safer roads nsw

Bennoz
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safer roads nsw

Postby Bennoz » Tue Jun 19, 2018 4:36 pm

Hi All

ive just stumbled onto this website, by the NSW State gov called https://www.saferroadsnsw.com.au/

Seems to let the public review speed cameras and speed limits, nominate a location for review and has some interesting FAQ's

Thought id share

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find_bruce
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Re: safer roads nsw

Postby find_bruce » Tue Jun 19, 2018 5:12 pm

Sadly buying once again in the flawed concept that safety is all about speed. I live on the edge of a school zone & the volume of dangerous driving from parents dropping their kids off is just scary & none of it involves speeding.

The killing of vulnerable road users such as pedestrians and cyclists rarely involves speeding.
It doesn't get easier, you just get slower

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Thoglette
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Re: safer roads nsw

Postby Thoglette » Tue Jun 19, 2018 5:48 pm

find_bruce. I'll buy your first paragraph. But the second is not supported by the evidence.

I'll go further and note that the literature consistently correlates higher speed limits (a.k.a. the minimum speed other drivers will allow you to drive at before honking) with %ge fatality rate for vulnerable road users when hit; and also with the loss of situational awareness by drivers, resulting in more vulnerable road users being hit (a.k.a. "he came from nowhere" or SMIDSY).
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human909
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Re: safer roads nsw

Postby human909 » Tue Jun 19, 2018 11:49 pm

I'll take the luxury of sitting on the fence here.
Thoglette wrote:find_bruce. I'll buy your first paragraph. But the second is not supported by the evidence.
Are you sure about that? Do you have evidence to the contrary?
Thoglette wrote:I'll go further and note that the literature consistently correlates higher speed limits ... with %ge fatality rate for vulnerable road users when hit.
Which is different from 'speeding' aka exceeding the legal speed limit.


In my non numerical analysis of incidents, though having read many numerical research papers. The vast majority of collisions with pedestrians and cyclists occur at intersections when motor vehicles are turning. This would generally imply 'speeding' is not a factor. In the case of cycling outside of intersection straight highway roads seem significantly prominent in deaths. While speed data isn't really available from my understanding most incident speed isn't claimed as a factor. (Inattention and "I think there is enough space" are common causes.)

JPB
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Re: safer roads nsw

Postby JPB » Wed Jun 20, 2018 8:04 am

And there is a difference between speeding in exceeding the legal speed limit and driving at an inappropriate speed for the conditions or situation

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Re: safer roads nsw

Postby fat and old » Wed Jun 20, 2018 8:24 am

JPB wrote:And there is a difference between speeding in exceeding the legal speed limit and driving at an inappropriate speed for the conditions or situation
Whilst I kind of agree with this, I think that it effectively means that any travel at all is inappropriate. 5km/h is safe on a bike path, until a small child runs from somewhere into your path and dies as a result. The cyclist who hit and killed the ped on Beach Rd in St Kilda was not over the limit yet managed to kill someone. The parent who reverses over their child because they didn't see it for whatever reason wasn't speeding, yet killed someone.

The whole idea of "driving at an inappropriate speed for the conditions or situation" (and I include all vehicles here) is too simplistic for me. It cannot cover every eventuality if we accept any wheeled travel at all.

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jules21
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Re: safer roads nsw

Postby jules21 » Wed Jun 20, 2018 8:43 am

there's little doubt that all things being equal, risk increases with speed. of course, all things aren't equal and you can cause a crash at low speed if you are on your phone. but that doesn't make 'speeding' safe or OK.

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bychosis
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Re: safer roads nsw

Postby bychosis » Wed Jun 20, 2018 8:52 am

It's not really about safer roads, just about 'speeding is bad'. When the home page for 'safer roads' has a blurb about speed cameras and where to put them they aren't really trying for safer roads.
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find_bruce
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Re: safer roads nsw

Postby find_bruce » Wed Jun 20, 2018 9:51 am

bychosis wrote:It's not really about safer roads, just about 'speeding is bad'. When the home page for 'safer roads' has a blurb about speed cameras and where to put them they aren't really trying for safer roads.
Nailed it - the website is solely concerned with exceeding the posted speed limit & location of cameras - no option for example to submit that the posted speed limit should be reduced, no option for the poorly designed infrastructure should be changed, no option to change the design or priorities of lights, location of pedestrian crossings.
It doesn't get easier, you just get slower

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Re: safer roads nsw

Postby AdelaidePeter » Wed Jun 20, 2018 10:07 am

find_bruce wrote:
bychosis wrote:It's not really about safer roads, just about 'speeding is bad'. When the home page for 'safer roads' has a blurb about speed cameras and where to put them they aren't really trying for safer roads.
Nailed it - the website is solely concerned with exceeding the posted speed limit & location of cameras - no option for example to submit that the posted speed limit should be reduced, no option for the poorly designed infrastructure should be changed, no option to change the design or priorities of lights, location of pedestrian crossings.
There is a "speed limits" tab where you can suggest a speed limit change.

