Buffalo & Doozerie - The mild musings of two grumpy old men!

Roadhawk

BoardsMember wrote: »

I lived in Sydney 20 years ago and at every junction they had cameras to get cars breaking red lights. Its a no brainer to implement here, it would eventually be revenue positive, it would immediately inprove policing, safety and behaviour. Why isn't it done in more countries?

I agree that something must be done about motorists and cyclists alike when it comes to jumping red lights particularly in Dublin. I would have suggested to install cameras too but i believe they cause more accidents (and they only prevent motorists)...supposedly when cameras are installed and motorists become aware of them then you get drivers jamming on the breaks and grinding to a stop just to avoid a ticket/fine. Those cars trying to stop fast get rear ended more that usual...apparently. When it comes to my source for this...i read it in another thread on boards last year...the person who suggested did provide another source but I cant seem to find it.

CramCycle

Roadhawk wrote: »

I agree that something must be done about motorists and cyclists alike when it comes to jumping red lights particularly in Dublin. I would have suggested to install cameras too but i believe they cause more accidents (and they only prevent motorists)...supposedly when cameras are installed and motorists become aware of them then you get drivers jamming on the breaks and grinding to a stop just to avoid a ticket/fine. Those cars trying to stop fast get rear ended more that usual...apparently. When it comes to my source for this...i read it in another thread on boards last year...the person who suggested did provide another source but I cant seem to find it.

It will shortly solve the problem of drivers tailgating as is a common issue on most of our major roads. Driving along the M50 or the N11 it is a horror show waiting to happen, with vehicles at the limit having another car no more than a metre behind.

Chuchote

Roadhawk wrote: »

I agree that something must be done about motorists and cyclists alike when it comes to jumping red lights particularly in Dublin. I would have suggested to install cameras too but i believe they cause more accidents (and they only prevent motorists)...supposedly when cameras are installed and motorists become aware of them then you get drivers jamming on the breaks and grinding to a stop just to avoid a ticket/fine. Those cars trying to stop fast get rear ended more that usual...apparently. When it comes to my source for this...i read it in another thread on boards last year...the person who suggested did provide another source but I cant seem to find it.

http://www.dbknews.com/2017/04/26/speed-cameras-pedestrians-college-park/

No pedestrians have died on Route 1 near the University of Maryland's campus since College Park began operating local speed cameras 24 hours a day in 2014, a nod to city efforts to increase safety, according to a AAA Mid-Atlantic news release.

After three pedestrians were killed along Route 1 within a six-month period in 2014, the College Park City Council voted in July of that same year to extend the hours of the cameras — which previously operated Monday through Friday from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. — located within a half-mile radius of this university's grounds.

"It speaks for itself that since we had the three fatalities in 2014, there haven't been any along Baltimore Avenue," College Park Mayor Patrick Wojahn said. "It shows [the cameras] have encouraged drivers to slow down."

Roadhawk

CramCycle wrote: »

It will shortly solve the problem of drivers tailgating as is a common issue on most of our major roads. Driving along the M50 or the N11 it is a horror show waiting to happen, with vehicles at the limit having another car no more than a metre behind.

Well that's a generalising statement if i have ever seen one.

Sure i agree that some motorists tailgate on some roads but not "most" roads...

Roadhawk

Chuchote wrote: »

http://www.dbknews.com/2017/04/26/speed-cameras-pedestrians-college-park/

I think you linked this article in error as it refers to speed camera and not traffic light cameras?

nomdeboardie

Phew, just when I was about to risk getting my first yellow/red card or ban by expressing disquiet :eek: at what I thought was a heavy-handed moderation post, rather than going all meta and reporting said mod post, it disappears

*Wipes sweat from brow and lives to post another day. Maybe*

Macy0161

Weepsie wrote: »

Sorry, apparently it's the M11. And apparently too it's just a rehashed story from 6 months ago quoting a Transport Infrastructure Ireland report. I don't know why I bother clicking on links to the journal when a little digging shows it's stolen or rehashed from somewhere else

If I read the proposals right, it actually might make it better for cycling too, with the proposed changes to the clusterf*cks that are the junctions Bray South/ Enniskerry Northbound, and the run Fassroe - Kilmac southbound where it is the N11. When I cycle commute N11 to/from Fassaroe is my most direct route, but I generally park up past it so I don't have to do it.

Really can't see any logical argument about Red Light Camera's. I don't recall rear ending being a problem at RTE or Kilmainham/ South Circular Road when they were there, and has that been a problem at the luas crossings?

System in the UK when I lived there was they had many more locations than actual cameras and randomly rotated them. Certainly had the desired effect on behaviour as far as I remember.

