h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I've probably already mentioned this somewhere above, but I find it very disconcerting if you have to stop while on a roundabout. In France I encountered this for the first time. And I didn't know that this applied on mini-roundabouts in England. Not having lived there so long, I tend to avoid driving when I go over, as I always look the wrong way when crossing the road, so I would no doubt cause chaos, trying to remember to drive on the left.

When I was learning to drive in the early seventies, roundabouts were well behaved areas and drivers were (generally) probably better behaved, too, and not so numerous.

It just makes me think, though: In Germany now they are starting to introduce roundabouts everywhere. This is usually an infallible sign that something has already started to prove itself a bad idea somewhere else in the world. (For example, open-plan offices were beginning to go out of fashion in the States when they started introducing them here in Germany. And many other wierd ideas which are imposed by "innovators" on the public at large without any thought to the psychological effects. Or take ultrasound screening. While pregnant women and midwives were going on the barricades in the UK, we were gaily buying albums here in Germany to take all those little indecipherable black and white pictures taken at a rate of approximately every two weeks during pregnancy)

I have just come back from a holiday on the Greek Island of Zakynthos where there was not a roundabout in sight and only one set of traffic lights. The traffic lights worked okay as everybody jumped them to keep the traffic flowing. Despite huge volumes of traffic in the town at rush hour, the lack of 'traffic control systems' meant that the cars and bikes could flow freely in a form of organised chaos. It was really refreshing!! I have now returned to England and am back to the nightmare of driving whilst looking out for speed cameras, traffic calming systems, dopey drivers, multiple traffic flow systems and mini-roundabouts cunningly disguised as white mole hills.

On the subject of who causes the accidents, I am constantly frustrated by having to suddenly brake (whilst driving through towns)for the dozey pedestrians (especially "youths") who carelessly step out infront of you without looking, safe in the knowledge that you will move heaven and earth not to hit them as you (the motorist) will always be held responsible and severely punished. It is high time pedestrians were made to be accountable for their actions, if found to be careless or foolhardy.

and cyclists

and tractors

Oh yeah, let me lend my support to you guys. Pedestrians and cyclists should only be allowed out after passing demanding tests (practical and theory), and then paying thru the nose like the rest of us, the poor motorists of the world.

Perhaps we shouldn't take so much trouble to avoid hitting them.

Tractors, however, are not the sort of things to pick a fight with. We may have to suffer them in silence!

BTW, can I add to your list... caravans.

If you want to avoid roundabouts and traffic lights, head for the Orkney Islands, just north of Scotland. A lot of them are small and only have one road, so no traffic lights or roundabouts. Mainland Orkney has no traffic lights and only one or two roundabouts - and they're small. Richard and I only realised there were no traffic lights when we encountered some temporary ones by roadworks. We suddenly became aware that it was the first time we'd been stopped at a red light during our 2 week holiday!

The Isle of Anglesey is good if you don't like roundabouts, so is Mid West Wales.

As long as you don't decide to stop off in Bangor on the way to Anglesey. The council seems to have put them all over the place when before traffic moved freely round the town.

One of the very first things that my driving instructor told me, even before telling me how to start the car, was that driving a car is a privilege that requires a licence, and in order to earn that licence, you have to prove your skills. Abuse that privilege, and your licence to do it will be taken away. Walking is not a privilege, it's a right that every one of us has (except for those of us who can't do it, that is), therefore pedestrians have Right Of Way. That's what right of way means - they don't have to be qualified to do it, and the right can't be rescinded the way that your driving licence can.

There are a lot of pedestrians out there who do just what you said - they abuse their right (for a great many different reasons), and there are some who do it because they're deaf and can't hear your vehicle coming, or because they've had a momentary brainfart (it happens to all of us occasionally, right?) and walked out into the road, but their right to walk the streets can't be taken away. I used to drive for a living, and I'd often come across instances like the ones you describe, and my attitude for a time was "My van is big, it's painted in a bright colour, and at night it has lights on it - if you can see it and you still choose to walk out in front of it, you deserve everything you get." That's fine as far as natural justice is concerned, but of course, the law doesn't see things that way (neither will your insurance company), and if your car is in collision with a pedestrian, you don't have to be Einstein to work out who's going to come off worse. If the law determines that you could have avoided hitting the pedestrian, you're going down matey. Then you'll have a great many years of enforced time to mull it over with your conscience.

