njkayaker

This is awfully subjective (unless there was a video). "Putting in legwork in the the courts" wouldn't be able to fix that (and it doesn't seem worth the effort).

bikelif3

Yeah, there probably was video.

njkayaker

The statement of the person being cut off isn't worth much.

If there was video, it wasn't just the statement. There was other evidence too.

cellery

Right hand path magick as a means to force driver compliance. Project MKUltra vibes. I like it!
Please make sure to keep a journal detailing your journey on this mad mythical quest for posterity.

bikelif3

You're a glass half-empty kind of a person aren't you...

Black wallnut 

Utter nonsense. Ever spent any time on a military installation in the 70's or early 80's? 20MPH meant just that there. Exceed that and you get a visit to the commanders office. Have a dependent violate a sped limit same thing happens or at least that was the way of it when I was younger and lived on or visited such places. Enforcement is a difference as is respect for authority.

I can guarantee that you and I will have different opinions as to a safe and reasonable speed on any roadway. Because humans, mostly men, must think that because someone is, they can also; we need speed limits and traffic control devices. Some folks don't get 4 way stops, some folks don't get traffic circles, and to bring it back to cycling, many folks don't get why cyclists should not have to obey a stop sign with a stop and a traffic light as a stop and wait. Most of our roadways were in the beginning and are now being designed for multi-modal transportation. Meanwhile "rules of the road" and "right of way" are no longer taught in driver education. Uniform traffic enforcement is nearly non-existent in most places.

Motorist attitudes and enforcement are the two most important factors in compliance and accident reduction IMHO.

base2 

I'll let this guy do the talking. He explains stuff so well, & I'm too busy to parrot good sense.

Here, is another one:

Black wallnut 

Guessing it is too much bother to actually reply to a question. Let me restate it for you in simpler terms. Have you ever lived where traffic laws were enforced to the letter? If you had you would see the fallacy of your opinions.

base2 

I absolutely have lived in places where the traffic laws are enforced to the letter. I see no need to list each & every duty station I have ever attended. Nor is such a list even relevant.

The problem is that nobody (except you, apparently) wants the draconian police state that enforcing every single traffic law to the letter would create. The better solution is to take into account normal human behaviour and incorporate that into road design.

Black wallnut 

Did it work?

Actually about half the population believes that we live in a nation of laws and those laws should be enforced. I guess to you that is a "draconian police state" The other half seems to keep making new laws that they never intend to enforce that affect mostly others. They also seem to not want any traffic laws enforced any more. They have seriously undermined our policing agencies so that they no longer have either the manpower or desire to do traffic enforcement.
You misunderstand me. I want freedom. I want others to understand that when they violate traffic laws they put lives at risk, mine and others. I believe that enforcement is more cost effective than a complete rebuild of our infrastructure.
On the other hand I live in a place where stop signs are placed at the request of local residents and speed limits on rural roads are lowered due to urban sprawl and encroachment of rural spaces. Perhaps I can agree with some of your thinking in that stop signs are not always the answer and suburban developments should be so well isolated by physical barriers as to not impact speed limits of local roads. Municipalities when adding new roads across existing MUP should be required to do so in a way that does not interfere with folks using existing infrastructure.

UniChris

Maybe I'm mis-understanding you but that sounds like very car-centric development that would discourage people from biking around. I like it when you can get in and out both ends of a neighborhood (though that can be made possible on a bike even when disallowed to cars) and the speed limits on the rural roads (which can make such delightful cycling) are within reason. I worry this limited access idea may encourage drivers to see the connecting roads more like freeways than the highly varied and multipurpose local resources they are.

Given how some of those rural roads make for absolutely delightful cycling, it is important to not treat them like uninterrupted freeways. It's not so much high default speeds that I worry about, but the importance of people being situationally flexible and willing to slow when that's what the situation requires - so for example, upon encountering a bike on a narrow stretch where a curve or hill limits sight lines, recognizing that there is no "instantaneous right to pass" but rather that can only happen when there's width for the cyclist to move right or for the driver to see enough of the opposing lane to safely use that. Too many insist on going for it within a few seconds.

That would be nice, but sounds like tunnels and flyovers which I suspect will get a lot of budgetary pushback.

I'd actually prefer to see many MUP vs road intersections be made all-way-stops.

