A simple idea to reduce road deaths?

Owen

I'm seriously considering starting a campaign which will reduce road deaths. It's very simple. Install cats eyes on every road, and reflective signage on every corner.

I'm fully convinced that accidents that happen at night, happen on smaller unlit roads with poor visibility, and people just aren't prepared for sharp corners on familiar roads. Yes, they could slow down, but without all the visual information in front of them, someone who isn't trained to read a road - and someone who's driving beyond their abilitiy - will go too fast, and loose control, leading to a car 'leaving the road'.

Next time you're out at midnight, or at dusk, on a B road, compare the visual reference points on a road with cats eyes to a road without. There's a monumental difference, and I think it could make all the difference in our country where roads linking major cities are these statistically dangerous B roads. This isn't the be all and end all to all our issues with deaths on our roads, but it could fix one aspect of it.

So how about it? Lets take all the money from the RSA's morbid advertising campaigns, and put it into cats eyes on every road. Who's with me?

I know the temptation to go off topic coming up with all sorts of ideas about road safety, and the cause of deaths is huge, but please try to keep this on topic, and discuss the effectiveness of it.

Gandalf23

Its a good idea, but IMHO will have limited effect.

If someone can come up with an idea to slow down all the boy racers then road deaths will be reduced.

biggus

Simplest ideas are often the best. No comparison between country road with reflective paint and one without

Owen

Gandalf23 wrote: »

If someone can come up with an idea to slow down all the boy racers then road deaths will be reduced.

It's not a thread about boy racers.

Marcus.Aurelius

I don't see the point, if you cannot see sufficiently far ahead then you do not go faster than that stopping distance would allow you.

I'm all for improved roads, but cats eyes are a very small part of it. I'd rather upgrade the N roads that are put to shame by a decent R road. I'd rather scrap the speed camera rubbish and introduce a decent driving test with a better calibre of graduates rather than the subhuman selfish rubbish we advocate at present, cowards without care for other motorists.

Then come talk to me about cats eyes.

BrandonBlock

More roadworks, which creates diversions, delays and more traffic - yes that's what we need!

Owen

Joker wrote: »

I don't see the point, if you cannot see sufficiently far ahead then you do not go faster than that stopping distance would allow you.

Well duh. However, elderly people with poor vision, young miopic people can drive beyond their limits without knowingly doing it. No one willingly drives into a corner too fast, it's because they can't see the corner at night they do it, and then a death occurs.

Joker wrote: »

I'm all for improved roads, but cats eyes are a very small part of it. I'd rather upgrade the N roads that are put to shame by a decent R road.

If you want to discuss road upgrades, belt away in a separate thread. I'm hoping people will only discuss the effectiveness of what I'm proposing here. If there's enough support for this, I'll make it a media campaign in time.

Gandalf23

ned78 wrote: »

It's not a thread about boy racers.

Agreed, but unfortunately its boy racers who are the cause of a significant amount of the accidents in this country. Just look at the road death/accident statistics, and how much weighting insurance companies put onto young male drivers.

Any attempt to reduce road deaths has to take the "boy racer" effect into consideration, and while your suggestion is an excellent one it will have a very limited effect. This is because it fails to address the REAL cause of the carnage on Irish roads, i.e. young reckless male drivers who believe they are invincible.

Marcus.Aurelius

Gandalf23 wrote: »

This is because it fails to address the REAL cause of the carnage on Irish roads, i.e. young reckless male drivers who believe they are invincible.

That's a bit over-simplistic.

No amount of training or enforcement will stop morons from killing themselves by hitting a stone wall on a back road at 3 AM.

We should be more interested in the lives we can realistically save, i.e. those caused solely by bad driving, excessive speeding and lack of training.

Owen

Gandalf23 wrote: »

Any attempt to reduce road deaths has to take the "boy racer" effect into consideration

Why? Why does it have to be one perfect solution to all our problems on the road? Why can't this one suggestion be implemented and save 10/20/50/100 deaths in a year, and then work on the boy racers?

PLEASE EVERYONE, keep the thread on topic, and keep alternative reasons, and ideas for road deaths, causes and cures for other threads. Please!

techdiver

Gandalf23 wrote: »

Its a good idea, but IMHO will have limited effect.

If someone can come up with an idea to slow down all the boy racers then road deaths will be reduced.

The technology is available to control car speeds and even to a further extent control speed based on geographical locations.

Using a system that would combine GPS and speed regulators all cars could be remotely limited to a certain speed limit based on geographical location.

Further to this point, speed limits across the country need some serious revision. Example: N11 - Is a dual/treble carriageway and for the most part the speed is restricted to 60kmph.

Connemara - Bending dangerous roads with a 100kmph speed limit - Crazy!

B00MSTICK

Yes ned, I agree, would def. save lives imo.

Gandalf23

ned78 wrote: »

Why? Why does it have to be one perfect solution to all our problems on the road? Why can't this one suggestion be implemented and save 10/20/50/100 deaths in a year, and then work on the boy racers?

PLEASE EVERYONE, keep the thread on topic, and keep alternative reasons, and ideas for road deaths, causes and cures for other threads. Please!

Chill man ... People are answering your original post and giving reasons why it is not a good idea. I believe it will have limited effect and not tackle the real cause of road deaths in Ireland.



