‘Sorry mate, I didn’t see you’: when drivers look but don’t see cyclists on the road
‘Sorry mate, I didn’t see you’: when drivers look but don’t see cyclists on the road
Many drivers fail to notice bikes until it’s too late. Sometimes this phenomenon is referred to as SMIDSY (‘sorry mate, I didn’t see you’).
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I've noticed a few intersections around me have put up "Yield to bicycles when turning right" signs.
Sad that a basic fundamental rule of driving needs its own dedicated sign. It'd be like having a sign that says "Proceed on green".
We've started putting NO RIGHT ON RED signs at intersections, and motorists are still running over pedestrians!
You can't design away stupidity. The danger is people behind the wheel of these aerodynamic tanks.
Just make turning at all on a red illegal. Many countries do this and we get by just fine. I went to the US a couple summer ago and wife and I got nearly taken out while walking across a street by this woman only looking left and not planning to stop at the light coming off a highway.
You can't design away stupid, but if this is a regular problem then the intersection is designed stupid and you need to design a better one.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/201978334-killed-by-a-traffic-engineer
To a significant extent, you can design away stupid. Look at the concept of poka-yoke (mistake-proofing) in manufacturing processes: arranging things in a way that minimizes the possibility of common errors. And note that its inventor originally called it baka-yoke (idiot-proofing) but that bluntness rocked the boat a bit too much.
Having separate paths for bikes and motor vehicles, and appropriately controlled intersections to take that into account, is a proven life-saver.
@futatorius @drkt_ basically every (successful) safety feature in anything is an example of designing away stupid (plenty of examples where it designs *in* stupid too, though). And just as important, designing away tired/distracted. Everyone makes mistakes, even when they're not idiots. It's this isn't it https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hierarchy/_of/_hazard/_controls
@futatorius@lemm.ee also replying to you
I think there's been a semantic misunderstanding -
I'm saying that people are going to be stupid and you should design an intersection that accounts for it. I don't think that's 'designing away stupid' because the stupid is still present. It has merely been limited or entirely contained, but I don't want to have a semantic argument. Just understand that we agree, and the book I reference says almost exactly what you both said.
@drkt_ @futatorius gotcha. In your example "designing away stupid" sounds like it might be... well... eugenics. Very much happy to agree that that doesn't work.
You can't design away all stupidity, but you can absolutely design away a lot of it. For starters, red lights are red lights. You should never be turning on a red light. Drivers who are used to turning right on red are more likely to do it even when it's not allowed.
Further to that, you can improve safety by:
- Keeping turn radii very low, so drivers have to slow down to take a sharp right angle turn, instead of smooth higher speed curves.
- Keep pedestrians safe by giving them a lead time: let them start crossing at intersections with lights a few seconds before cars are given a green light to start turning, so they are well into the intersection and clearly visible before drivers start
- Where major roads cross less major roads, use a wombat crossing: cars must drive up as though over a speed bump to the pedestrian's level, instead of pedestrians walking down onto road level, forcing drivers to slow down like when they go over a speed bump, while visually indicating that pedestrians clearly have priority
- Combine the above with having the crossing set back from the road a little so cars have completed their right angle turn and are looking straight ahead at pedestrians before they cross their path
I appreciate the reply. I really didn't mean that you can't design away ALL stupidity, as there are clearly infrastructure and road designs all over the world that force motorists to drive in a way that causes less harm.
But my thoughts are that if you have to design infrastructure to "be safe", rather than have drivers drive safely, then we really should re-evaluate whether these vehicles should be allowed at all. I've seen multiple cases of motorists driving over concrete barriers designed to keep cyclists safe. It's nice that they didn't kill anyone, but the fact that it even happened is highly worrisome!
Same with speed. Yes, you can design all sorts of things to physically slow drivers down. But the fact that someone would choose to drive 2 or 3x the speed limit is the real problem, not that the roads physically allow them to.
We, as a society, have to change a driver's behaviour and attitudes.