all "got what they deserved" if they happened to have become very dead as a a result of this ..

One of my sisters has since been into Manchester city centre and observed the goings on for herself. She says the signs should be a lot clearer.. especially in a town still undergoing major works after the 1996 IRA bomb attack .... She reckons the locals who shop in the small local 'burbs and who are infrequent visitors to Manchester centre would be "lost" as it has changed very much over the last ten years in looks, feel, atmoshere and features.

_________________
If you want to get to heaven - you have to raise a little hell!

Smilies are contagious
They are just like the flu
We use our smilies on YOU today
Now Good Causes are smiling too!

KEEP SMILING
It makes folk wonder just what you REALLY got up to last night!

Smily to penny.. penny to pound
safespeed prospers-smiles all round! !
But the real message? SMILE.. GO ON ! DO IT! and the world will smile with you!
Enjoy life! You only have the one bite at it.

By the way.. the crushes caused at football stadia over the years show how lethal a crush and surge of people can be..

Hillsborough.. the metal railings were buckled from the surging in that crowd .. 97 people were literally suffocated and crushed to death in that mass of overcrowding.

Stampedes.. people get crushed under foot.. it has happened .. fires .. sheer panic reactions ... . surges of people. en masse ... .the combined force could damage vehicles as well as kill and seriously maim other people .

As ree.t says - even being knocked against or even over by a thoughtless, or rushing, running pedestian or having a door slam into you as people are too rude to hold it for the person behind them.. it can seriously hurt a fellow pedestrian.

Fisticuffs, boxing, fighting in the streets people on bikes, skateboards, rollerskates.. .. I'd say pedestrians and cyclists can ideed cause injury to others sometimes worse than being run over by a car... I have treated people during my A&E stint who have been seriously hurt from all the above.. and my brother was based in a Sheffield hospital at the time of Hillsborough..

_________________
If you want to get to heaven - you have to raise a little hell!

Smilies are contagious
They are just like the flu
We use our smilies on YOU today
Now Good Causes are smiling too!

KEEP SMILING
It makes folk wonder just what you REALLY got up to last night!

Smily to penny.. penny to pound
safespeed prospers-smiles all round! !
But the real message? SMILE.. GO ON ! DO IT! and the world will smile with you!
Enjoy life! You only have the one bite at it.

I thought of this thread when I saw this video of a new speed bump installed in Dubai:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vg79_mM2CNY

MEN

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Useless laws weaken necessary laws.

If that's the case then the City Council will have a lovely set of proceedings against them.

Indeed.

You know these things could be duped into thinking a mass of bicycles bunched close together is a "car". Works off a sensor which the authorised traffic use and the sensor picks up a "chip" or something within the vehicle. Why they "spear" up so suddenly afterwards perhaps? In reality they should be raised all the time and only lowered by the drivers doo-dah within their vehicles.. but they should still not flurt upwards into the chassis of passing over. As the Manchester paper notes in it editor's comment



I agree .. Would it have been so "hilariously funny" (from comment passed by some serious hypocrite of a fool - ( who claims to have seen a comment on this site claiming a pedestrian hit on a pelican got their just deserts for crossing the road (which I have not read or seen on here and am sure I would have taken some issue with anyone who posted such nonsense anyway) - and which comment of his is a touch hypocrital since we have written evidence of this same person justifying running a red light at a pedestrian crossing as "losing momentum" on a another cycling site) - if the woman and her baby had been seriously injured or KILLED? Or what if a cyclist just happened to be wheeling his bicycle or even just riding through ...That rider could have also been hit by this and it would not have been speed .. but rather the hard force of a large heavy object like a 4x4 hitting them. For record .. I feel these vehicles belong more in my very rural locality of Cumbria rather than the city centre of Manchester or any other 'burb...but some folk have odd tastes.






He was very lucky that he survived that one.




Am I surprised? I think they may be in for a shock when insurance companies and county courts get involved in long run though..


Conveniently though ...


But if someone gets killed.... I think this piece in the MEN should be preserved in case of a future corporate manslaughter charge.



Indeed... no laughing matter at all. Anyone who has the slightest regard for safety and purports to desire to save lives must agree that something needs to be done about these bollards before someone becomes another KSI stat.

Only a fool would find that film footage "funny".

_________________
If you want to get to heaven - you have to raise a little hell!

Smilies are contagious
They are just like the flu
We use our smilies on YOU today
Now Good Causes are smiling too!

KEEP SMILING
It makes folk wonder just what you REALLY got up to last night!

Smily to penny.. penny to pound
safespeed prospers-smiles all round! !
But the real message? SMILE.. GO ON ! DO IT! and the world will smile with you!
Enjoy life! You only have the one bite at it.

ooopps same post twice

_________________
Oct 11 Birmingham Half Marathon. I am running for the British Heart Foundation.
http://www.justgiving.com/Rob-Taylor

When I saw the flim I was shocked
I could not belive people thought that it was reasonable.

I think it shows, what a hatefull socitey we are becoming

_________________
Oct 11 Birmingham Half Marathon. I am running for the British Heart Foundation.
http://www.justgiving.com/Rob-Taylor

AND the lengths local authorities will go to to show that they are in control

Normal, decent and fair minded folk like me, thee and most on this and other boards were shocked. Lot of letters went to the Manchester postbag about the lunacy of these bollards. Only the lunatic fringe would find seeing someone almost killed or seriously injured "funny". These seem people claim to want KSI reduced ..and show a clear lack of logic by thinking a speed cam actually achieves this But maim or by some stroke of pure luck not kill a woman pedestrian and her child .. that caused a few puffed up bigots with below zero personalities on a pro scam/anti car site to "split sides laughing" because the incident threw a 4x4 in her path nearly injuring or killing her and the unfortunate occupants of the car.

