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PostPosted: Sat Feb 19, 2005 15:01 
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JJ wrote:
The 30mph advisory has been put in as a measure to "advise" drivers to take it easy in this location. Ernest is now giving advice to drivers who have chosen to ignore that advice even when they don't know the road.

The advice is there free of charge, why not suggest that drivers take it?

Ernest's description of the person who falls foul of the Safespeed method of driving by arrogant perception of ones driving skills is the cause of mishaps like this. In this place, the advice from the sign is good, the ignorance of it is bad.


A 30mph advisory - or even a speed limit - is of little use unless drivers know what it's for. If a driver doesn't know beforehand that a bend tightens up, so they can position themselves properly and not be taken by surprise, they can get themselves into a dodgy situation even at 30mph.

How about an advisory sign that says, "Tightening bend, max 30mph".

Regards
Peter


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PostPosted: Sat Feb 19, 2005 15:07 
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SafeSpeed wrote:
Perhaps we could hire guys to hold up speed advisories behind every traffic jam? Perhaps we could put a speed sign on every bend that changed automatically if it was wet? Or icy? Or snowy? Or if a sports car came along?


How's this for a novel idea - we have a man with a red flag walking in front of every car. :lol:

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Peter


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PostPosted: Sat Feb 19, 2005 15:10 
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JJ wrote:
I thought we told people what speed to drive at anyhow (Max speed)


And what qualifies you lot to tell others anything? Let alone what a safe speed is for a particular stretch of road at a particular time under particular circumstances?

I for one was never consulted by anyone on the issue, nor i believe was anyone else.

As for you "telling" people whats a safe speed; You obviously dont know, amongst all the other things you dont know.


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PostPosted: Sat Feb 19, 2005 15:25 
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My last posting was a bit tongue-in-cheek, but that's the logical conclusion of the way we're heading.
Sure, the roads can be made nearly 100% safe by limiting speeds to walking pace, but that's rather defeating the object of motorised transport - which is to cover reasonably large distances in a reasonable time, with a relative degree of safety.
And this is very necessary in today's highly-populated world. Even if people desired a return to Victorian times, where people spent their whole lives within walking distance of the factories where they worked their whole lives, it's both impractical and impossible to return to those times.
Trains, ships and planes have all been made safer over the years, not by making them slower, but by increasing the safety at the speeds at which they travel - and then making them faster still.

Grand Prix racing is a case in point - a few decades ago it was a super-dangerous sport. Drivers were being killed like flies. Nowdays, it's become almost boringly safe. So what's changed? Have drivers gotten better? Arguably, no. Have speeds reduced? On the contrary, they've increased. Is it improved technology and engineering, coupled with safer tracks? Undoubtedly.

We now seem to have changed to reverse gear....

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Peter


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PostPosted: Sat Feb 19, 2005 18:10 
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Years ago, I remember a driver going down a steep hill in Petersfield, Hampshire in a Morris Minor, when the brakes failed completely.
At the bottom of the hill was a tight bend.
Using gears, and weaving as tightly as he could backwards and forwards across the road, rather than head straight down the hill, he managed to restrict his entry speed into the bend to a point which was managable, and survive.
Now where does a motorist learn that weaving reduces forward speed?
Where in a Dft test, does the examiner say "Leave the brakes alone, and see if you can negotiate this hill/bend"?

The advisory speed for the bend is well in advance of the kink further along the road, and because it is so low, it's purpose is not obvious.
The real answer is in the middle picture, where I dotted in the position where I feel the centre line should be.
Image
You should ALL be able to see where the downhill line has been sacrificed to squeeze in the lane coming the other way.
BAD DESIGN and PLANNING, which affects only a FEW motorists, whose exuberance or inexperience leads them to attempt too much.
Some drivers probably allow the brakes to trail on the disc subconciously without ill effect.
I think what Paul is proposing, and which I wholeheartedly agree with, is a better standard of training, rather than trying to impose well itentioned, but ill advised doctrines such as ALWAYS turn into the skid, or dont brake in a corner. And complement this with better road design.

Despite Steve emailing the authorities, this stretch of road STILL has road signs levelled in the January storms. One has been stood up (presumably by a well meaning pedestrian) but is already leaning over at an angle, and could well collapse on a passer by. The one on Bannerig is still face down, to the detriment of drivers safety!!

