Cussy car crash

[roversdude]

Wondered what had happened to traffic today

[RobTheRover]

Nasty crash. A silver Subaru Impreza.  It's right at the back of one of my mates' houses.

[roversdude]

Couple of lads brown bread
Nasty bend that mate of mine had a bad crash there few years ago

[Al4475]

Unfortunately that bend is the proverbial accident waiting to happen! Not saying that this is what happened the other night mind, but we live just round the corner and the amount of drivers who zoom round that stretch of road means it's precarious! One of the passengers survived - hope he makes a full recovery!

[RobTheRover]

Not sure where the lads are from but just been told it was seen travelling that way up Watch House Lane just before it crashed. Could be Bentley lads.

[The Red Baron]

Unfortunately that bend is the proverbial accident waiting to happen! Not saying that this is what happened the other night mind, but we live just round the corner and the amount of drivers who zoom round that stretch of road means it's precarious! One of the passengers survived - hope he makes a full recovery!

I currently work for an arm of Government which deals with the roads and I can tell you that many times an accident is blamed on a part of the road which is "an accident waiting to happen." Unfortunately when you dig a little deeper, you find that the chief cause was driver error in its broadest sense. Sadly it is easier for grieving relatives, the media, local politicians and in some cases coroners to blame "the road" for deaths than it is to focus responsibility where it really belongs.

Of course, there are a lot of road users who are killed and injured who are totally blameless. But they are invariably victims of the careless, dangerous and/ or impaired drivers. Sad but true.

[The Red Baron]

PS. Out of professional interest I took a look at the photos of that crash in Cusworth. The damage to the car suggested it was travelling at excessive speed. Had it come off the road when travelling at the speed limit for that road, I'll hazard a guess that those in the car would have been able to walk away with minor injuries at worst. My thoughts are with the relatives of those involved.

[roversdude]

My personal thoughts are that the car involved attracts a certain type of person
However thoughts with families

[BillyStubbsTears]

TRB

Interesting to hear a professional view on this. It buttresses my personal experience, which is small, but infinitely greater than I wish it was.

I've mentioned before that my intolerance of people who make excuses for drivers acting like Kitsons is seared from the experience of my wife's cousin. 13 years old. Tall, handsome, intelligent, confident, sociable. He was hit by a car that mounted the pavement while he was at the bus stop at the end of his road, on his way to school. Left permanently disabled. At 28 now, he's jobless, friendless, suffering from depression and living with his parents.

The driver who hit him claimed that the condition of the road surface was to blame for his loss of control. But witnesses and police estimates from the skid marks and damage suggested he was doing 50 in a 30 zone.

On a related topic, we live in a suburban part of Sheffield. Densely built up. Cars double parked on the roads, making it hazardous to drive at any significant speed. There's a very large primary school 400m away, which our kids attend. Me or my wife walk them there every morning. One of the roads that we have to cross is a notorious rat-run. Seeing the potential danger, the Council have made it a 20mph zone. But my experience is that at 08:30, 1 car in 3 is doing 40+ as the drivers rush to get to work. Now that really IS an accident waiting to happen - not because of the road, but because of the Kitsons who use it. I've taken to standing off the kerb waving my hand and mouthing "TWENTY" as the worst ones go past. I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of drivers who have signalled their acceptance. Far more hammer their horn, flick the rods or mouth "f*** OFF" as they go past. One woman stopped 100 yards on and came running back to shout at me (in front of a 5 and 6 year old) "For your f***ing information, I was only doing 30!"

I'm sure these people aren't psychopaths and sociopaths in general life. What is it about steering wheels that turn ordinary people into utter Kitsons?

[The Red Baron]

There have been plenty of learned studies about how people behave differently when driving a car to how they operate in normal life. However, I'd make two points on your particular problem.

1. Speed limits are useless unless they are rigorously enforced, so you need to pressurise the local council and the police to do something about it- easier said than done, of course, but don't forget that councillors have to stand for re-election and so does the PCC these days. I'd imagine South Yorkshire's PCC would be grateful for a campaign he can support at the moment!

2. Rat-runs are usually symptomatic of bad traffic planning. Traffic uses them because the main routes are congested and unfortunately a lot of congestion is man-made. Badly phased lights, unnecessary bus lanes and (my particular bugbear) lights on roundabouts can all add to congestion. Worth having a look what the rats are avoiding. In the short term, putting a set of lights where the rat-run meets the main route can be useful- so long as they favour the main route and are perhaps used at peak times only.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Cheers TRB. Interesting insights.

I fully agree about enforcement. I'd put a speed camera outside every school and I'd give a two year ban to anyone doing 10mph over the limit there between 08:00-16:00. No excuses and no exceptions.

I take your point on rat runs and general traffic management. Hands up on this - I have and do use rats runs, although I've become fastidious about driving slowly through residential areas since I had my own kids.

I had a very small professional involvement 20-odd years ago in large scale traffic management modelling. Back then it was a black art. The systems were too close to chaotic to be able to accurately model the effect of changes. I assume computational modelling has improved since then, but I wonder how close we are to deterministic models of the effect of localised changes of layout/timing on the overall system. Change the lights timing at junction A and you might wreck traffic flow two miles down the road.

