Safe Speed Forums

I didn't want to hijack this thread,
http://www.safespeed.org.uk/forum/viewt ... sc&start=0
which brought up the subject of 'Rat Runs'.

OK my starter for 10.

What is a RR, other than a bit of public highway, which passes a property that can only be accessed by a vehicle which uses other roads to get there.

Why would the residents of such a road object to taxed, insured and MOT'ed vehicles passing along it, it is a public road.

We'd all like to drive, cycle and walk in the traffic conditions of 20 or 30 years ago.

When I was a kid the local terraced 'side streets' had 3 or 4 cars parked along their lengths, so any driver on that road had good visibility of kids playing in the street ( and the kids had good visibility of approaching cars). Now these 'side streets' kerbs are full of the residents parked cars making thier street more dangerous for their kids.
So what do they want? to risk the lives of the kids who live on the 'main road' (and whose parents vehicles have off street parking) by forcing more traffic onto the 'main road'.

NIMBY was mentioned in the original thread!!

fatboytim

A rat run is surely a road that is used as a short cut by through traffic in order to avoid traffic congestion on what should be the primary route.

I wouldn't think that it has to be residential - but usually is.

If it's a short cut it's the most effecient and direct route, and therefore should be used, do residents on 'primary routes' pay less road tax because they don't use side streets.

Avoiding congestion is a good thing in my view.

What should be a 'primary route'. A road is a road, is a road, and roads are for driving on, so what is the problem.

Is it just NIMBYism? They can use other peoples big roads, but only they can use their little residential side road.

fatboytim

Roads that are built as housing estates go up (residential roads?) don't have the same level of markings and furnture that 'primary' routes have. Are they actually build to a lower standard generally, and if so is it because they aren't expected to carry the same level and weight of traffic?

Blimey, never knew you could get done for using a "rat-run" though!

Rat Run Story

what about industrial estates i can get round town pretty easy by using the industrial estate roads rather than the main route

You can if the road is "access only", though. Nothing unusual about that.

_________________
"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

Yes and people who live at the far end of the housing estate have to use the rest of the estate roads.


No they are built to highways adoption standards and require the markings in the TSRGD like any other 'road to which the public have access'. they have to, bin wagons and fire engines etc. will use them.



I note they repeat speeding is a problem, but the offence being enforced is failing to comply with the access only restriction.

fatboytim

'Rat Run' itself is a pretty prejudicial term. Motorists aren't rats.

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

Er, yes obviously. That wasn't a point, it was just an opening part of the sentence.



But some don't have road markings for example.
I'm asking a question here, you seem too ready to leap into the attack my friend.



Its just a euphemism isn't it? A 'blackspot' isn't necessarily black.

What difference does that make to (safe) driving i.e keep left unless overtaking or turning right, or proceeding with caution at unmarked junctions,
some research seems to show removing markings in some areas increases observant and hence safe driving.

Why should cars not use any public road, we pay for them, people who live in side streets use main roads, why not vice versa?

I'm trying to get at the pyschology is it just NIMBYism, or is there a rational reason.
They bought a house not the road.

fatboytim

Surely the point is that roads are designed for a particular purpose. A motorway or a major urban radial is designed for the passage of high volumes of through traffic, a small residential street is designed for access to properties. If the latter then starts to attract a lot of through traffic it is being used for a purpose it wasn't designed for and isn't suited to.

Obviously a large share of the "blame" must fall on the authorities for failing to provide an adequate network of major roads in the first place.

_________________
"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

Most terraced streets (in fact most metalled roads) were built in victorian times for horses and carts including the 'major roads'. It's just the traffic and attitudes that have changed, the roads are in the same place, if it isn't a HA road, it's a LA road with maintenance paid for by the council tax payers.



There are plenty of roads, it's just some people don't like others using the road they live on.

fatboytim

Unless its an unadpoted road when its paid for by the residents.

I think the issue here is that, when 'quicker' roads reach saturation, traffic will 'naturally' spill onto other routes that put it at the same destination.

That is to say; consider a network of pipes carrying liquid; the majority of the liquid will flow quickly down a main pipe, but a little will flow, more slowly, down the side pipes that may take a little longer but bring it to the same place. If the back-pressure on the liquid is increased, a greater proportion will flow through these 'paths of greater resistance' in order to reach the same destination.

Traffic flow is similar; in a purely 'organic' situation the traffic will use all available routes to avoid total saturation of any one.

There is no good reason why, in the absence of contraventions to traffic laws, drivers should not use any route they please to go from A to B. 'Rat Runs' may be unpleasant for those living on them, and LAs may seek to discourage their use by restrictive measures, but the best way to eliminate their use altogether is to provide quicker, less congested routes!!

fatboytim wrote:
It's just the traffic and attitudes that have changed, the roads are in the same place, if it isn't a HA road, it's a LA road with maintenance paid for by the council tax payers.


Does it really matter HA/LA - it's us the motorist that's donating hansomely to the governments coffers, out of which comes the money to fund either HA or LA, so why cannot we drive on that piece of public highway without some petty group trying to make us feel guilty???

_________________
lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

botach, bloody good point!

However, LEARN TO QUOTE!!!

The bottom line is that the road outside your door is 'The Queen's Highway'. No one (or virtually no one) owns the road outside their door. The modern trend to value the needs or opinions of residents far above the needs or opinions of travellers is not supported by law or even common sense.

In practical terms the needs of travellers and the needs of residents do both deserve consideration, but apparently residents need to be reminded:

- that they are also travellers and that the 'do unto others...' principle holds true.

- that they do not own 'their' road, which is, in fact, 'The Queen's Highway'.

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

It's certainly not a 'euphemism'.



It's the opposite, I'd say - a phrase chosen to deliberately denigrate or blacken.... See dysphemism.

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

I think it is rather more partisan and, in my experience, applied only when it suits the highway or local authorities and not the requirements of the residents.

If they want to make a 'rat run' harder to traverse they are quick to place one way systems or bollards, never mind consideration of the access requirements of the residents. While if they wish to increase the flow of traffic they are willing to remove parking opportunities and even narrow pavements.

Often the 'improvements' seem to offer little of real benefit to the progress of traffic overall.

And motorists need to be reminded that:

- other people have the same desire to live in peace and quiet as they do

- the resident pays a council tax appropriate to the property they live in and the locale



Correct, most 'residential' streets are narrower than main arterial roads and don't have pedestrian crossings. Although kids shouldn't play 'in' the road they may have to cross it to get to a mates house or a play area.

And this link shows just how much bile and anatganosim this issue can generate. Check out the spiteful comment from the individual who thinks the sides of the street should have been coned off to prevent residents parking there whilst the roadworks that caused the problem were being undertaken. Quite happy to make such a comment as, of course, it is not him who is faced with the problem of finding alternative parking, it is someone else who he quite clearly doesn't give a shit about.

And of course that is the nub of the problem. It isn't just about NIMBYism it is about our crumbling society and our increasing lack of ability to simply get along with one another. Paul points out that residents are also travellers which is correect, however travellers are also residents somewhere else. I may have got my last definition wrong, but I believe I'm right in noting that this state of 'denial' in which we perceive that a problem others are causing to ourselves is not the same as the one we may be bringing upon someone else in an identical situation, is known as my old friend Cognitive Dissonance.