Great road safety ideas from other countries

Honest John Back Room » Motoring discussion
What is life like with your car? Let us know and win £500 in John Lewis vouchers | No thanks
View Threaded
Thu 25 Jun 2020 22:26
Great road safety ideas from other countries - Bilboman

There are a few traffic ideas I've noticed while on holiday in other countries, and one or two of them could easily be incorporated into Britain with minimal inconvenience. My top five "Why don't we already do that?" innovations would be:
1. From Greece: advance warning of a red light at a junction is given on many winding major roads by means of alternating amber lights mounted overhead. Trains used to be regulated by single then double (fixed) amber lights before the red in a similar fashion. This obviously encourages drivers to ease off and prepare to stop, saving petrol and brake pads, although Greek drivers still tend to overshoot the stop line to the extent that they can't see when the red light has changed to green!
2. Spain still has radar-activated red lights in the approach to many towns and villages: exceed the speed limit and you get a red, but keep to 30 (50 km/h) and you sail through on green. Observance is not quite 100%, but linking it to a speed camera would do wonders for the tranquility of sleepy villages.
3. Four-way stops are common in the USA and South Africa and they work well on quiet junctions where a roundabout would be a major upheaval. Everyone stops on the line, and if there are 2 cars or more, the first one to reach the line and stop is the first one to move off.
4. Flashing amber ("proceed with caution") traffic lights replace the red/amber/green on many habitually quiet junctions at quiet night times in Italy and Spain. Bring them on!
5. Many states in the USA have a "free right turn" (left in the UK) which would allow you to turn left against a red light at designated junctions, once you've stopped and checked it's clear. Is there anything more annoying than a pointless stop at a red light?

And finally - If most of the USA can master zip-merging, why can't Brits do it? (Hint: obsession with queuing?)

I suspect that the prevalence of automatic transmission has led to a much wider acceptance of many of these ideas, but we'll all be driving automatic electric or hybrid cars before too long, so...

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Fri 26 Jun 2020 00:22
Great road safety ideas from other countries - Zippy123

USA - car parking spaces at an angle makes getting out of them easier and reduces prangs. Takes up more space though.

USA- more traffic police.

Germany - faster autobahns.

Germany - tailgating camera on motorway gantries.

France - variable speed limits depending on weather. Fed up of people driving at 70mph on the M1 when they cant see 5 meters in front.

"Dragons teeth" on motorway entrances to stop cars joining in the wrong direction - controllable by the police when they have to take people off the motorway the wrong way.

All crossings on dual fast dual-carriageways to be roundabouts or bridges. Its crazy in this day and age to have a B road cross a dual-carriageway and is asking for deaths.

Traffic lights synced to traffic flow. The number of junctions where the lights are given the same time is crazy when there are 2 mile queues in one direction and 3 cars joining from the other - though I suspect it's deliberate - speaking to the County Council they said that they wanted traffic off that "A" road - madness!

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Fri 26 Jun 2020 06:31
Great road safety ideas from other countries - catsdad

Spain, France and presumably others have readily recognised, consistent out of town speed limits on their equivalent of A roads. There might be exceptions such as on bends but its generally one single carriageway speed limit once you leave the built up area,

Far better than our illogical and random set of 40/50/60 limits that change every few miles with little or bush-hidden repeat signage. It’s particularly confusing if it’s a new area. In France and Spain you just need to look at the road and you know the limit.

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Fri 26 Jun 2020 08:12
Great road safety ideas from other countries - focussed

Spain, France and presumably others have readily recognised, consistent out of town speed limits on their equivalent of A roads. There might be exceptions such as on bends but its generally one single carriageway speed limit once you leave the built up area,

Far better than our illogical and random set of 40/50/60 limits that change every few miles with little or bush-hidden repeat signage. It’s particularly confusing if it’s a new area. In France and Spain you just need to look at the road and you know the limit.

That used to be the case but unfortunately not any more. France has gone random speed-limit crazy.

The cause is the reduction of the two-way road speed limit from 90 kph to 80 kph and the subsequent campaign to restore it to 90 kph. The government finally gave in, but in typical bureaucratic fashion, left it up to local department administrations to make the decision to revert to 90 kph to avoid getting the blame if restoring the limit resulted in more accidents.

So it depends which department you are driving in as to whether the speed limit is 80, 90 or some other arbitrary random limit.

There are more complicated rules regarding whether the road has a central divider or not, and what constitutes a divider, leading to the ridiculous situation where different limits can apply depending on which direction you are driving.

https://www.french-property.com/news/travel_france/relaxation_80kph_speed_limit/

( note to admin , I have no connection to this website but have quoted it as their guides to France are clear, up to date and authoritative.)