Really don't get the whataboutery argument that they only catch motorised vehicles. So what? They're one's that will kill people! However, if the insecure motoring lobby need the bone throwing to them, if the camera's "caught" cyclists too, it could be used to target particular junctions, as especially at rush hours it's likely to be the same people.

Chuchote

Roadhawk wrote: »

I think you linked this article in error as it refers to speed camera and not traffic light cameras?

Hadn't realised that; however, surely people who are approaching a junction at a legal speed should not "jam their brakes on" at the thought that a camera might be enforcing this legal speed?

Chuchote

Roadhawk wrote: »

I agree that something must be done about motorists and cyclists alike when it comes to jumping red lights particularly in Dublin. I would have suggested to install cameras too but i believe they cause more accidents (and they only prevent motorists)...supposedly when cameras are installed and motorists become aware of them then you get drivers jamming on the breaks and grinding to a stop just to avoid a ticket/fine. Those cars trying to stop fast get rear ended more that usual...apparently. When it comes to my source for this...i read it in another thread on boards last year...the person who suggested did provide another source but I cant seem to find it.

Went looking for studies on this, and Roadhawk is right.

I wonder, though, whether this would operate if cameras were standard at traffic lights, and also were (if only at first) preceded by a warning sign of a camera.

It's odd. When I learned to drive, the instruction was to take the foot off the accelerator when approaching traffic lights, and if the light turned amber, to gently brake to a halt. (If the light turned amber when I was already in the middle of the crossroads, I was taught to proceed.)

We seem to have lost any sense of looking after other road users. The epidemic of selfish signalling (either not indicating at all or indicating as one turns), and of bullying other drivers or cyclists on narrow roads, and of turning sharply across other drivers or cyclists - and then being awfully angry and self-entitled about it - is a sign of this. Drivers, especially professional drivers, need to calm down and drive more agreeably.

I met a bunch of family today, and one was saying that in Australia if you even put your hand on a phone while driving "xx is confiscated". Not sure if the xx was the car or the phone, because a bugle sounded at that moment, and never got to ask for clarificatin.

CramCycle

Muppet in the bus lane this morning, at first I thought he was just there for the next turn and had taken the lane early. He flung back into traffic at the next lights, back out again afterwards, in, out, in, out, shake it all about, like watching the hokey cokey. At one point he straddled the bus lane and the traffic lane trying to figure out where to go.

eeeee

Has a lorry drive solidly in the bus lane up the Long Mile Road yesterday morning. It's no excuse but the company they were driving for treat their drivers lie shyte.
It's a good road to see how traffic positions itself. They give the white line in the middle of the road several feet of room, with most with their outside wheels on the solid white line of the cycle lane, despite several cyclists being in it at rush hour.
Who knew other cars were squashier than people? :rolleyes:

Macy0161

Chuchote wrote: »

Went looking for studies on this, and Roadhawk is right.

For how long after introduction? Forever, or for an initial period and then people cop the f*ck on and don't tailgate as much?

I'd imagine there'd be an increase in fender benders initially, but that it would decline (a bit like compliance goes the opposite direction when people realise things aren't enforced after initial concern)

HivemindXX

Macy0161 wrote: »

For how long after introduction? Forever, or for an initial period and then people cop the f*ck on and don't tailgate as much?

I'd imagine there'd be an increase in fender benders initially, but that it would decline (a bit like compliance goes the opposite direction when people realise things aren't enforced after initial concern)

Yeah. I don't think the fact that drivers are barely competent assholes who will jam on their brakes and cause an accident because they have ignored the amber and are now concerned about a fine is a good reason to not have red light cameras. I see the same excuse used for speed cameras.

If people acted as they are supposed to when they saw an amber light they would have no problem at all stopping on red.

I still don't think this is a real issue. It seems far more likely to be FUD thrown up by people who want to go through red lights. Chucote can you give a link to any study you found backing up this position?

Macy0161

HivemindXX wrote: »

I see the same excuse used for speed cameras.

Yeah, I actually heard the old "speed vans are dangerous as you're watching speedo rather than the road" bs last week for the first time in a while!

Roadhawk

CramCycle wrote: »

Muppet in the bus lane this morning, at first I thought he was just there for the next turn and had taken the lane early. He flung back into traffic at the next lights, back out again afterwards, in, out, in, out, shake it all about, like watching the hokey cokey. At one point he straddled the bus lane and the traffic lane trying to figure out where to go.

That might have been me...i was late to work this morning




JOKING!