Yeah, I know how frustrating it can be to have to deal with dickheads all the time - pedestrians, cyclists, boy racers, whoever - and as far as I'm concerned, no-one should be allowed to drive a car until they've spent a year riding a motorbike, and no-one should be allowed to ride a motorbike until they've taken some kind of cycling profinciency test. I also believe that cyclists should be somehow identifiable so that they can be done for disregarding the rules of the road just like motorists, but that's the only right way to do it. Anyone who goes out there and uses their car as tool of retribution is in need some serious and immediate professional help.

I don't understand your apparent dislike of roundabouts... Sure, there's a lot of weird roundabouts out there, but in general it is much easier to navigate a roundabout, than a crossroad.

The rules? If there's room for you in the roundabout, you enter it. Then you keep going until you reach you destination exit-road and leave.

In a crossroad you have to 1) look behind you for bicycles and other madmen; 2) especially if you are taking a right-turn (or a left-turn in the leftie-countries); 3) watch out for (and stay out of the way of) opposing traffic during a left-turn (or a right-turn for the leftie-countries); 4) sometimes you need to gauge wether to use the large or the small left-turn (or right-turn in the leftie-countries); 5) in a light-regulated cross-roads you have to wait for a green light, and gauge wether you can get out of the cross-roads before the other traffic gets a green light; 6) when light-regulation is missing, you have to either rely on several different weird (and not always properly signed) right-of-way-rules.

In a round-about there's only one rule. It's sooooo simple

Goshoogoshoogosh:

I might concede some rights for pedestrians to walk in fields, their own homes, amusement parks, etc. But out in public? No, no, no - that is a great privilege which should be earned (or paid for!). Whip out your constitution and show me otherwise!

Motorists, on the other hand, pay through the nose many times over for using the 'highways and byways'. As well as passing a daunting test (first time, since you ask).

Cyclists should be horsewhipped then transported to the colonies; end of story.

As for seeking professional help, this is good advice that I'm minded to take up. Any researchers out there who are qualified 'demolition derby' instructors?

Zonk:

You like roundabouts? You find them easier than crossroads? Well, despite all that's been written in the thread, I guess it's within your rights to hold this bizarre minority opinion.

Your gross over-simplification of the rules for roundabouts missed out some important details. Like, clockwise only please (with exceptions as noted elsewhere in this thread). And give way to traffic from the right. And, in a multi-lane roundabout where you want to go 'right' (could be second, third, fourth or fifth exit) approach from offside lane indicating right then, as you get nearer to your exit, cut across all the lanes indicating left!

This is on-subject, sort of. I get confused by traffic lights at cross roads. On approaching a crossroads, and wishing to turn right (for an LHS driver), you are usually faced with an array of traffic lights. Having eliminated all those which don't apply to you in your particular lane, there are usually TWO remaining green lights which require your attention. One is just a standard greenie, and if I were going straight on this clearly means GO. The other is a green right-arrow, clearly indicating that I may turn right.

The difficulty I have is this: I had always assumed that I could proceed past the stop line and on to the crossroads on the main green light, waiting in the middle until the green arrow also illuminates, at which time I can complete the thurn and exit.

However I have been caught out a couple of times doing this, a) by driver's honking (or worse), and b) by one set of lights not actually going through a "right arrow" phase at all, leaving me stranded in the middle when the lights changed altogether, completely blocking traffic crossing left-right.

As an experiment I have, on occasion, NOT proceded on green, but waited for the arrow. Guess what. More honks and swearing, this time from drivers behind. The lights never did then show a green arrow. It seems I DID need to proceed for the lights system to recognise I was there, wanting to turn right.

Come on guys, which is it?? Or are junctions all different. I've been driving for 16 years, and still find myself guessing what I'm supposed to do at some junctions. It's as if the designers get together over new plans going "this'll confuse 'em", or "we accidentally ordered 50 left-arrows to put in the road - never mind we'll use them anyway".

Also, I assume I can turn right on a standard green light without waiting for the arrow if there is clearly nothing coming ahead to stop me from doing so?

The Highway Code is not helpful in either of these points.

And another thing. What about those signs that say "Give Way 192 Yards"? I've often wondered why "190 Yards" wouldn't be accurate enough. Am I supposed to say "Great, that's an extra 2 yards I've got before I hit the brake". If accuracy is needed because of some legal requirement, then why not just put the sign 2 yards further down or 8 yards further up the road to give a round figure?