Edited by focussed on 26/06/2020 at 08:24

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Fri 26 Jun 2020 08:34
Great road safety ideas from other countries - Surreydriver

Mandatory dip beam (and rear lights) in poor conditions/rain/dawn/dusk/nighttime etc.

While half the country seem to have modern cars with headlamps on all the time, I am amazed by the number of people who drive around squinting out of their windscreens trying to see out but who do not think it is necessary to be seen themselves.

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Fri 26 Jun 2020 08:46
Great road safety ideas from other countries - focussed

Yet again in France, there is a law that states dipped headlamps must be used when it rains.

Widely ignored, at least in my part of France. No effort is made to enforce it.

And then there is the distinction between actually raining, just stopped raining, stopped raining but the road is streaming with water - the usual gallic confusion.of laws.

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Fri 26 Jun 2020 19:04
Great road safety ideas from other countries - Sofa Spud

I like the fact that there's no 'derestricted' sign in France - i.e. the limit is marked for every stretch of road, including national speed limit. So if applied here, the derestricted sign would be replaced with '60' or '70' as appropriate.

Edited by Sofa Spud on 26/06/2020 at 19:04

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Fri 26 Jun 2020 19:36
Great road safety ideas from other countries - dan86

I like the fact that there's no 'derestricted' sign in France - i.e. the limit is marked for every stretch of road, including national speed limit. So if applied here, the derestricted sign would be replaced with '60' or '70' as appropriate.

I do agree this is a more sensible approach as I'm sure some drivers don't realise its 60 on a single carriage way.

If anyone else's car has the speed limit sign recognition how does it know it's a 60 or 70 when all it reads is the national speed limit sign. Does it use gps or does it use the camera to pick up if it's a duel carriageway or single?

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Fri 26 Jun 2020 23:16
Great road safety ideas from other countries - focussed

There is a restricted sign on french roads, it's the sign on the road leaving the town or village with the town name on it with a diagonal red stripe across the name.

This indicates whatever speed limit applied in the town - usually 30 or 50 kph, is cancelled and the national speed applies - whatever that is nowadays.

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Fri 26 Jun 2020 09:18
Great road safety ideas from other countries - Andrew-T

Canada & US - night speed limits lower than day (by 10mph usually) with reflective signage to give the appropriate message. Probably varies with province/state, just as Right Turn on Red depends on the local authority (tho this info may be out of date - it's a while since I was there).

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Fri 26 Jun 2020 10:33
Great road safety ideas from other countries - Engineer Andy

My additional ones:

Countdowns for traffic lights (also in Spain, I believe), not just for pedestrain crossings on the pedestrain side (very useful). I think this ties in with the red if too fast lights as well;

'Herringbone' car park layouts (mainly the US and Canada, but I'm sure they are all over the place) - helps ingress into and egress from parking spaces, speeds up the turnover of cars in car parks, and helps prevent accidents as a result.

Undertaking on busy multi-lane roads.

Having a full-sized spare wheel and tyre as manditory for all vehicles and not allowing them to have a space-saver (barely any saving, including weight, in the grand scheme) or a tube of (mostly useless) goo to reduce that all-important tested CO2 emissions by 0.1g/km or so.

Edited by Engineer Andy on 26/06/2020 at 10:34

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Fri 26 Jun 2020 19:22
Great road safety ideas from other countries - Trilogy.

Australia

Expat will correct me if I'm incorect.

No U-turns.

Parking on the wrong side of the road is illegal - should certainly be the same here.

Sometimes with angled parking to pavement the instruction is to 'reverse in'. Pavements are usually set much higher. The reverse parking wouldn't work here!

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Fri 26 Jun 2020 22:06
Great road safety ideas from other countries - Bilboman

Just remembered a few more.... U turns and 3 point turns are illegal almost everywhere in Spain. Reversing manoeuvres no longer than 30 metres, and never on a motorway. Ban on parking on wrong side of the road is common to quite a few countries, although in South Africa cars have always had white reflectors mounted on the front (I think that's still the case), which may help night time visibility - although number plates, if kept clean, also help.
Perhaps the most important one of all is the general "duty to help" common to countries once governed by the Napoleonic Code. In the UK it is perfectly legal to drive past an accident scene and watch trapped motorists - or anyone else - perish; in Spain, France and Italy one has to render assistance, which means at the very least making an emergency call. A motorist actually had to transport an injured person to the nearest designated first aid post until not so long ago.

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Sat 27 Jun 2020 08:34
Great road safety ideas from other countries - Trilogy.

. A motorist actually had to transport an injured person to the nearest designated first aid post until not so long ago.

Sometime impossible to carry out.

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Sat 27 Jun 2020 07:44
Great road safety ideas from other countries - sandy56

Maybe spend less on consultants and long public hearings and more on roads would be a start.

Reply | Report as offensive | Link