• 76 Posts
  • 559 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
cake
Cake day: June 20th, 2023

help-circle


  • Its been many years since my driving school courses and being taught by the instructors in car, but seem you may be correct in the laws ambiguous wording on this after I did some reading myself.

    Personally the instructors and the driving test individuals that I talked with (years ago) all stated that its prudent to treat intersection as if there were always the possibility of a pedestrians, cyclists, or other car being there. This meant that you would always slow down, stop, and yeild the right of way.

    Reading this handbook in my local area, diagram 2-20 states this.

    “At any intersection where you want to turn left or right, you must yield the right-of-way. If you are turning left, you must wait for approaching traffic to pass or turn and for pedestrians in or approaching your path to cross. If you are turning right, you must wait for pedestrians to cross if they are in or approaching your path (Diagram 2-20). You should also check your blind spot for cyclists approaching from behind, particularly in a bike lane to your right, on a sidewalk or a trail.”

    I admits it does not say stop explicitly. Though my driving style after all these years is to always treat intersection (especially those with sidewalks and bikelanes along them) with extra care and always slow down, stop, and prepare to yeild the right of way to more vulnerable road users.

    https://www.ontario.ca/document/official-mto-drivers-handbook/driving-through-intersections


  • Theres a rule that no one follows on the roads, when turning right (or left for that matter) you come to a complete stop and then proceed. This applies even if there is no stop sign or the light is solid green.

    The only exception to this is if your signal light shows a green arrow pointing right, or left.

    The location in the image pointed out above tells motorists they can proceeded at full speed, run over the pedestrian at the crossing, run over the cyclists (that has the right of way), and drive head first into traffic in a effort to murge as quickly as possible.

    There should (at the minimum) be painted yeild the right of way marking on the road. Both before the pedestrians crossing at the off ramp and right before the bike lane crossing, which should be painted continuously.

    Kind of like this. 1000015681

    Though paint is no substitute for proper roadway design.


  • North American has this concept in roadway design where traffic engineers feel the need to make every roadway large. Think of interstate interchanges.

    There is also this need to try and design roadways as both roads and streets, while maintaining the flow of high speed traffic at the same. This leaves us with neither good roads or enjoyable streets.

    Roads get you from point A to point B without regard for what’s in between or along the route. They are meant to move large amounts of traffic with minimal to no lights/stops/driveways.

    Streets on the other hand are “destinations” and are meant for the people that live along them. Streets are traffic calmed, streets give the right of way to pedestrians. Streets have driveways, and multiple interaction zones between people on foot, on bikes, and on cars.

    A street cannot act as a road nor can a road act as a street.

    This image trys to turn the underpass into a street (which it can be), but it’s main function is still designed as a high-speed roadway. So this leaves us with a combination of the two (a strode) which neight is a good road or a enjoyable street for the local community.

    Some examples of simplified highway off ramps that connect directly into traffic calmed streets.

    1000015675

    1000015677

    1000015679

    City planing also plays a role here, and its usually has to do how our we build city centres right next to highway off ramps. This leaves no room for proper roadway design where you “stepdown” your roadway classification.

    Good planing would have a interstate (130-100kph) connect to a highway (100-80kph), which then empties into a high-speed road (80-60kph), which steps down to a road 50-40kph, and then transitions into a street (30-10kph).

    Instead we have interstate highways empty right into a city street.












  • A few things.

    The poster seem to normalise people being hit or run over by cars.

    It seems to normalise the blame of being hit to the fault of the pedestrian, as opposed to the driver or vehicle operator, which is no where to be seen.

    It seems to associate the intelligence of a person with that of a animal that made the same mistake, ie. wanting to cross the road safely.

    There is an activate campaign in Toronto called Vision Zero. Its goal is to have zero traffic fatalities in Toronto. This poster kind of says to me “ohh well we tried, but people will still get hit or run over”