Yes ree.t. You are right.. some really pathetic, plain nasty and vicious persons in our society. Normal people would gape with horror that such things which could kill the car owners and anyone who just happened into the path could occur in a busy city centre and that a council claim they are trying to protect these same pedestrians from those naughty car drivers..

The truly and terminally stupid find films like this "funny"

_________________
If you want to get to heaven - you have to raise a little hell!

Smilies are contagious
They are just like the flu
We use our smilies on YOU today
Now Good Causes are smiling too!

KEEP SMILING
It makes folk wonder just what you REALLY got up to last night!

Smily to penny.. penny to pound
safespeed prospers-smiles all round! !
But the real message? SMILE.. GO ON ! DO IT! and the world will smile with you!
Enjoy life! You only have the one bite at it.

I tried to add a comment to the MEN web article. I said that the bollards were dangerous and should be made safe or scrapped. My comment hasn't appeared. However, several pro-bollard comments that were made after mine have. Looking at the comments, the only anti-bollard comments are ironic and they haven't published a single comment that actually condemns these things.

Neutrality of the press? I don't think so!

_________________
Will

Locally we see one paper full of pro SCP messages, but no Anti SCP news or letters.
Would be interesting to compile a list of local papers ( after most are allied to nationals anyway),and see if the locals follow the lead of the parent.

Guys, I'm of the opinion that you need to pick the right battles to "win" the war, and in my opinion, this is NOT the right battle.

These bollards are in no way "Booby trapped", and to say so makes you sound ignorant and does your otherwise worthy cause no favours. The barriers drop when a bus or authorised vehicle approaches them, and then raise when said vehicle has passed, in the same way as a car park barrier rises and falls on payment. But you'd hardly call those "Booby trapped"

Check this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_Cw0QJU8ro

Now try to tell me that the drivers weren't trying to beat the bollards. The Toyota Starlet obviously realises what the barriers are, reverses, (and so has demonstrably seen them) and then tries to tail-gate behind the bus in order to beat the bollards. Her next action was evidently to write a whining letter to the local paper complaining about how her mother/baby/ego could have been injured. Is that not her fault for driving like a complete selfish idiot?

Likewise, the black 4x4 clearly accelerates in an effort to beat them (nearly hitting a pedestrian and pushchair on the red caution strip) only to be thwarted by the rising bollards...

...note the CAR actually drives into the rising barriers; the barriers STOP rising on impact with the 4x4 - as the quarter-raised position shows when the stupid starlet driver eventually reverses. If the vehicle's hadn't have tried to tail-gate or speed, then the barriers would have raised infront of the vehicles and not under them. Would you prefer paper barriers that stop... no-one?

When are we going to take responsibility for our actions?

The bollards are well signed, and obvious, as you can see at the beginning of teh you tube video. You can complain about the supposed legality of the signs, but at the end of the day the signs are large and clear and if you can't see them, you shouldn't be on the road in the first place. The 4x4 could have easily hit a pedestrian at the speed it was travelling, and why wasn't the van driver wearing a seat belt?

Ask yourselves this: Do you have sympathy for the ticket dodger who gets pinched by the barriers at a tube station as he tries to squeeze in behind somebody? Would you lose sleep if a car got damaged by the lowering barrier behind you as it tried to tailgate you out of a paid carpark?

Sorry, but these idiots knew what they were doing, and got caught out. No sympathy from me.

It's reasonably obvious that some people are going to drive into the bollards. Some will do it because they're stupid and think they can sneak through while they're down. Some will do it because they don't understand that the bollards go up and down between vehicles. Some will do it because they're so unobservant that they don't realize they're there at all. Whatever the reason, people will do it.

Given that the bollards themselves are pretty inconspicuous while they're down and likely to be hidden from view by the bonnet of your car if they rise in front of view, anyone stupid/unlucky enough to try to drive through will have very little chance to realize their mistake. In this respect it's completely unlike any normal barrier which drops in front of the driver's line of sight.

So it seems to me more or less inevitable that from time to time people will drive into the barriers. Presumably the people who installed the barriers think so too otherwise they wouldn't have spent all that money making them so strong they could stop a tank in its tracks.

It's obvious that anyone vehicle that does drive into the bollards is likely to be severely damaged and the occupants risk injury.

If the benefit of keeping people out outweighed this harm, then the bollards would be justified. I'd still want to know whether there is a better way to achieve this goal, but if there wasn't then I'd accept that it was reasonable to put the bollards there. But it isn't clear to me that there is *any* significant benefit, and certainly none that seems to justify this degree of damage and injury.

This isn't a case of stupid people with nobody to blame but themselves. The council has installed a device reasonably likely to catch people out and do them substantial harm. I'm astonished that some people seem to think that it's a good laugh seeing stupid people get hurt and feel no remorse at having allowed it to happen. Once we accept the principle that we don't care what happens to people who make mistakes, anything is possible. I was being facetious when I suggested rocket launchers wired up to speed cameras but the difference to this is only a matter of degree, not of kind.

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Peter Humphries (and a green V8S)

Were any of them actually doing more than 30mph?


Pacemaker?

I still haven't heard any good reason (or indeed any reason at all) why busses are allowed there but nothing else is. That doesn't make sense.

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Andrew.