Dangerous pedestrian-crossing near school

robindch

I'm on the PTA for a school which is 50m or so from a busy suburban road. Each day, many kids run across this road, and there have been several close scrapes. The road has a 50kph speed limit, but it's ignored by the majority of drivers. There are pedestrian traffic lights at the point closest to the school, but drivers crash them regularly, as the lead up is long and straight in both directions. On either side of the lights, the road is painted with "CAUTION | CHILDREN | CROSSING", wide yellow lines, a white-hatched box for ~100m either side, and lighter-colored tarmac color for ~50m either side. However, the thing is still a hazard. The council won't provide a lollipop-man/woman as it says there are too few kids crossing. The PTA can't do lollipop duty, it as it doesn't have insurance/training etc.

Anybody have ideas about what to do here?

At the moment, we believe our best approach is to put together a book of evidence for the council so that they can understand what's going on. For this, we need to document how many people are breaking the speed limit, how many crashing the lights, general traffic levels and so on. And we've tentatively agreed to spend a couple of weeks gathering this information. we can do most of this by hand, but we do need help getting accurate traffic speed data, but outside of police speed guns, and those pressure-hose-things which go across the road, I can't think of how we can get this information reliably.

Any suggestions on this, or on the overall approach?

Irish and Proud

If the road in question is wide, I'd suggest a central refuge island with a raised pedestrian crossing - this would slow traffic down. A robust central island would IMO be far more effective at creating a more pedestrian friendly environment than road narrowing. If the road is already narrow, then a raised crossing might be your only option - also, consider the idea of diverting the traffic around a centrally placed island if there's room to locally broaden the road - I don't know if your local authority would entertain these ideas, but they're worth a try IMO. Narrowing the road to a single two-way lane might not be a good idea as I've heard it encourages speed on approach with the 'get there first mentality' - ramps are the most effective speed control measure IMO.

If the lights in the area are being crashed, the offending motorists would seem totally inconsiderate - I'd never dream of deliberately doing such a thing - if the lights for some reason were malfunctioning, I'd then proceed slowly. Surely if a few of these motorists were caught by secret cameras, the fines and penalty points would mount - I'd imagine crashing a traffic light would incur penalty points and it would certainly result in failing the driving test - maybe those motorists when caught should be made redo the test, theory and all - they obviously don't know the rules of the road, or they simply can't drive - simple as. I'm sure this would go a long way towards solving the problem of aggressive driver behaviour.

Regards!

galwaycyclist

If this is a two-lane road I would suggest a raised Zebra Crossing with flashing yellow beacons. You could support this with a 30km/h zone for the stretch adjacent to the school.

Obviously enough as a cyclist, I would avoid road narrowings or anything that reduces the running lane width below 4.5m.

You also need to bring in the elected councillors as soon as possible on a cross party basis. The local authority engineers live in a corporate environment where they are unlikely to be held accountable for their actions whatever happens. The elected councillors are more "pressurable" and can override the engineers if presented with a strong enough case.

Danno

Where is it? Google Maps - Street View link perhaps?

robindch

The raised pedestrian crossing seems a useful thought. I think the road is a bus route, so a smooth raised thingy is more likely than the angled one.

Does anybody have any idea of how to lay your hands on something that'll produce accurate readings of car speed?

And does anybody have any first-hand experience of successfully getting a council to do something, other than what's suggested above -- cross-party support, report on dangers, etc? Reports of a similar crossing where somebody did get hurt?

Here's what the run up to the crossing looks like at the moment. Note the road sloping long, straight and downhill into the crossing (it's around 1km to the junction behind the photographer), walls on either side of the road leading to a "funnelling" sensation, shallow yellow stripes + some road markings mostly rubbed away, no raised section or furniture in the middle of the road, speed camera thingy, etc. The pedestrian crossing is not barriered onto the road on the schools side of the road, so kids just go tearing out from school, straight onto the road.

antoobrien

robindch wrote: »

Does anybody have any idea of how to lay your hands on something that'll produce accurate readings of car speed?

