Safe Speed Forums

Mmltonge for the sake of brevity I won't repeat the majoirty of your post, suffice to say that your experience of Planners is vastly different to mine (out of interest what area do you work in?). Obviously I made some assumptions about you from the style and content of your post and if any of them were inaccurate, I apologise .





I am trying to understand why people hold such veiwpoints. I suspect that much of the thought processes on both sides are subconscious so not being aware of them doesn't mean they do not exist. I know for a fact that I am biased, and I would expect everyone else to be too. Such a bias is going to influence any decision making process, including the behaviour of both ourselves and others road users.

I am glad that you make the point about looking at the newspaper meaning that you would have to shoulder some responsibility. The question is where is the line drawn? If a driver is travelling down a residential street and hits a pedestrian, there are going to be many factors to take into account, including the observation, speed etc.. of both pedestrian and driver. If you've done everything you can to avoid the collision then I have no issue with that. But if the driver is drivng excessively fast to be able to take into account all of the potential hazards then I do. Exactly the same as if a pedestrian is travelling excessively and fails to carry out any observation then they would shoulder the responsibilty.

It's all about where the line is drawn, from your posts I get the impression (though I concede I may be wrong) you think all the fault is piled on the driver at the moment. This is contrary to my belief. However I think that we can agree that responsibilty should never be put entirely on one party.




No. Hence me saying "There needs to be equality with regard to the responsibilities of road users". At the moment I'm not convinced that drivers or pedestrians are accepting enough responsibility



Your clarification was necessary for my understanding, and I have no issue with it. Although I still disagree with your definition of roads/streets!

This argument seems to stem from the idea that in a given section of road there are two non-overlapping population groups: residents and motorists, who's uses of the road/street are diametrically opposed.

I'm not sure this is in fact the case.

e.g. In my road, I don't want people doing more than about 30 past my house, but equally I don't want kids trying to have a game of footie in the middle as I drive home in the evening (or indeed next to my bloody car!). Am I a resident or a motorist?

Ideally there wouldn't be any conflict, and in fact there are places were this is the case and all forms of transport coexist in the same place. The Piazzas and large, paved urban open spaces in many European cities are great examples, cyclists, pedestrians and motor transport all coexist with minimal conflict. Unfortunately it does mean speeds are limited to around running pace.

There have been attempts to transfer this idea to residential areas, with limited successes in the form of homezones.

I think it could simply be a function of human behaviour.

Although thinking about it a bit more, I wonder whether peds and drivers do operate on the whole with each others interests in mind. It's just those who driver badly, bratts who play chicken and numpties who can't be bothered to look are the ones that stick in mind. Maybe the situation isn't nearly as bad as we believe it to be?



You're enlightened because you're aware of you position! Most folk don't get this far. (If my earlier thoughts are true then I guess most folk don't even need to get this far).

As with so many other spheres, it's the 10% of arseholes who spoil it for the rest of us, sadly....

Example, I used to have a very negative view of most young children that I saw about as most seemed to be crying/moaning/generally being spoilt & noisy. As my friends have been increasingly fecund I've come to like the large proportion of their issue, most of whom appear to be well brought up. I still detest screaming brats in public places, but it's occurred to me that I don't notice the well behaved 90% of kids (or that kids are well behaved 90% of the time) so don't include them in my sample of observations of 'how kids behave'.

Flipside of the coin being that people who live on a road that they perceive to have a problem with 'all the cars going too fast' probably don't consciously notice that 90% of cars are not actually exceeding , and are keeping a watchful eye out for peds.
The trouble is 10% are doing 45 mph, and these are the ones that make the local residents angry so the perception is everyone is going too fast, and therefore everyone ends up having to do ....

...except the 10% who don't give a monkeys and continue to do 45 mph....

Just because it goes down well in other European cities, doesn’t necessarily mean it will go down well in the UK



So surely this should be taken as a wake up call that Homezones don't work and money could be better spent on other Idea's.

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Useless laws weaken necessary laws.

True, but likewise that is no reason to disregard it completely. I'm not saying we should start sticking Piazzas everywhere or anything like that. But it's useful to see these things can work.



Jeez Dixie, less of the negativity! 'Limited success' doesn't mean no success, it just means that the idea is in it's infancy, at least in Britain, and requires a lot more thought to make it work properly. I think the main problem is that it's a concept that is being retrofitted to existing sites, rather than included in the design of a new development at the start.