I know what a "Home Zone" IS:
> A home zone is a street or group of streets designed primarily to meet the interests of pedestrians and cyclists rather than motorists, opening up the street for social use. Legally, neither pedestrians nor vehicles have priority, but the road may be reconfigured to make it more favourable to pedestrians. For example, traffic calming features and benches or *play areas* may be introduced.
> Home zones are streets where you can enjoy taking time to stop and chat with your neighbours. Streets where cars are allowed, but the car driver is a guest.
From: www.homezonenews.org.uk/html/what_ahz.htm
But how do they *actually* work:
- neither pedestrians nor vehicles have priority
But:
- designed primarily to meet the interests of pedestrians
- opening up the street for social use
- reconfigured to make it more favourable to pedestrians
- streets where you can enjoy taking time to stop and chat with your neighbours
- where cars are allowed, but the car driver is a guest
EG:
- You drive through a home zone (at under 10mph - try it!)
- Two pedestrians have decided to have social intercourse in the middle of the street
- Do they have to get out of your way - doesn't sound like it
- Can you move forward -2 doesn't look like it
- Will you have to reverse out - hopefully the pedestrian now behind you is big enough to see!
Or am I missing something somewhere?
Anyone got any practical experience of them?
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Must say, haven't come across one yet, but it sounds like a good idea.
Can't think why a motorised pedestrian should have any extra rights.
As for the intercourse on the road, it happens all the time round my way.
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There is a lack of joined up thinking here.
Road safety people want roads without through traffic for pedestrian safety.
Police want roads with through traffic because cul-de-sacs have a high crime rate.
Just depends which lobby has the most influence on the planning committee in your area.
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You'd also then get neighbours who didn't like each other, or yobbos typical of the lot these days who know they're in the "right" who'd purposefully stand in the road stopping you from passing.
All these do-gooder lot who decide these meetings seem to live in some kind of fantasy world and then have no idea why things go wrong (ie why a riot occurred in the middle of a previously placid housing estate)!
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Yes, but whether its a through road or a cul-de-sac, if a pedestrian is chatting on the roadway: does the motorist have to reverse back over the playing children?
And if the motorised pedestrians have the same rights as the ones blocking the roadway, does that mean that the motorised ones can use the pavements as the main highway instead, especially as the others have taken to using the middle of the road as a sidewalk instead?
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My God, I'm glad I live where I do.
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Mike Rutherford mentioned this in one of his recent Telegraph columns. Apparently Home Zones are promoted by an organisation called the Pedestrians' Association. According to MR, one of their beliefs is that if two pedestrians happen to meet as they cross the road, they should be allowed to stop there and then for a chat, right in the middle of the road, while all the cars wait for them to finish. Sounds to me like sheer bloody-mindedness and a recipe for road rage.
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Mind you it reminds me of when I used to work in the Channel Islands:
If two cars met in the road they would stop for a chat ! :-(
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They have talking cars in the Channel Islands!!!!!
Sorry all i'm off to lie down in a darkened room
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With all the recent guff in the news about Delia being a new word in the dictionary, as in "doing a Delia," they forgot to mention the deletion of two much under used words, COMMON and SENSE.
IO, you can't pass the pedestrians using the pavement as that is where the cars have to park because the roads been narrowed so much! What's wrong with pavements for people, roads for cars, bikes, etc?
Alyn, where is this darkened room then, any room for another? aaaaarrrrgggh!
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According to an earlier thread, said pedestrians are likely to drunk as well. Perhaps that was how the PA came up with the idea.
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Growler,
I note that Pedestrian's Association have the same intials as P*ss Artists.
S
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I suggest all members of the Pedestrian Association have a large P.A. painted on their front doors. then, when they get sick, the ambulance drivers can tell them to WALK to the hospital!
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Cutting to the chase this is actually a good idea in the right places, for example housing estates. Exactly what operates informally in this small cul de sac. The kids play happily, the neighbours chat, we move to one side to accomadate others moving their cars and they do so at sensible speeds. It won't work on roads carrying true through traffic but there are roads elswhere in this village that only serve other residential streets that drivers whizz down at "30" mph.
Is my memory faulty or was there a concept until the sixties of play streets where similar protcols applied?
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Simon,
This theory and behaviour is fine, the place we have just moved from was in a short cul-de-sac. The road was theoretically subject to a 30 limit, but had narrow access section, restricted visiblity from one/two driveways, which of course also applies to someone on the main road seeing if anyone on foot/wheels was emerging. So one might say a suitable speed was max 20 and even 10/15 more appropriate at times.
In a group of 7 houses there were two families where some of the drivers were total gits. It just was not me complaining there were three other famlies who had a go at these individuals about their behaviour.
Did they improve, like hell they did, it just got worse from one individual in particular.
He used to set off from the top of his driveway, you could hear the squeak of the tyres as he power/snatch changed into second and hit third as he passed our house, straight lining it across kerbs, verges, pavements everything. Now I reckon that individual is not fit to have a driving licence, plus he was one of the fog light boys ;-)
My point is that some people will not behave responsibly, no amount of rules, local pressure whatever will not stop people who just do not care or do not see the dangers. Home Zones might be a solution but on balance I think not, however it might have given some legal substance to any complaints.
Not sure what the answer is, but I still believe strongly in life long education of all road users, whether they are behind a wheel, on a bike, horse or on foot.
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Yes but 30 is the max if conditions permit.
If the authorities clamped down on dangerous driving (which the above obviously is) instead of concentrating on collecting speed taxes.................
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