Sheffield has particular problems of road layout due to the valley/hill topology of the city. So there are many arterial roads and very few tangential ones of any capacity. Pretty much everything has to go to the centre of the city, or take a chance with residential rat runs between the valleys. Basically, there are no high-capacity alternatives to link the valleys, other than the inner ring road in the city centre. So as a result, the city centre is on a gridlock knife edge. One crash or breakdown can bring the whole system to a grinding halt and I can't see that there's much any planner can do about it, short of tunneling tangential roads linking the valleys.

[Dagenham Rover]

My wife has been a  "Lollipop lady" for over 10 years, you wouldn't believe how many times shes nearly been flattened by drivers who just lean out and say "sorry I didn't see you! wtf half a dozen kids crossing the road a daft old bat stood in the middle  of the road covered in more hi vis stuff than motorway workers,  and a ruddy great hi vis lollipop, get stuffed you didn't see her, if you got off your phone, concentrated on what you were doing, and had a bit of consideration for others instead of me me me and set off for work 3 minutes earlier you might just have seen her stood in the middle of the road.

Now  one day with a bit of luck somebody might just hit her didn't mean it dear, honest 

[jucyberry]

My sister is also a lollypop lady for the junior school. She stands at the bottom of a hill that is topped by a blind corner, morning and afternoon the road up the hill is lined with cars. Now, I live in a relatively small village, there is no reason for 90% of these lazy bas**rds to be picking their kids up by car.. They block the road, cut each other up and behave dreadfully. One day one of them will kill a child.

They make me so angry.

[IC1967]

I know some of the gruesome details of this car crash. Trust me they are very gruesome. People who speed and put their's and others lives at risk should also spare a thought for the emergency services that have to clear up the mess they leave behind.

[not on facebook]

TRB

Interesting to hear a professional view on this. It buttresses my personal experience, which is small, but infinitely greater than I wish it was.

I've mentioned before that my intolerance of people who make excuses for drivers acting like Kitsons is seared from the experience of my wife's cousin. 13 years old. Tall, handsome, intelligent, confident, sociable. He was hit by a car that mounted the pavement while he was at the bus stop at the end of his road, on his way to school. Left permanently disabled. At 28 now, he's jobless, friendless, suffering from depression and living with his parents.

The driver who hit him claimed that the condition of the road surface was to blame for his loss of control. But witnesses and police estimates from the skid marks and damage suggested he was doing 50 in a 30 zone.

On a related topic, we live in a suburban part of Sheffield. Densely built up. Cars double parked on the roads, making it hazardous to drive at any significant speed. There's a very large primary school 400m away, which our kids attend. Me or my wife walk them there every morning. One of the roads that we have to cross is a notorious rat-run. Seeing the potential danger, the Council have made it a 20mph zone. But my experience is that at 08:30, 1 car in 3 is doing 40+ as the drivers rush to get to work. Now that really IS an accident waiting to happen - not because of the road, but because of the Kitsons who use it. I've taken to standing off the kerb waving my hand and mouthing "TWENTY" as the worst ones go past. I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of drivers who have signalled their acceptance. Far more hammer their horn, flick the rods or mouth "f*** OFF" as they go past. One woman stopped 100 yards on and came running back to shout at me (in front of a 5 and 6 year old) "For your f***ing information, I was only doing 30!"

I'm sure these people aren't psychopaths and sociopaths in general life. What is it about steering wheels that turn ordinary people into utter Kitsons?

get sleeping policemen buitl into said problem road

[The Red Baron]

I know some of the gruesome details of this car crash. Trust me they are very gruesome. People who speed and put their's and others lives at risk should also spare a thought for the emergency services that have to clear up the mess they leave behind.

If you're thinking about "gruesome details" then the last few months have been an eye-opener for me. Vehicle crashes at high speed can result in some very messy situations indeed. Like you say, I do feel for the people who have to (literally) clear up the mess.

[bobjimwilly]

http://www.doncasterfreepress.co.uk/news/safety-call-after-fatal-cusworth-crash-1-6813541

It's obviously a shame that people have died, and their families have my sympathy, but to blame this sort of accident on a "tricky corner" is the wrong attitude. I'm afraid the blame lies with the driver.

[Al4475]

Sorry, my words were not clear in the 'accident waiting to happen' I wasn't commenting on the road as such - it was more about the way drivers misuse the speed restrictions on that road in general! It's the excessively fast drivers who are the 'accident waiting to happen' not the road itself was what I was getting it!

[RobTheRover]

Agreed, but that corner does have an adverse camber and anyone travelling at serious speed who maybe doesnt know the corner can easily come a cropper.

Everyone who uses the road (either on 4 wheels or 2 wheels) needs to see this...

http://www.norfolk.police.uk/newsandevents/newsstories/2014/september/hardhittingvideolaunched.aspx

[bobjimwilly]

was just about to share that link myself Rob! I've been in a few near misses because of cars turning slowly in front of me, even when I'm doing under the speed limit. To be honest when I'm on my bike and I see a car ready to turn I treat it as though they will definitely turn; not worth the risk just to shave a few seconds of my journey.