As a cyclist, I'm frequently pissed off by idiots riding through red lights, on and off pavements, etc (I occasionally ride on a wide stretch of pavement near work, to avoid waiting several minutes to make a right turn into heavy traffic, but I always keep slow enough to stop quickly, stop and look before crossing driveways, and keep well away from the few pedestrians that are occasionally present.)

I'm also often annoyed by idiot pedestrians walking into the road without looking.

However, you must remember that for the most part, at least they are risking their own lives, unlike careless drivers, who often end up unscathed after killing innocent people.

Only the other week on the way to work, I saw a very nasty sight where a truck making a left turn off a main road had run over a cyclist, who, with their bike, was still stuck under the front bumper, surrounded by ambulance workers. From the position of truck and bike, it seemed *highly* likely that the cyclist (like many mountain-bike riders on that stretch of road) had been speeding along the pavement, and hadn't slowed down or looked properly when crossing the end of the side street. However nasty the sight, I couldn't help thinking that if the cyclist had been more aware, they wouldn't have had the accident.
Possibly one problem is that for many pavement riders, their first accident could well be their last one, and without proper education, they don't get a chance to learn the error of their ways.

I agree strongly with the comment about enforced motorcycling before allowing people to drive cars - with any luck, most of the real reckless teenagers would have enough close shaves or minor accidents that they'd learn a little respect for speed. As far as the few who did go too far, and end up seriously injured or dead are concerned, better that they crash a bike than a car, as they should spare the rest of us many innocent deaths.
I also suspect that many older drivers would be much more aware of two-wheeled travellers if they thought it might be their child, or that of a friend, that they were about to cut up.

I strongly believe that the driving test should be made hard enough that at least 10% of people fail it.

JHP:

Get a chauffeur, that'll solve your problem.

Potholer:

Far more than 10% fail their driving test. Trouble is, they can keep coming back for more.

What's needed is something equivalent to, say, "three strikes and your out". Fail your test three times - that's it, you are not fit to sit behind the wheel of a car! (Anyone reading this who took more than three tests - don't take it too personally, and please drive carefully!)

Meanwhile we're having roundabouts in Germany too. I think this is partialy due to the curious fact, that we keep copying ideas that haven't worked elsewhere in the world. I'm not quiet sure if this is because we think we can do it better, even if in other contries they couldn't manage it, or because of a slight masochistic touch in us.
On the other hand it might have to do something with the following: In Germany we once only had crossroads. If You wanted to turn left, you had to cross the line of everybody else who wanted to turn left from any other direction. This led to long waiting times if you wanted to turn left and even to many accidents with people who weren't paitiently enough or didn't look in every direction from where there were people coming whose line they had to cross. Then there was a new rule in germany that you had to pass the way of any other left-turning-car on the outside (we call it "tangential", but I don't know how to translate this properly). This led to a lot of confusion, because not everybody changed to the new rule at once and so there was a lot of discussion on the crossroads with words like "idiot" and "ignorant fool" used very often. It even led to more accidents.
Another reason for roundabouts in Germany is the wonderful free space in the middle. You can set Trees there or pieces of modern art that nobody really likes. Or even huge advertisments, wich is done very often, so that you can read a bit while driving through the roundabout.
In some parts of Germany they are begining to change the new roundabouts back to crossroads, while elsewhere masses of new roundabouts spring from the ground. I wonder which way this will lead.

Actually, that's not a bad idea. A friend once explained it to me this way - in industry, if you have to use a piece of machinery as potentially dangerous as a car, you have to go through rigorous training, and if you fail that training, you're not allowed to operate that machinery. If you try again, and you fail again, it will soon become apparent that you just ain't up to the job, and you won't be considered for training again. In my experience, at least a third of British motorists, and probably two thirds of the motorists where I live now (Texas) are not up to the job. Remember Maureen? Oh how we laughed at her antics. But when I was a working driver I had to share my worplace with people like her every day, operating a dangerous and potentially lethal piece of machinery. Would you want to share your workplace with such incompetence, especially if there's a possibility that you might end up in hospital, or worse because of it? Everyone who walks the streets has to share them with people like her. How do you feel about that? The way that some people drive their vehicles is comparable to them walking down the street and swinging a club at you as they pass by. There are laws against that which result in serious penalties, and yet every day people drive their cars in such a way as to be a danger to everyone around.... and they get away with it!!! How come? Why does getting behind a steering wheel seem to give people such immunity from the law, and from the opprobrium of everyone else? I'm at an utter loss to understand why this kind of behaviour isn't more unacceptable.