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PostPosted: Sun Feb 20, 2005 14:20 
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SafeSpeed wrote:
JJ wrote:
The advice is there free of charge, why not suggest that drivers take it?

Ernest's description of the person who falls foul of the Safespeed method of driving by arrogant perception of ones driving skills is the cause of mishaps like this. In this place, the advice from the sign is good, the ignorance of it is bad.

It's that simple really.


I really don't know what this is supposed to mean. Perhaps you think the roads would be safer if we told people what speed to drive at all the time?

Perhaps we could hire guys to hold up speed advisories behind every traffic jam? Perhaps we could put a speed sign on every bend that changed automatically if it was wet? Or icy? Or snowy? Or if a sports car came along?

Perhaps...

What on earth is worong with observing an advisory sign?

Your post is unreasonable.

The advisories have been ignored and people are coming to grief as a result. That is entirely their fault.


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PostPosted: Sun Feb 20, 2005 17:34 
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The advisory is too far away, and too unrelated to the problem to be effective. It's a bit like putting a sign saying low bridge, too far from the bridge.
The real problem occured when the authorities decided to squeeze two lanes in the Kendal direction, and to do it, narrowed the westbound lane, at a point where it leads into a bend.
Image
The two lanes eastbound are a problem in themselves, as it encourages vehicles to attempt an overtake, in a distance which is woefully short, when you have to accelerate up a steep hill, and around a bend which all too often hides a vehicle, slowed almost to a walking pace by the steep hill.
If you dont know the stretch of road on a regular basis, at all times of day and night, you will not appreciate the dangers.
I am sure Ian H. will have some input to make, other than just "Heed the sign", or you might contact Windermere Police and speak to Inspector Tudor Griffiths, and ask if he is satisfied with the signage on Bannerigg.

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PostPosted: Mon Feb 21, 2005 09:46 
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DeltaF wrote:
JJ wrote:
I thought we told people what speed to drive at anyhow (Max speed)


And what qualifies you lot to tell others anything? Let alone what a safe speed is for a particular stretch of road at a particular time under particular circumstances?

I for one was never consulted by anyone on the issue, nor i believe was anyone else.

As for you "telling" people whats a safe speed; You obviously dont know, amongst all the other things you dont know.



Thought so you hav'nt read the highway code have you.


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PostPosted: Mon Feb 21, 2005 14:45 
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JJ wrote:
DeltaF wrote:
JJ wrote:
I thought we told people what speed to drive at anyhow (Max speed)


And what qualifies you lot to tell others anything? Let alone what a safe speed is for a particular stretch of road at a particular time under particular circumstances?

I for one was never consulted by anyone on the issue, nor i believe was anyone else.

As for you "telling" people whats a safe speed; You obviously dont know, amongst all the other things you dont know.



Thought so you hav'nt read the highway code have you.


Why are you in it? :lol:


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PostPosted: Mon Feb 21, 2005 16:30 
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DeltaF wrote:
JJ wrote:
DeltaF wrote:
JJ wrote:
I thought we told people what speed to drive at anyhow (Max speed)


And what qualifies you lot to tell others anything? Let alone what a safe speed is for a particular stretch of road at a particular time under particular circumstances?

I for one was never consulted by anyone on the issue, nor i believe was anyone else.

As for you "telling" people whats a safe speed; You obviously dont know, amongst all the other things you dont know.



Thought so you hav'nt read the highway code have you.


Why are you in it? :lol:


No but the speed limits are! :D


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PostPosted: Mon Feb 21, 2005 16:56 
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JJ wrote:
DeltaF wrote:
JJ wrote:
DeltaF wrote:
JJ wrote:
I thought we told people what speed to drive at anyhow (Max speed)


And what qualifies you lot to tell others anything? Let alone what a safe speed is for a particular stretch of road at a particular time under particular circumstances?

I for one was never consulted by anyone on the issue, nor i believe was anyone else.

As for you "telling" people whats a safe speed; You obviously dont know, amongst all the other things you dont know.



Thought so you hav'nt read the highway code have you.


Why are you in it? :lol:


No but the speed limits are! :D


And that's the only thing that matters, is it JJ?

