Erase my life like a car crash, baby

[venta]

Yesterday I was driving along the A4074 at exactly 50mph (which is dead on the speed limit). One of those speed-sensing signs lit up as I approached, warning me of oncoming bends and the need to slow down.

The section of road I was driving along is far from Roman, and is affectionately known as "The Thirteen Bends of Death". It's a dangerous road, by which I mean it's a perfectly safe bit of rural English road along which people drive with such monumental twattery that it has an extremely high casualty rate. Sadly, they themselves are not always the ones injured or killed.

However, I know from driving along that bit for years that you don't need to drop below 50 to go round most of the bends safely. There's one - some distance after the sign - where your car will stay on the road perfectly happily at 50, but you probably want to drop speed a bit to make sure you can see what's coming and check you aren't about to collide with a hay wagon struggling up the hill at 15mph.

To me, the flashing sign suggests I'm going dangerously fast and need the warning when actually, I don't think I am. Similarly, around the motorway interchanges of the M4 and M40 with the M25 there are plenty of signs saying "max speed 40" round bends which can safely be taken at considerably more. Even by HGVs.

All this leads to one thing: you see a max speed warning, and don't take it seriously. Sure, you may drop speed a little but not to the "ridiculously" low speed they recommend. Then you drive across the moors to Whitby, pass the Legendary Saltersgate Inn (currently covered in scaffolding) see the sign warning you to take the next bend at 20mph... and don't realise that it means you should take the next bend at 20mph.

Pretty much everyone I've observed driving along that road has - the first time they encountered it - misjudged that bend. The crash barrier which stops you plummeting off the edge of the hill is regularly dented, scraped, or ripped completely away. All because people are conditioned to be blasé about warning signs.

Unless N Yorkshire follows the same approach everyone else does, and changes the recommended speed to 5mph (or adds a second sign saying "We really mean it!"), people are going to go on ignoring the sign. See also the layers of tyre left behind on the slip-road into London Gateway services, where people thought the 15mph warning was exaggerating.

I understand that a car's ability to corner varies wildly, and that an artic must go slower than a sportscar. But a little consistency in the speed recommendations would help enormously.

Does anyone know what my subject line is ? I can't place it. Deathboy ? Katscan ?

Comments

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

I completely endorse this post.

I'm actually a big fan of the flashing sign approach, because on the rare occasions when I am speeding it's usually because it simply hasn't occurred to me that I might be (going down gentle hills, for example). But I do wish they'd calibrate them slightly above the limit to remove false positives. There's one sign in a 30 zone in Ashford which regularly flashes me at closer to 25, making it worse than useless.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Some years ago I referred to a warning sign which lights up if you're doing over 30 on a particular stretch. Someone who shall remain nameless looked surprised and so "Oh ? I thought that was just an illuminated sign".

:)

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

Win! Fail!

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

I have always wondered why max speed warning signs on bends and the like aren't just normal maximum speed signs. Round us, for example, there's one set of bends which have an ordinary 50 sign, which most people obey (to the extent that people obey max speed signs at all). There's another set which have a warning-type 50, which everyone ignores, even me.

Edit: blimey, I can't type today.

[i-ludicrous.livejournal.com]

You've summed up something that's been annoying me for ages here, and yes, I went slightly too fast round that bend the first time too.

[venta.livejournal.com]

I went slightly too fast round that bend the first time too.

Everyone does!

In fairness to the A4074, it's not just a case of getting round the bends without falling off the road. You need to be aware of the possibilities of slow-moving agricultural traffic, cyclists struggling up hills, even pedestrians (who are braver than I am) - all of which are more possible than the road would lead you to expect. However, driving with care is a slightly different thing from slowing down.

[secondhand-rick.livejournal.com]

Agreed. It's the "Little Traffic Minister shouting Wolf" effect.

I discovered a similar thing driving in Wales, where this:



doesn't mean "Bend to right (or left if symbol reversed)¹", it means "Slow the fuck down, a sheep would have trouble getting round this bastard!"

--
[1] - In real terms, this usually means "The road curves a bit"²
[2] - For American drivers; "Warning, driver intervention required!"