Sorry for the rant - I get kinda sensitive about driving issues. 13 years of being a working driver can do that to ya

Whilst we're at it, could I put in a word about the lovely people who will insist on coming alongside an articulated lorry, which is indicating to turn left, ON THE INSIDE!!!!. One of my lads had this happen to him some time ago, there wasn't a lot left of the(speeding)car or the young girl driving it. The driver was so shocked he gave up his job and still, 4 yrs later is unemployed. I saw it happen again a few weeks ago, but this time the car driver was lucky. Anything towing a trailer, even the much maligned caravan needs room to turn left (or right).

I totally agree with Kaeori - everyone I know who has failed their driving test 3 times or more and then passed are totally incompetent drivers, who fail to improve with experience and should never be allowed at the controls of a car.

However, I cannot agree with goshoogoshoogosh's view on the rights of pedestrians: - having passed a driving test and acquired a car, motorists then have to pay car tax and petrol tax towards the building and maintence of the roads and then on top of that they have to pay hefty car insurance (third party obligatory) to cover them for when a dopey pedestrian walks out infront of them. All the above postings have been about the absurd traffic control systems and rules motorists have to abide by if they wish to drive on our roads. Surely it's not too much to ask that pedestrians, who are not required to have any form of insurance for the damage they may cause, should at least be made to show some consideration to the poor, much persecuted motorist.

However, I totally agree with the comments on riding motorbikes - after riding on a motorbike, you become very aware of their vunerability and treat them with greater consideration when behind the wheel of a car.

Since my last posting about pedestrians stepping out infront of me or just ambling slowing in the road knowing they are holding me up, I have taken to hooting them, not only does this draw their (and everyone else's) attention to the fact that they are being inconsiderate, it makes me feel a whole lot better!!

Slug, my dear old thing! There are two main reasons that motorists (and I am one of them let's not forget) have to pay for the upkeep of the road. 1) Pedestrians can walk over just about any terrain from a well kept pavement to the slopes of Mt. Everest. Cars can't, so they have to have roads built for them. I don't have any problem with paying for something I need and use. 2) Pedestrians inflict an unmeasurably small amount of damage upon the part of the highway that they use, which can't be said of motor traffic, which, incidentally is also responsible for most of the damage caused to the pavement when it parks on it!

I must say again that I'm just as frustrated as you about people who wander out into the road, and in the instance that someone does that, and it can be proved that they were 100% at fault, then the driver should not be held accountable, has no reason to wrestle with his or her conscience, and the pedestrian or their family should not get a bean from the driver's insurance company. There are so many day to day activities in our modern life which can be dangerous, even lethal if not done without care. By walking along the pavement, we make a tacit agreement that we accept the fact that we are going to share the highway with motor vehicles, knowing that if we do something daft, we might die. Drivers make the same agreement, and it is their responsibility to see to it that they do everything in their power to protect the pedestrian from the dangers of their activity. As a matter of fact, anyone who has taken a driving test in the UK should have got themselves a copy of The Highway Code, and if so, they should also know that there is a section in it specifically for pedestrians (or there was in the copy I had some years ago). Of course, most pedestrians who don't drive never buy a copy of THC, so they don't realise, for instance, that at a zebra crossing, they can't just blithely walk out into the road believing they have the right of way - they're meant to give drivers time to see them and to stop.

Here in America (especially in California), pedestrians are generally treated much better than in the UK. At intersections, they have the total right of way when the walk sign is lit, and if a driver is approaching a side street just as a pedestrian is about to cross that street, they will (almost) always wait for the pedestrian before turning into it, and will even show a marked reluctance to go first if the pedestrian beckons them on (probably something to do with the litigious nature of some Americans).

Generally, Slug, I think you and I are in agreement, but next time someone 'wanders out' in front of you, try to step aside from your feelings of frustration and look at the situation objectively. Was it really all their fault? When I did that, I found that in most cases the answer was no, and so I refer back to what my driving instructor told me - pedestrians have been around a lot longer than cars, and if a car hits a pedestrian... well, you know the rest.