By the way, JJ, you never answered my earlier post where I asked how a camera can save lives when it is capable of addressing such a very small percentage of accident causation.


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PostPosted: Mon Feb 21, 2005 17:56 
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Cooperman wrote:
By the way, JJ, you never answered my earlier post where I asked how a camera can save lives when it is capable of addressing such a very small percentage of accident causation.


Haven't you got the message yet, Coops?

It just DOES. OK??

:lol:


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PostPosted: Mon Feb 21, 2005 19:00 
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r11co wrote:
Cooperman wrote:
By the way, JJ, you never answered my earlier post where I asked how a camera can save lives when it is capable of addressing such a very small percentage of accident causation.


Haven't you got the message yet, Coops?

It just DOES. OK??

:lol:


Well hoo-effing-ray :lol:


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PostPosted: Mon Feb 21, 2005 22:49 
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Cooperman wrote:
Well hoo-effing-ray :lol:


Watch it - a certain person might put his petted lip on again...

:wink:


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PostPosted: Wed Feb 23, 2005 03:12 
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I see we STILL dont have a fixed camera which was promised last April!

Perhaps they have been put off by the number of collisions with Lamposts in the Windermere area over the last 3 months!
At three sites, we now have brand new lamposts, in place, but with no lamps, alongside the damaged (also inoperable) lamps!
Image
This is one on the A591 junction with Thwaites Lane, which is now twinned since I took this before Christmas, but STILL not illuminating anything! It's my belief they are waithing for the shorter nights before thay do any more work, in the meantime, it acts as a handy obstruction to hide cyclists as you wait to exit the junction! :roll:

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PostPosted: Wed Feb 23, 2005 10:34 
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Ernest Marsh wrote:
I see we STILL dont have a fixed camera which was promised last April!


Have alook at the big holes at the side of the road next time you go through Ings Ernest.
That will be the things you can see to the right and left of the black stripe with the lines on with your wheels on it! :lol:


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PostPosted: Wed Feb 23, 2005 13:57 
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I have a real conflict of interests with Bannerigg. For me it’s an evocative characterful piece of road, which defined to me years since that I was ‘arriving’ at the lakes for my hols. I’d hate to see it sanitised too much. It’d lose its romanticism (for me anyway :oops: ).

There are some issues with it. It catches some people out, and it’s generally those who are unprepared for the kink at the bottom which can throw people onto the wrong side of the road. It’s entirely due to inappropriate speed for the level of observation and anticipation combined with bad position for the bend at the base of the dip.
If you know the road it is a nice bit of road to drive, and I have negotiated it safely in both directions at 75mph+ (in response to serious calls :wink: ).
I attended a fatal there a few years ago, the day after dishing a ticket out to the male driver for no sealtbelt. He vowed he would continue not to wear it. He kept his promise for 24 hours, when inappropriate speed caused his Metro to swing across into the southbound carriageway into the path of a 3.5t panel van. The use of his seatbelt would have offered him little extra chance of survival.

The obvious solution to me is for the correct advice to be offered to people prior to the descent. As Pete says the 30mph advisory needs to have a point - how often do people simply ignore the 50mph advisory matrix on the motorway?
If it advised that the road layout required some caution, that would have a much better effect.
I’d like to see VAS (Vehicle Activated Sign) perhaps 50 metres down the northbound descent saying ‘SLOW’ (for speeds over 45??) with a general advisory sign below saying ‘Difficult Double Bend’ or something more catchy.

There are a couple of other problems also at Bannerigg which need to be addressed, and they involve injudicious overtaking by southbound traffic.

Multimap shows the road thus.
Image

And the aerial image can be seen on this link (with usual recognition to Multimap).

Looking at Ernest’s overview, you can see the road as it reaches the summit at Alice Howe from the top of Bannerigg.

Image

My own diagram (drawn from memory) is below.