[venta.livejournal.com]

I'm reliably informed that the same effect happens the further north into Scotland you go. North Yorkshire appears to be an isolated outbreak.

[jiggery-pokery.livejournal.com]

I am told that British drivers suffer in Germany for similar reasons, for apaprently they really don't mess about with their bend signs.

[nalsa.livejournal.com]

I came across this most prominently in Cornwall and South Wales; if you see a sign telling you to slow down, pay attention.

There's odd bits of the East Riding where it's relevant too.

[ebee.livejournal.com]

Only sometimes in Cornwall though- often there for the tousirts..

[thegreenman.livejournal.com]

"We really mean it!"

I vote for this!

:)

[octalbunny.livejournal.com]

It's the second part of Deathboy's Change, which stops in the middle and then starts as a different-sounding song.

Which I know from liking the bit that opens the second part, thinking it was the start of a song, and then taking a while to skim through the intros of all the Deathboy tracks that I have, unable to find it.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Ah, thank you. I'm still re-ripping my CD collection after the Great Hard Drive Death, and have only got towards the end of B :)

[huskyteer.livejournal.com]

On holiday in Spain, my dear departed Dad observed that the Spanish signs giving a suggested speed for the bend in KPH, e.g. 50, actually provided a good indication of how fast a motorbike could do them in MPH.

I completely agree re those signs. 99% of them are needless nannying, which means the 1% that isn't really catches you out.

[cocacolasurfer.livejournal.com]

There is one bit on the A1 leading to the black cat roundabout where they put in a series of bends because some inconsiderate thing put a river in the way and the speed limit is set to 50mph, never the less there is a flashing sign that goes off before it and I don't think it matters what speed you go at, it just triggers when it sees something. I can only take that corner safely as 40mph and on the odd occasion I have got to 40mph before reaching the warning sign and its still gone off.

Got another in the village where I work that goes down from 60 to 30 and they have a flashing 30 sign about 40yards afterwards, but its right before a roundabout so people are slowing down for that anyway and it still flashes at you!

I don't mind it though, its not like its hindering my journey or making my life difficult, my only thoughts are that they better be solar powered, I would hate to think they had a sign flashing 2000 times a day using the national grid when a simple old fashioned metal sign would have done the trick. But thats the part-eco-nut in me.

[metame.livejournal.com]

Iceland has a similar problem with their signage for "this road is going single track and you won't be able to see over the next hillock to see if anything is coming". It's true so very often that the few times there's a sign just led to hollow laughter.

[lathany.livejournal.com]

Very good point. All the ones that really mean it catch me the first time.

[ebee.livejournal.com]

There is a bend at Detling Hill in Kent that MEANS 50- i've done it at 60 and FREAKED which takes a fair bit. Also bad in a full post uni term car. But many others dont.

[floralaetifica.livejournal.com]

I've encountered a related phenomenon in Cornwall. Non-Cornish people vastly underestimate how careful they need to be on Cornish roads. I've warned many visiting friends, and had many near-misses while being driven in said friends' cars. Thing is, the roads bend sharply without warning, said bends are usually blind, the roads are often a pretty tight single lane, and most crucially, those big banks of greenery on either side are not nice soft bushes, but rather big off stone walls covered in a thin layer of plant. You have no idea what's around that bend, and if it's a car heading at you quickly, you have nowhere to run.

I can only assume the general policy of over-warning on English roads causes the emmets to be blase about road safety in general.

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

Could be the thinking is if you drop from 50 to 40 on those bends, then the utter wanker overtaking you is only doing 60, and has some chance of taking evasive action in the likely event there is something coming the other way. If you take it at 50, then the wanker will have to do 70, and be that much more likely to kill 2 out of 3 of himself, you, and said oncomer.

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

Then again, slowing down as you approach the bends also increases the probability that the point at which you're caught (and hence overtaken) is on the bend. Hmm.

[ulfilias.livejournal.com]

I kind of agree with you that there is a lot of cry wolf with some signs and none with others....However i also tend to get a feeling what the roads are like from thier size and the surounding vista....I also feel that a lot of road signs are often there for the purpose of the people that live thier....particularly directions !