In contrast to NJB, my view of the merit of stop signs rests on the realization that those allowed to merely "yield" so often fail to take a sufficient look to reliably see conflicting users. I'm particular wary of situations that allow drivers to merely "yield" in favor of cyclists. It scares me to be on a road favored by a traditional traffic yield sign, because I worry that drivers who are supposed to yield won't see me with reliability they'd see the car they are expecting. I especially worry about cycling via a "yield to pedestrian" feature like a crosswalk, because I know that too often users of bikes show up too quickly for that model of yielding. Planners seem to know this too, which is why they put a stop sign on the MUP in favor of the road. Maybe after both have stopped the cyclist really does get to go first if the state's crosswalk law favors cyclists, but the situation clarifies that cyclists are not allowed to just proceed into the crosswalk without regard for approaching traffic (in the forgotten text of most crosswalk laws, pedestrians aren't allowed to either, but nobody reads those)

If we formally "Idaho" those MUP stops signs, then we have an interesting case where the driver is allowed to proceed so long as they don't see the cyclist a reaction time in advance, and the cyclist is allowed to proceed so long as they don't see the driver a reaction time in advance. Add in overgrown vegetation at the corner as so often happens by late summer... Requiring, at least in the letter of things, that both parties stop and look seems far more likely to avoid those collisions - and most of the new requirement falls on the car side. Adding in some snow plowing and requirement to provide a viable detour when closing would go a long way to view MUPs as actual transit and not mere recreation.

But a stop sign on the road at the MUP crossing as the fallaback means of satisfying a requirement might be a way to get those tunnels and flyovers built.

Or we could require the same sorts of diagonal sight lines common in road vs. road intersections be maintained.

base2 

NO.

The roads only last 30 years. A complete rebuild can be had for little to no more cost than ongoing maintenance. Ask anyone in a country that has done it.

To the laws thing: When everyone is a criminal, the problem isn't the people.

To the policing thing: When the job of 50% of the population is to watch the other 50% you don't have freedom.

What you are not getting is that when the infrastructure is properly designed, there isn't any violated laws. The correct, proper & expected action occurs automatically by way of human nature. The frequency of violation is greatly reduced and the consequences to others of violation are greatly diminished. The police you love are freed to do actual public safety things instead of public punishment things. The whole "system" just works better.

UniChris

Without question there is a lot of interplay between designs which suggest their intended behavior rather than merely stating it in words or symbols, the degree to which people perceive the designs as reasonably enabling what they want to do, and the resulting rates of compliance.

If you create infrastructure which is excessively frustrating to use in the intended fashion, then sure, you'll get high rates of non-compliance.

But can you give an example of where infrastructure itself creates truly reliably compliance, rather than the infrastructure only working because of social attitudes towards responsibility and rule-following in the culture which hosts it?

Sometimes there are clever solutions which can enable the "legal way" to also often be the "personally convenient way" but those are rarities.

Most of the time social institutions (of which traffic is an example) rely on willingness to inconvenience self in favor of the fair opportunity and safety of others - and having some sort of plan for what society is going to do in the case of those who refuse.

base2 

Sure. The Zig-Zag chicane before the guard-shack at the base you work at. Compliance is compulsory because it instills a risk of harm to the operator or the vehicle. The desired speed and driver behavior is achieved by way of environmental cues. Optional signs signaling tire damage, implying authority (Government property, Search, guard on duty, etc...) to encourage psychological compliance and guard are merely theatrical to control the rate of entry. It is the planters/ecology blocks/necessary change of direction & associated environmental cues like speed bumps and lane widths before the guard shack do the work of achieving the desired behaviour.

UniChris

I'll grant that's a rather special case.

If we extend it to "street calming" in general I find that biking through those situations tends to involve a lot of unnecessary degree of conflict with cars. Sure, we can all go single file, and that's what happens if the overall length of it is short and the cyclist is comfortable and skilled at merging to the center of the lane. But the calming measures tend to reduce space that would have otherwise been available for easily safe passing - you can see that formerly available space still there, behind the barriers and altered curbs.

Sometimes localities get "cute" and build such chicanes on bike paths, too - because clearly what a cyclist approaching a traffic situation needs is to first be distracted by a maneuvering challenge.

So basically threats of violence - and yes, some of it at human hands.

I'm sorry but I don't buy that the gate of a military base is a good model for a civilian streetscape that somehow doesn't require enforcement.

Or at least, it's a very different model of non-enforcement than the civilian world is likely to appreciate - not hard to see civic reaction being "well, okay, that's within the literally meaning of what we asked for, but not what we had in mind and not acceptable for our town!"

I don't doubt it works in the atypical context where you're describing it though - but posts earlier in the thread already detailed how the culture in which it exists is one with a now strong tradition of traffic rule compliance, and enforcement includes not only the policing mechanisms but also one's boss.