The page is specifically about speed limit management. Which is good, but I agree it is a poor choice of name.

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find_bruce
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Re: safer roads nsw

Postby find_bruce » Wed Jun 20, 2018 10:14 am

AdelaidePeter wrote:There is a "speed limits" tab where you can suggest a speed limit change.
Thanks I had missed that
It doesn't get easier, you just get slower

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Thoglette
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Re: safer roads nsw

Postby Thoglette » Wed Jun 20, 2018 11:48 am

human909 wrote:
Thoglette wrote:find_bruce. I'll buy your first paragraph. But the second is not supported by the evidence.
Are you sure about that? Do you have evidence to the contrary?
Yes, the speed=>fatalities is well established (as reported in SMH 2014)
I'll have to dig a little deeper for the "speed=>loss of situational awareness" but IIRC somewhere I've got a study from Sweden which was trying to measure the effectiveness of hi-viz and ended up showing that as speed increased motorists started to simply fail to see the cyclists.

I spent a fair bit of the noughties working with systems relating to operator cognitive load (industrial control systems etc) and fatigue management so, for me, it's now "common sense". I've probably got some papers still stashed at home but https://scholar.google.com will likely be faster than me.
human909 wrote:The vast majority of collisions with pedestrians and cyclists occur at intersections when motor vehicles are turning. This would generally imply 'speeding' is not a factor. .... (Inattention and "I think there is enough space" are common causes.)
There's two forms of inattention: boredom; and fixation & overload. Boredom is "caused" by road overdesign: long, straight stretches of featureless road. Might as well re-program the radio or have lunch or call Bruce. This is a design problem and (short of bumping up the speed limit), really needs to be addressed by separation of peds and cyclists from fast, straight traffic. Of course the AS/NZS standards don't call for that when building 80kph+ roads, despite the minimal incremental cost. As I said, a design problem.

Fixation and overload are separate spots on the same spectrum. Indeed fixation is an attempt to cope with overload and is likely the major cause of SMIDSY for peds and cyclists. I assume everyone's seen Daniel Simon's gorilla vs basketball pass (vs everything else) video before?


Motorists in "difficult" traffic conditions are going to start to fixate on MVs and start to miss the peds stepping off the curb or cyclists already in the roundabout (that's already happened to me several times this month). As for checking blind spots, forgettaboutit. This is exacerbated with drivers who have to concentrate on the task of actually driving: new drivers; people in hire/new cars; people who rarely drive; or those in unfamiliar territory.

No-one should be surprised to hear that the answer to cognitive overload is to SLOW DOWN. Yes, there's a real problem (especially in 2GB land) with certain drivers who believe that "roads are for cars" and it's not their fault if peds get killed. However, most drivers don't want to hit pedestrians but they're "in a hurry" or have to "keep up with the traffic". So they drive faster than their mental capacity allows (that's not meant as a dig :-) ).

I'm short linkable cites at the moment but six seconds with google scholar provides a far bit of reading (adding "pedestrian" finds some more interesting stuff)

PS.
Someone's going to take me to task for using speeding and speed interchangably. I have two defences: one is that a large proportion of suburban drivers are speeding all the time (in WA, NT, Vic. QLD and NSW, in my experience). That is, the speed limit is treated as, at best, a recommended average if not a minimum speed. Secondly, there's an argument that speed limits are arbitrary and fixating on them is ignoring the real problem, which is "bad driving". But when was the last time some one got a ticket for driving too quickly yet still under the speed limit? Indeed the complaint is that "drivers will fixate on their speed". Why not set one'starget speed a few kph below the limit? :shock: Never! :shock: And we're back to defence one.
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human909
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Re: safer roads nsw

Postby human909 » Wed Jun 20, 2018 1:04 pm

You've partially convinced me. You are quite right. Slow things down and give people time to be attentive.

That said several recent pedestrian deaths that I can recall happened when the turning truck was going not much faster than walking pace. Other significant accidents I've narrowly avoid have occurred when the other car has been STOPPED, and for an not insignificant amount of time. Little to no other traffic except me and the offending car. You can't get slower than STOPPED.

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Thoglette
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Re: safer roads nsw

Postby Thoglette » Wed Jun 20, 2018 2:10 pm

human909 wrote: That said several recent pedestrian deaths that I can recall happened when the turning truck was going not much faster than walking pace. Other significant accidents I've narrowly avoid have occurred when the other car has been STOPPED
Agreed. There's two completely different threads. Vehicles that simply should not be on urban roads (ask our resident truck drivers about dog trailers or search for discussions on HGVs in London) and well, moron motorists who need, um, "re-education".
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