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Road Safety & Vision Zero Plan

^A friend who defends drivers in accident cases tells me that, despite the privacy anxieties, the electronic devices clear far more people than they indict. So much unreliability in witnesses’ verbal statements.

- Paul
 
In a case I am following, it’s the opposite. Driver said he was going much slower than the data shows. Witnesses estimated the speed correctly.
 
Northern Light said:
The road in question has a 9M cross-section.

That's actually narrow by suburban standards where the default choice has been 11M for sometime.

I don't like the road design, particularly for its absence of sidewalk on one side of the road.

But I'd be loath to reach the conclusion that it was a crucial factor here, absent more evidence.

Narrowing the road for the purpose of adding a sidewalk is just feasible (road width needs to be about 7M on a street like this.

Though from the point of view of steetscape and safety, it would be ideal to have the sidewalk 1M in from the curb.

That would likely cut the parking capacity of these homes substantially.

I can't say I would feel bad about that, but I'm not sure how enthusiastic the locals would be.
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I don't think it needs to be narrowed throughout, you just need pinchpoints/chicanes to make driving at speed impossible without driving into a tree or bollard. You can keep the street parking. Using a different material/surface for the parking area would be helpful to reduce the perceived width and cause vibration if driving fast. Streets like this should be 30 kph.
 
crs1026 said:
^A friend who defends drivers in accident cases tells me that, despite the privacy anxieties, the electronic devices clear far more people than they indict. So much unreliability in witnesses’ verbal statements.

- Paul
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There really shouldn't be any more anxiety over this information than any other investigation. The police need a warrant (or consent) to access it.

For the serious collision I was involved in last year, I signed a consent for them to access the recorder of my vehicle and they got a warrant for the other. Other than curiosity I have no idea what they obtained - I suppose I could ask for my data, if for no other reason than to verify how I perceived the events. They have only been mandated since 2014, and they other vehicle I think was a 2008 - it had one but they were pretty immature back then. As it is, they only record seconds of information prior to and after the impact.
 
Northern Light said:
There's a balance to be struck in terms of ensuring everyday safety for pedestrians, cyclists (and all road users, really) and accepting that roads at any speed (as with almost anywhere else) are not, and will never be, risk-free environments.
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I think this is fundamentally at odds with the idea of 'vision zero'.
 
afransen said:
I think this is fundamentally at odds with the idea of 'vision zero'.
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You could argue vision zero is fundamentally at odds with reality. Reality will never get to a point where everything is cut cleanly and nicely, and all the figures add up. Hell, we still get cases of polio lol. Plus the law of diminishing returns kicks in. Every small improvement in safety becomes exponentially more difficult to achieve. At that point, you have to question the opportunity cost of pursuing further improvements and whether those efforts would be better placed elsewhere in our city building.
 
Undead said:
You could argue vision zero is fundamentally at odds with reality. Reality will never get to a point where everything is cut cleanly and nicely, and all the figures add up. Hell, we still get cases of polio lol. Plus the law of diminishing returns kicks in. Every small improvement in safety becomes exponentially more difficult to achieve. At that point, you have to question the opportunity cost of pursuing further improvements and whether those efforts would be better placed elsewhere in our city building.
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That's a valid perspective. I happen to think we aren't striking the right balance. But 'Vision Good Enough' doesn't have the same ring to it. I guess it is the difference between a continuous improvement approach and just tsk tsking when a car plows through a group of children.
 
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afransen said:
That's a valid perspective. I happen to think we aren't striking the right balance. But 'Vision Good Enough' doesn't have the same ring to it. I guess it is the difference between a continuous improvement approach and just tsk tsking when a car plows through a ground of children.
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Of course we're not striking the right balance.

I certainly did not advocate for the status quo.

I advocate for thoughtful action.

In the case of the road above, whether or not it would have made a difference in this case, I'd happily advocate for adding the missing sidewalk, and narrowing the road to as little as 7M.

I also have no problem with the odd chicane.

My concern was with a very tight, extended obstacle course, and with speed humps.

Which until you have a father with broken back going over them in an ambulance screaming in agony, you will not get a hearing from me on as a routinely acceptable choice.
 
I don't think speed humps in roads should be used as primary traffic calming--it's the wrong solution. We should only have them at intersections (traffic tables) or designated pedestrian crossing. Otherwise we should be using horizontal deflection. Chicanes are just a way to retrofit bad street design. Residential streets like this should not have more than 50m of straight, obstacle free road. Long, wide straight roads means go fast, regardless of the suggested speed limit.

I just wanted to add that that comment wasn't really directed at you NL. I just get touchy when I see the "we'll never reach perfection so why try" reasoning applied to road safety. We are so far from perfection, I have pretty low tolerance for that line of thinking. Continuous improvement is how we got commercial air travel as safe as we have. Didn't stop 737-Max crashes, but did mean we didn't just paper over it with "oh well, it was pilot error". Just as we need to not accept "oh well it was driver error/negligence" in our design of roads.
 
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Corporate and government mission and vision statements are always aspirational. It's what they want to strive for; a 'reach exceeding grasp' perspective. There is an even chance that, in the recent tragedy cited, some traffic calming devices might just be seen as and added challenge to someone who's mindset is the roads are simply a personal racetrack for them.

I agree with NL's position that devices and measures have to take into account all reasonable road use including, in Toronto's case, snow ploughs. It might be just camera perspective but those chicanes look too tight for larger vehicles.
 
Undead said:
You could argue vision zero is fundamentally at odds with reality. Reality will never get to a point where everything is cut cleanly and nicely, and all the figures add up. Hell, we still get cases of polio lol. Plus the law of diminishing returns kicks in. Every small improvement in safety becomes exponentially more difficult to achieve. At that point, you have to question the opportunity cost of pursuing further improvements and whether those efforts would be better placed elsewhere in our city building.
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I think it would be good if we adopted the Netherlands style laws for road design. I don't remember all the details (I think I saw it on the 'NotJustBikes' YouTube channel). Aside to national principals, over there anytime there is a crash like this, they look into how the road design can be changed to prevent this in the future. I thought that was really good way to use the policy.
We are too far from diminishing returns. Even the Netherlands is too far from diminishing returns. We have at least a decade of work before we'd get there.
 
TorPronto said:
I think it would be good if we adopted the Netherlands style laws for road design. I don't remember all the details (I think I saw it on the 'NotJustBikes' YouTube channel). Aside to national principals, over there anytime there is a crash like this, they look into how the road design can be changed to prevent this in the future. I thought that was really good way to use the policy.
We are too far from diminishing returns. Even the Netherlands is too far from diminishing returns. We have at least a decade of work before we'd get there.
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I would say I'm not sure we're even on the path to get there ever, much less in 10 years.
 
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