Image

Traffic can become impatient if stuck behind a heavy slow mover travelling up the hill towards the summit of Alice Howe from Windermere (ie travelling into the little square inset in Ernest's photo). The instinctive think to do is to move out to overtake on the descent, as there is ~200 metres of broken line, but our heavy slow mover is now using 9.81m/s/s of gravity plus his own horses to accelerate down the hill :roll: . On more than one occasion I have seen this about to happen on the overview while I'm about to make the northbound descent from Bannerigg into the dip. Knowing from personal experience that the Fiesta which is trying to overtake will not outaccelerate the mobilecrane or whatever on descent, and sure as eggs is eggs, when we all arrive at the base of the dip, the Fiesta will still be over the now double white line system on my side of the road still trying to overtake :shock:. Survival instinct has taught me that nice slow observant progress tucked well into the left is the way to deal with that problem.

It would be better dealt with by double white lines all the way through the dip from summit to summit. But there are reasonable and safe overtaking opportunities for bikes and reasonably powered cars with drivers who have their wits about them. Perhaps a chevronned metre wide phantom island with a broken line border would address this problem, removing the desire to overtake by all but the confident.

Another problem is the south bound overtaker on the twin lane ascent from the dip up to Bannerigg summit. The two lanes start on the left hand bend which then starts to climb the hill. The main entrance to Bannerigg farm is the middle entrance of the three shown on multimap. It is a well known farm for retailing locally grown produce, and for that reason on occasion the second lane will have traffic slowing down to turn right. Obviously on occasion it will also have to stop for the northbound lane to clear. What often happens is that the southbound traffic, even (or usually) locals move out to overtake when there is no way of knowing that the second lane is clear. I’m surprised there have been no more serious collisions as a result of this problem, but I have personally attended two serious RTCs there in the last 12 years, caused by precisely this problem.

For me the convenience of being able to overtake at this location is not balanced by the danger posed. There is no great benefit to be gained by the overtake of one or perhaps two vehicles on this 300 metres of dual lane, and it also encourages ludicrous overtakes of queues of four or five cars which can conflict with northbound traffic about to enter the dip.
It would therefore make sense to do away with the second lane on the southbound ascent to Bannerigg, to provide a protected right turn for traffic entering Bannerigg farm from the southbound lane, and a phantom island separating both lanes, initially bordered southbound by a solid line, then by a broken line after the farm to allow overtaking of slow vehicles by bikes or the confident motorist.

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PostPosted: Wed Feb 23, 2005 20:51 
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Great opportunity to iron out that kink in this photo,

Image
perhaps even add a little hatched margin on the lefthand side of the northbound lane, as is already present at the top of the southbound bend.
Funnily enough, because of the time of day I travel this road, it is the post office van which I often see stationary in lane two, waiting to turn into Bannerigg farm, and I too am amazed that there has been no loss of life here.
Do we no longer use the "Accident black spot" sign, with the large exclamation mark in a red warning triangle Ian?

This morning, there was a frantic scramble to overtake a double decker bus, before it reached the top of the hill. Vehicle 1 managed, without a problem, Vehicle 2 had his offside wheels in the phantom island by the time he passed the front of the bus, and cut in sharply, and vehicle 3 left it way too late, decided to pass, and by the time he was halfway along the bus, had already run out of lane, and phantom island, and finished the overtake with 3/4 of the car width over the double white lines.
My passenger commented he had done the same thing in his younger days, until he nearly collided with somebody coming the other way!
Vehicle 3 DID however, observe the 40 limit at Ings, because I caught him up when the bus pulled off the road at Blackmoss.

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PostPosted: Thu Feb 24, 2005 00:22 
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General concensus from Wildy, self and our young driver ...

we agree with Ian! :shock: :lol: :wink:

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PostPosted: Thu Feb 24, 2005 01:07 
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I just re-read my first post in this thread, and I think we see eye to eye! Double whites all the way through, phantom lane up the southbound hill etc.
What I need to know is has Ian reported this to the Traffic Management Officer as JJ suggested?
And I'm a tad concerned that Ian is letting romanticism cloud the need to keep it safe! :lol:
Quote:
I have a real conflict of interests with Bannerigg. For me it’s an evocative characterful piece of road, which defined to me years since that I was ‘arriving’ at the lakes for my hols. I’d hate to see it sanitised too much. It’d lose its romanticism (for me anyway ).

I dont know how he could pull a motorist for reliving the "old days" when the NSL sign meant de-restricted! :wink:
He obviously doesnt share Steve's "Bah humbug!"views in the Valentines thread now locked away in the CSCP forum archive!

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