Safe Speed Forums

I cannot understand for the life of me what South Glos Council were thinking when they decided to remove the foot bridge outside Filton College in favour of a Pelican crossing? this foot bridge has been there for as long as i remember (i'm 26) I'm guessing it was erected to provide a 'safe passage' for students to cross to the north bound bus stops without a pelican crossing interferring with a main arterial route. I know there have been a couple of collisions on this 'T' Junction over recent years due to students being too lazy to use the foot bridge why is this our (the car drivers) problem?

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My Other car is a FH12 Globetrotter!

Think about it from the council's point of view. Pedestrians are dying despite the provision of a foot bridge. Because of 'human behaviour' the footbridge may be seen as the wrong safety solution.

I don't much disagree with their point of view. Good road safety policies recognise real human behaviours and work with them to create a safer environment. It'd be nice if pedestrians behaved perfectly, but they don't and never will.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

In practice, pedestrians are often very reluctant to use footbridges. A further problem with footbridges is that they're not accessible to wheelchair users (while subways tend to become meeting places for undesirables).

There must be hundreds of impressive 1970s footbridges all over the country that are rarely if ever used now. There's a good example at the A34/A5145 junction at Parrswood, Manchester.

Taking pedestrians away from level ground doesn't work in practice. Either you have at-grade signalised crossings, or if segregation really is needed you put the road on a flyover or in a tunnel.

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

Indeed. My walk to work takes me along a route with a subway under the main road, however using it adds about 10 minutes onto my journey time because it takes ages to walk all the way round to the ramp then down the ramp and up the ramp at the other end. I prefer to take my chances crossing the road instead, just because it's so much quicker.

If I end up getting killed it'll be my own fault though, and I'm certainly not campaigning for a pelican crossing to be installed.

Money!!! Money money money!

Once footbridges (and other bridges) reach a certain age they need parapet repairs and strengthening works to keep them in a safe and working order.

In Southampton a footbridge over the A3024 Bursledon Road was replaced with an at-grade crossing last month, as replacing the life-expired footbridge with another footbride was seen as not being economically viable, and those words came from the council.

Of course, the road must have been so much quieter in the early 1970s when the M27 motorway didn't exist and when traffic wasn't advised to travel all the way around Southampton and along the Western Approach to reach the city centre.

I can see everybody's point here and i don't think im being narrow minded, but i travel along this route when im working (HGV) and it takes me home at about 3 or 4 in the morning, i object to the lights changing to red on my approach and then changing the pedestrian signal to green i suppose to let the invisible pedestrians cross and making me wait 2 - 3 minutes on red, and what do ya' know they've put a red light camera in, i can't think why?

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My Other car is a FH12 Globetrotter!

I forgot to say that there are even barriers at the edge of the pavement and the central reserve, but these idiots are intent on jumping them, too bone idle to use the foot bridge which was accesible by wheel chairs as it went up in slight gradiants.

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My Other car is a FH12 Globetrotter!

That's a different isue though isn't it? We now need to know why the lights are going to red when there are no pedestrians. Are they really?



Let's hope and pray the greed effect hasn't gone that far. If it has, that'd be the first case I've come across.

Anyone know what Police force area we're talking about?

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

Yes really pretty much all of the lights in south gloucestershire now do this, we even have full time signals on roundabouts! if i want to exit at the 3rd exit of a roundabout on the A4174 i would have to stop at 3 sets of red lights at 3am, I am not joking!

South glos comes under avon & somerset

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My Other car is a FH12 Globetrotter!

Slough (Thames Valley Police) has at least one set of pelican lights which does this as well.

In Peterborough there is a set of lights that are speed sensitive - approach them below the speed limit and they stay green, speed on approaching them and they go red!

They control a bus lane crossing a main road.

There is a further set about a mile down the road that go red for no reason and do not go green until you reach the stop line. If there is no traffic they seem to stay green all the time!

There's an even better example on the A34 Wilmslow-Handforth bypass. It's just south of the main entrance to Handforth Dean shopping centre. There are some obscure public footpaths to the east of here, going through what was once an MOD site but is now just a boggy wasteland. Nobody goes there apart from a few people fishing in the ponds they created as a sop to environmentalists. So why waste money building this bridge which hardly anybody has ever used? (And this one was built in 1994).

Brian

You find that on the Iberian Peninsular as well. When I was in the Costa Brava this light always went red just as I approached it. At first I thought it was just an odd coincidence.

I think this is a better approach than speed cameras. In fact they could replace speed cameras with speed-sensitive lights which also have traffic light cameras installed. That would certainly deter speeding! But of course they wouldn't get the revenue then would they?

Brian

They might seem like a good idea, however the way i see it, is that once local people suss out the lights which do this they be tempted to step on the gas when approaching an amber (that'll be £60 +3points Pls), rather than wait 3-4 minutes for invisible people to cross. Im sure i speak for most when I say that i drive more carefully when out of my home town!

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My Other car is a FH12 Globetrotter!