The easiest way of getting an indicator is a simple stopwatch test between the lamp posts. If you can't borrow a trundlewheel you can use the gps ins a smartphone/handheld gps to get a distance accurate to within about 1m (wouldn't trust stepping it out in this case). Then just set up a video camera and record the time the taken to get from one lamp to the next. After that it's simple maths.

It's manual and time consuming but you don't have to buy anything new or that you wouldn't use otherwise (e.g good video camera)

si_guru

I feel for you.. we have a similar issue. These are kind of the places where permanent speed cameras should be used.. average speed cameras too! and red-light cameras. Being fined is the only way you can get some animals to change their behaviour!

robindch

antoobrien wrote: »

The easiest way of getting an indicator is a simple stopwatch test between the lamp posts.

The road is too busy for that, especially during the morning rush. It strikes me that this is the kind of thing that could be done in software reasonably easily, but a quick google doesn't produce anything useful looking.

There are speed guns available on the open market:

http://www.ramseyelectronics.com/cgi-bin/commerce.exe?preadd=action&key=SG7
http://www.opticsplanet.net/sports-radar-tracer-sra3000-radar-gun.html

<scratches chin>

antoobrien

robindch wrote: »

The road is too busy for that, especially during the morning rush. It strikes me that this is the kind of thing that could be done in software reasonably easily, but a quick google doesn't produce anything useful looking.

There are speed guns available on the open market:

http://www.ramseyelectronics.com/cgi-bin/commerce.exe?preadd=action&key=SG7
http://www.opticsplanet.net/sports-radar-tracer-sra3000-radar-gun.html

<scratches chin>

Did you miss the bit where i said to set up a video camera? It will catch the traffic in the right spot - a vantage point near where the photos were taken looks ideal. Then traffic can be timed at will.

robindch

antoobrien wrote: »

Did you miss the bit where i said to set up a video camera?

Nope.

As I said, the road is busy, and a civil engineer I chatted with over the weekend confirmed that it's going to be tough to do this reliably in a non-automated fashion over a long period of time. The report that needs to go to the council needs to have a reasonable amount of data -- a week or two weeks' traffic info seems normal. He also mentioned that a Road Safety Audit is really the way to go:

http://www.nra.ie/NetworkManagement/Safety/RoadSafetyAudits/

as the council is more likely to take account of something that's produced in the appropriate format, and contains the various classes of information that the council will need before a decision can be made and funds allocated to works.

starbelgrade

robindch wrote: »

He also mentioned that a Road Safety Audit is really the way to go

Your engineer is right - all the other methods mentioned are kind of piecemeal approaches. A Road Safety Audit is carried out by an independent auditor & is really the only proper way of getting the risks assessed & analyzed.

They aren't cheap though - you're probably looking at a minimum of two grand for professional fees, depending on your location. If you choose to go this way, let me know & I'll send you on the contact details of an excellent engineering firm I regularly use. If they know the purpose of the audit, they may even be willing to cut you a deal on the cost.

If you are to avoid an RSA altogether (& the inherent costs involved), your best bet - as Galwaycyclist pointed out - is to get onto your local concellors and the local road engineer. The more pressure you put on the councellor the better. That would be the first step I would take.

My feeling is that you will eventually be made to submit an RSA anyway, but if you can avoid doing so, then it is money well saved.

pigtown

What about one of those electronic signs that tell you what speed you are going? Don't know what they are called but I know one was installed in Musgrave (Mulgrave? can never remember) Street in Limerick near the prison and seems to work in getting people to slow down.

monument

Op -- Where exactly is this crossing?

bbuzz

It's in Glenageary, Co Dublin

http://maps.google.ie/?ll=53.274611,-6.13403&spn=0.00097,0.002411&hnear=12+Laurleen,+Stillorgan,+County+Dublin&t=h&z=19

galwaycyclist

This is the kind of thing I was thinking of. This one is from Limerick city.