CramCycle

HivemindXX wrote: »

Yeah. I don't think the fact that some drivers are barely competent assholes who will jam on their brakes and cause an accident because they have ignored the amber and are now concerned about a fine is a good reason to not have red light cameras. I see the same excuse used for speed cameras.

If people acted as they are supposed to when they saw an amber light they would have no problem at all stopping on red.

I still don't think this is a real issue. It seems far more likely to be FUD thrown up by people who want to go through red lights. Chucote can you give a link to any study you found backing up this position?

MOD VOICE: FYP, please do not make generalisations, not all motorists are asshats, neither are all cyclists and so on.

Chuchote

HivemindXX wrote: »

Chucote can you give a link to any study you found backing up this position?

I just googled something like "cameras at traffic lights" and "safety" and found a rake of studies backing up Roadhawk's statement that drivers jam on their brakes when they know there's a camera. I didn't check to see whether this was at first.

My own feeling is that if cameras that could read licence plates and automatically issue fines were standard on traffic lights, there would be no incentive to stop suddenly; people would simply default to stopping on amber. But I didn't go any deeper to see if this was so.

There's a long Wiki on this; one quote from it, though it all warrants reading:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_light_camera

A report in 2003 by the National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) examined studies from the previous 30 years in Australia, the UK, Singapore and the US, and concluded that red light cameras "improve the overall safety of intersections where they are used. While the report states that evidence is not conclusive (partly due to flaws in the studies), the majority of studies show a reduction in angle crashes, a smaller increase in rear-end crashes, with some evidence of a “spillover” effect of reduced red light running to other intersections within a jurisdiction."

HivemindXX

Chuchote wrote: »

There's a long Wiki on this; one quote from it, though it all warrants reading:

Thanks. Wikipedia also includes these quotes-

Studies of red light cameras worldwide show a reduction of crashes involving injury by about 25% to 30%, taking into account increases in rear-end crashes, according to testimony from a meeting of the Virginia House of Delegates Militia, Police, and Public Safety Committee in 2003.

A report from civic administrators in Saskatchewan in 2001, when considering red light camera use, referred to studies in the Netherlands and Australia that found a 40% decrease in red light violations and 32% decrease in right-angle crashes where red light cameras were installed.
Following the introduction of red light cameras in Western Australia, the number of serious right-angle crashes decreased by 40%, according to an article from the Canberra Times. In an article from the Xinhua General News Service, the Hong Kong transport department reported that in 2006 the monthly average number of crashes due to red light violations fell 25% and the number of people injured in these crashes decreased by 30%, following an increase in the number of red light cameras in use.

Not all studies have been favorable to the use of red light cameras. A 2004 study of 17,271 crashes from North Carolina A & T University showed that the presence of red light cameras increased the overall number of crashes by 40%. This research received no peer review and is considered flawed by the IIHS. A 2005 Virginia Department of Transportation study of the long-term effects of camera enforcement in the state found a decrease in the number of right-angle crashes with injuries, but an increase in rear-end crashes and an overall increase in the number of crashes causing injuries. In 2007, the department issued an updated report which showed that the overall number of crashes at intersections with red light cameras increased. This report concluded that the decision to install red light cameras should be made on an intersection-by-intersection basis as some intersections saw decreases in crashes and injuries that justified the use of red light cameras, while others saw increases in crashes, indicating that the cameras were not suitable in that location. This study, too, is considered flawed by the IIHS.

It seems very likely that there is a reduction in crashes resulting in serious injury when people think they might get a fine (that's pretty sad really) but an increase in rear end collisions that do not result in serious injury. Weighing all collisions equally is being used to spin an effort to enforce the rules as dangerous. According to the IIHS 709 people (presumably in the US) were killed in 2014 in incidents involving red light running. How many people were killed in the additional rear end collisions and how many of them were minor bumps?

Weepsie

Cycling from Sligo to Dublin yesterday I had absolutely zero issues with any of the few cars I did meet. Where I was meeting them they gave me loads of room.

That changed in Dublin, when I was coming onto a roundabout and a driver who looked at me, saw me coming from their right but still thought they'd chance it. Self preservation saves me from being T-boned and I gave them a big sarcastic applause for being so stupid.