Additionally, much of that physical stuff is not there for routine traffic compliance as much as to slow truck bombs or the least make their intentions obvious earlier.

base2 

UniChris I get it. The gate of a military base is a special case. But you asked If I could cite an example that didn't reside on cultural attitudes. I cited 2 of differing means I knew you experience at least twice per day. The second of ecology blocks, bollards, etc, being the actual effective one because failure to take due care and caution invokes an actual instant personal cost. Both instilled a sense of harm to self or vehicle. One real, one imagined. The point need not be so blunt and obvious in a civilian context. Labyrinthine Zig-zags like San Francisco's Lombard Street are a burden.

The commanding of a driver to be attentive and responsive to the safe operation of their vehicle while removing the consequences to others should human error occur can be accomplished in many, many subtle and different ways. Many of which listed in the above linked videos. We're not talking the world, here, just a few mph and non-right angle conflicts. Some visual/sensory cues and segregating out the vulnerable. Good infrastructure will instill a simple hesitation of "Is it safe to proceed?" Giving the car operator the option (excuse?) to do the right thing when cultural norms and personal exceptionalism encourage the wrong thing.

Totally doable. Compliance becoming the norm is the desired outcome. It should come as no surprise when cultural attitudes shift.

cellery

(Jovially references occult magic with a tone of levity): "this guy must be a pessimist".

bikelif3

Do you always choose your words like that? Or do you ever try to convey a clear message?

RCMoeur 

Unwritten Rule of Traffic Engineering #2: Presence of a sign or other device does not ensure compliance with that device.

Full pavement reconstruction is much more expensive than preventative maintenance and overlays. And don't forget that changing the curb line requires changing a lot of unseen buried items, most notably subgrade and roadway base and drainage pipes and catch basins.

As to overpasses: when my former traffic study crews would do counts at pedestrian overpasses over non-freeways, they'd note the structure's primary function seemed to be to provide shade as they saved the up / down effort and just crossed the road directly.

retswerb

Relying on enforcement works with those who are highly internally regulated, or with those who have a reasonable belief that they may get caught. Relying on design works 24/7. Both are important, but the latter is far more effective in many circumstances.

79pmooney

I have called in license numbers to the non-emergency police number twice and and had officers call me back. One couldn't pursue any action (for a very close pass) because I didn't look to see if the driver was male or female. That pickup was owned by a woman. Her SO had a long line of issues and had a restraining order (hers) out against him. If I saw that he was driving, he'd have been up ****'s creek. As it was, the deputy said this incident was going into his file.

The other case was a farm truck that swum right to prepare for the left turn into his farm as he was passing me. I knew from my mirror his flatbed trailer was a full foot wider per side than the cab. I rode a tightrope with 4" either side until he pulled in. That deputy called me back after his visit. Told me a fact I didn't mention. One only the driver and I knew. And that confirmed this close pass wasn't an accident; that the driver knew full well I was there and was teaching me a lesson. (I'd been riding out far enough into the road there was no not seeing me. I didn't account for his temper. I did pull back to the right in plenty of time to not impede him, at all.)

UniChris

While that is true, you're failing to heed the very principle you state. Surely you don't believe that a driver who would entirely disregard the underlying purpose of a stop sign is going to safely comply with a mere crosswalk marking?

The comment you responded to was a situation where two uses must share the same physical space by a scheme of arbitrating access to it.

Restoring the crossing gates that were there when the trains ran would be interesting (though many of these likely never had them) - but that's impractical.

The point of putting up a stop sign is that it removes the "I didn't see them" excuse. Not stopping is a violation even if there actually is no user.

It also solves the thorny cyclist in a crosswalk precedence vs safety problem - a handful of states give cyclists pedestrian privilege, but most wisely do not, because cyclists who believe the crosswalk provides a right of way all to easily forget that even pedestrians are explicitly prohibited by the laws of most states from entering a crosswalk when an approaching vehicle is too close to safely stop, and an incautious cyclist easily appears from behind vegetation faster than a driver can react. A crosswalk is not a yield sign in favor of users, but something distinct - users appear in an area visible to the road, users look, nearby traffic stops, only after visually confirming that may users enter.

Putting a stop sign on the road (and keeping the one on the path) makes the required behavior far clearer and invariant since the initial action is required every time you pass that spot.

And it even works with only "approximate" compliance on both sides - it is, after all, all over the place in road vs road contexts.

Is it inconvenient to drivers? Yes, a little - but it also goes a long way to putting routes for people on the same level of prioritization in public space we grant to roads. And it's not had to think of places where a route for people should in truth have precedence over the road. Our world is full of situations where we put a stop sign on a minor road in favor of major one - the fact that we won't do it in favor of a route for people reveals our fundamental misprioritization.

Bleu

So terribly true. And the punishment was no joke either, driver speeds in civilian world gets little fine pays through the mail no trouble, on a military base you are risking your rank and/or career. No enforcement of traffic laws equals lawlessness.