Safe Speed Forums

Indeed, it seems a very precise and appropriate analogy to me.

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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'm with PoD here.

All the drivers I've seen in the film took a deliberate desciion to run the bollards. The white van man had no seat belt on. The 4x4 had a kid in the back - he should of thought about what he did.

A wire a cross a junction to catch red light jumping cyclists would be equal if the bollards fired death stars at the drivers. Stupid analogy, very, very stupid.

IMO, it would be so much better and safer to have a barrier in place, a little like a railway crossing barrier?, surely that would be as effective and a lot safer

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Welcome to the UK, the Land of "Selective Freedoms"

Well to make it exactly equal, how about if the wire just knocks them off the bike, smashing their face in a bit and mangling the bike, with only the possibility of death?

A piano wire would kill a cyclist. It would be invisible. Its purpose would be to stop cyclists running red lights by chopping their heads off. The first the cyclist would know about it would be when they were looking back at their cycle, from a unique viewpoint close to the tarmac.

The bollards are a visible deterrent to keep certain types of vehicles out of a restricted zone. They're not designed to kill or damage things. They are designed so that things can't get past them.

Thats what you don't seem to understand - they don't pop up and belt people's cars - the default position is raised, visible. People see them drop, floor the accelerator, and express surprise when their car gets wrecked.

Good. Stupid idiots don't deserve to be driving. I think its hilarious. I just don't understand why people are defending the drivers in that video - they're the worst kind of licence holders.

It would also be bloody ugly in a very beautiful area of a regenerated city centre, and it would also clout pedestrians on the head. Its not possible.

But you could put a sign up, would it be ok then?

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How about we put up several bright red lights and a big STOP line across the road? Would that be warning enough?

I really don't see why accelerating towards a known hazard (oh, and not wearing a seatbelt when doing so) is being defended! By all means make up spurious analogies, but this thread isn't to do with red light jumping (which should be fined £30 every time!) but with bollards!

Nobody's defending the "crime" - it's about the "punishment".

It's not a spurious analogy - if you think car crushing (whilst the passengers are still inside) is a suitable punishment for entering a "bus-only" area, then surely the far more dangerous crime of running a red light deserves a more serious punishment?

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Wake me up when the revolution starts
STOP the Toll Tax http://www.traveltax.org.uk

At least one of the motorists I've seen on these "yourtube" videos suggests to me that the driver of the speared vehicle was totally unaware of them.

Picture this scenario:

1) You're in a town you rarely visit - and may not have done for many years. You are looking for somewhere specific, have circumnavigated for 10 minutes without a clue - and suddenly you spot a bus with the destination matching where you want to go. What do you do? You tuck in behind it. Not ever-so-close, but sufficiently close so as to not miss any traffic lights he makes.... familiar to many of you? I've certainly done it a few times before I could afford SatNav - and in the very town of Cambridge in the eighties.

It is not certain that a wire would kill a cyclist.

As are the bollards - at first retracted into the road and hidden from the drivers view by the bonnet as the car gets closer.

The purpose is to enforce the red light. If anyone were injured or killed, that's merely coincidence. The light was red - the cyclist (or anyone else) should have seen the warning signs and, just as you say in the case of the bollards, any injury is their own fault. However, unlike the bollards, the piano wire scheme is actually better because it is less likely to give rise to "collateral damage".

And the first the motorist knows about it is when their car comes to a very abrupt stop.

It's the perfect analogy and if you are in favour of these bollards you must also either be in favour of piano wires to enforce red lights or you're a hypocrite.

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Will

If you've seen the same footage as me:

The small hatchback waits by the bollards, they don't drop, she reverses out the way and tailgates a bus
The 4x4 visibly accelerates when there is no need to do so (if he was unaware of the bollards ), especially as he is approaching a pedestrian area
The WVM is driving too close to the vehicle in front - no excuse for that. Lots of things can happen if you tailgate.

Aesthetics are irrelevent compared to the importance of people being hurt and injured.

The only people at risk from conventional barriers would be people standing in the road as they lowered. This would be immediately after a vehicle had driven through, by the way. Stepping into the road and standing under a raised barrier as it lowers is arguably even more stupid than driving into an inconspicuous rising bollard. These barriers are quite widely used and we don't hear about people being bopped on the head by them. If the pedestrians here are particularly stupid it would be possible to protect them by putting a hanging fence under the barrier and/or fitting active or passive sensors to stop it lowering when people are in the way.

By the way, it's curious that you seem to care about what happens to people walking, but not when they are in a car. They're the same people.

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Peter Humphries (and a green V8S)

Inside every car is a pedestrian waiting to get out

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No, they're only concealed when a bus passes over them. The instant the bus has passed, they raise back up. If you don't see them raising up, which they do pretty darn quickly, you're driving too fast and too close to the traffic ahead.



No, the purpose would be to seriously injure or kill cyclists passing through the red light. It wouldn't stop any vehicles either.

Its an utterly pathetic analogy, and I won't comment further on it since you're being pedantic.

And your little dig at cyclists is stupid and pathetic. Perhaps you should log on to www.imacardriverandcyclistsareinmyway-t ... ytax.co.uk and post there.



Because they ignored the plethora of warning signs, didn't observe the road ahead, and drove dangerously at high speed through a pedestrian area. My heart bleeds.



Why stop at piano wires? Lets have heat seeking missiles on speed cameras. Rocket launchers to stop people undertaking. Floods of oil shooting from the road to stop tailgating.

If pathetic little analogies are all you can think of, you've lost the argument mate. You're defending people in that video driving dangerously into a prohibited area filled with pedestrians. You're clearly one of the lunatic fringe whose comments don't deserve any more respect than certain other trolls on car-hating forums....

I suggest you go to Manchester and look at the bollards. I think you'll be changing your mind.

BTW, if you're driving safely and correctly, you won't hit the bollards. If you drive like a bellend, you will hit them. If you're unsecured in the car, you'll get hurt. If you're strapped in, you'll get a shock and a bill for repairs.

Oh, and raising/lowering barriers as you find in car parks normally have absolutely no pedestrian access whatsoever - but there are loads of instances where people have chanced their arm, and guess what - they got clouted, both as pedestrians, and motorists.

Let us also not forget the many instances of dangerous driving we've all seen on level crossings. Would you like to see motorists flooring it to avoid the barriers, and hitting a pedestrian instead? Not me.

Its funny how all the people who hit car park barriers and the like don't say they're dangerous.

PoD

So, B cyclist and Parrot of Doom,

Why have bollards when you could have a Monty Pythonesque 16 ton weight ready to crush anyone who offended against the signs? Surely they deserve what they get?

Or perhaps you don't really believe that the punishment for offending against a minor traffic regulation should be damage, injury or death?

Or perhaps you don't believe that the local authority has a duty to create a safe environment where possible?

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

Alternatively you've already decided that the area where they are is clear and you're scanning sideways and ahead (rather than ahead and low) for other hazards - like pedestrians crossing without warning, cyclists....

He was a bit too close for comfort, but even if he'd been a little further back, I'd argue he may still not have reasonably expected the bollards to appear.