All so they could join a long line of traffic ahead and I could go past them to get to the head of the queue

magicbastarder

top notch work to the cyclist in front of me this morning who undertook a left turning bin truck (they were both turning left) at that little wiggle off the malahide road onto the clontarf road. i think the driver must have seen him at the last minute as he seemed to adjust his steering to make the turn less acute.
and to the van driver who took the 1.5m rule to heart and overtook me as i was just about to cross at the merrion gates (southbound) by going *completely* into the oncoming lane, which as you can see here, is a functionally blind bend. the car coming the other way had to stand on the brakes.
https://www.google.ie/maps/@53.3166846,-6.2048927,3a,75y,178.56h,67.79t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sIUoR3ZqbQkUxuJ5Fb4zniw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?hl=en

Chuchote

magicbastarder wrote: »

top notch work to the cyclist in front of me this morning who undertook a left turning bin truck (they were both turning left) at that little wiggle off the malahide road onto the clontarf road. i think the driver must have seen him at the last minute as he seemed to adjust his steering to make the turn less acute.
and to the van driver who took the 1.5m rule to heart and overtook me as i was just about to cross at the merrion gates (southbound) by going *completely* into the oncoming lane, which as you can see here, is a functionally blind bend. the car coming the other way had to stand on the brakes.
https://www.google.ie/maps/@53.3166846,-6.2048927,3a,75y,178.56h,67.79t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sIUoR3ZqbQkUxuJ5Fb4zniw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?hl=en

:eek:

(Love that "eek" emoticon, it looks exactly like I look when reading something like this!)

RayCun

magicbastarder wrote: »

and to the van driver who took the 1.5m rule to heart and overtook me as i was just about to cross at the merrion gates (southbound) by going *completely* into the oncoming lane, which as you can see here, is a functionally blind bend. the car coming the other way had to stand on the brakes.
https://www.google.ie/maps/@53.3166846,-6.2048927,3a,75y,178.56h,67.79t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sIUoR3ZqbQkUxuJ5Fb4zniw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?hl=en

"That 1.5m rule is crazy, Joe, just crazy. I tried giving a cyclist 1.5m this morning and sure I was nearly crashing into cars on the other side of the road!"

magicbastarder

oh yeah - crossing the east link today - two guys (wearing hi-vis) on quad bikes with 'highway maintenance' signs on them, also crossing.
but they were using the footpath. and the quad bikes were about 6 inches narrower than the footpath.

Seve OB

magicbastarder wrote: »

oh yeah - crossing the east link today - two guys (wearing hi-vis) on quad bikes with 'highway maintenance' signs on them, also crossing.
but they were using the footpath. and the quad bikes were about 6 inches narrower than the footpath.

that didn't even have road tax joe

magicbastarder

also, given that i was beeped at yesterday for not using the cyclepath on leopardstown road, i decided to give it a fair go today. it has nearly the full set - pedestrians in it, closed in one place due to works, ludicrous yielding to traffic from the road, and a fantastic roller coaster effect from the deeply dished driveways.

Johnny Jukebox

Rode the N11 cycle lane yesterday from Donnybrook to Shankill on the MTB - best urban singletrack in the country

Gerry

Haha, true that! Absolute torture on a road bike.

magicbastarder

northbound on the eastlink today - four cyclists in front of me; three are on the footpath, and all three decide to drop onto the road as there's pedestrians in front of them, about halfway along the bridge. two of them don't even bother to look behind them before doing this. (if you're not familiar with that road, the kerb is about eight inches high and it's a narrow road with cars usually less than two foot from the kerb).
then two of them scoot up the inside of a 40 foot container lorry which is about a foot from the kerb; he beeped at them but they went on their merry way. the third cyclist decided to sit behind him, but then tailgates him onto the roundabout despite clearly not being able to see if there's traffic entering the roundabout from the other side (which by the same token, won't see him). finally, the fourth cyclist - who can see the roundabout - decides it's immaterial anyway and pulls out in front of traffic already on the roundabout. i felt like shouting at them.

magicbastarder

had a not-quite-interaction with a driver today - beeping at me and gesturing angrily that i should get onto the cycle path (on leopardstown road). when i stopped to try to - politely - debate the finer points of the issue with her, she unsurprisingly didn't wind down the window. it was only a few hundred metres later that the lightbulb went off over my head about the fact she was driving with an L plate, and on her own in the car.

anyway, i will freely admit that i was quite annoyed about being lectured (well, lectured might be the wrong word) on road usage by someone who probably hasn't passed their test.

Chuchote

magicbastarder wrote: »

had a not-quite-interaction with a driver today - beeping at me and gesturing angrily that i should get onto the cycle path (on leopardstown road). when i stopped to try to - politely - debate the finer points of the issue with her, she unsurprisingly didn't wind down the window. it was only a few hundred metres later that the lightbulb went off over my head about the fact she was driving with an L plate, and on her own in the car.

anyway, i will freely admit that i was quite annoyed about being lectured (well, lectured might be the wrong word) on road usage by someone who probably hasn't passed their test.

Probably but not necessarily. It's possible that her brother or sister or husband or wife had the L up and she'd left it in while using the car.