But lets get specific with your idea if thats what you want. Three questions ...

1. Do you have any statictics about how many deaths and/or accidents are caused by the lack of cats eyes and reflective signage on Irish roads?

2. What is your estimate of the cost of putting cats eyes and reflective signage on Irish roads?

3. How many deaths/accident will this prevent each year (approximately)?



I'm not trying to be pedantic here, but any media campaign will want to know this. Its the first question Matt Cooper / George Hook would ask ...

Marcus.Aurelius

techdiver wrote: »

The technology is available to control car speeds and even to a further extent control speed based on geographical locations.

The inherent danger with that is faulty software and limiter failures. Expect mass lawsuits against whoever dared introduce it. Not to mention the dangers it causes in cases of overtaking where extra speed is required, not less.

Decent driving sometimes requires that you break the speed limit on rare occasion.

Sorry for being off-topic OP.

Senna

It would only improve visibility at night so it couldn't be a bad thing. But whats the modern equivalent to the cats eyes? i remember when a new road opened close to me, the reflection was great, but soon afterwards the reflection effect dulled.

Gandalf23

B00MSTICK wrote: »

Yes ned, I agree, would def. save lives imo.

I agree also ... this will save lives ... that is not in dispute.

peasant

I'm fully with the OP ...badly marked roads are dangerous, especially at night and in rainy conditions.

Even if it's cats eyes ...properly painted and maintained lines would be a good start.

biko

Cat eyes are a good idea, most/worst collisions happen at night (no stats to back this up) and the way the eyes sit in a little raised bump will help in case you accidentally cross the line.


"Fun" fact after a bit of googling "On 25 April 1999 on the M3 motorway, Hampshire, England, a passing lorry dislodged the steel body of a cat's eye, which flew through the windscreen of a following car and killed a passenger.[9] Investigators acknowledged that the cat's eye bodies occasionally came loose, but added that such an accident was previously unheard of. A review of the "long-term integrity" of various types of road marker was ordered"

Owen

Gandalf23 wrote: »

Chill man ... People are answering your original post and giving reasons why it is not a good idea. I believe it will have limited effect and not tackle the real cause of road deaths in Ireland.

No one is saying it will. But it will contribute to the overall safety of our roads. I have no problem with discussing the issue, but already 10 posts into the thread, we have posters proposing speed limiters, when that's clearly not the point of the thread.

Gandalf23 wrote: »

But lets get specific with your idea if thats what you want. Three questions ...

1. Do you have any statictics about how many deaths and/or accidents are caused by the lack of cats eyes and reflective signage on Irish roads?

No, and no one does, as it's a fresh idea not researched before.

Gandalf23 wrote: »

2. What is your estimate of the cost of putting cats eyes and reflective signage on Irish roads?

Significantly less than upgrading the road networks, or illuminating them to make them safer. No idea of cost, but it has to be less than either of these two issues.

Gandalf23 wrote: »

3. How many deaths/accident will this prevent each year (approximately)?

Who knows? The whole point of this is that it's never been researched before. But common sense says that if a road is illuminated just that little bit better, if someone can see that a corner is tightening up sharply, in dark conditions, in fog, that it will save a life. And that's the whole point.

I don't have all the answers to road deaths in Ireland, and I certainly don't have all the answers to what I'm proposing either. But I drive a lot at night, and I feel myself on the roads with catseyes that it's just so much easier. You can see the curve of the road, and it's path relative to yours, and you're not straining to see your headlights light up the bushes in an effort to see where they meet the dark tarmac.

In James May's own words :

The Catseye is what great design is all about. Simple, functional, and beautiful. And on top of that, this little block of iron and rubber has probably done more to save lives on the road than anything since.

B00MSTICK

Thread title wrote:

A simple idea to reduce road deaths?

ned78 wrote:

This isn't the be all and end all to all our issues with deaths on our roads, but it could fix one aspect of it.

reduce road deaths = save lives

Gandalf23 wrote:

I agree also ... this will save lives ... that is not in dispute.

Sorry must have misread the thread title.

Gandalf23

ned78 you are talking a lot of sense.

I say (with some reservations) go ahead with the campaign. Even if it saves one life it will be worth it.

Good luck, and I'll be listening for you on Matt Cooper!!!



edit: I would strongly suggest that you try to get some statistics from similar initatives in different countries ... I'm certain this will have been attemped elsewhere, maybe in some of the Scandanavian countries with shorter days in Winter or Canada etc. This would add weight to your campaign ... there is a risk you will be dismissed more easily if you cannot support your arguments with facts and figures. One of the Universities or the RSA or the Guarda Traffic Corp might even have ongoing research into this. This cant be the first time this has been suggested ever.

Good luck, and maybe keep us informed of how things are progressing???

fricatus

Joker wrote: »

I don't see the point, if you cannot see sufficiently far ahead then you do not go faster than that stopping distance would allow you.

This is the OP's point: sometimes the visual cues at night can be misleading, and a driver may believe they have more road available for stopping/turning than they actually do. Remember that in a tightening bend, the direction of the road may only be lit by the headlights at the last minute - as the car finally points in that direction. Cat's eyes on every bend would provide more reliable visual cues.

It's a damn good idea, and deserves to be researched at the very least.

Just slightly off topic, I came back to Waterford from Dublin last Sunday night after the match, and the difference in ease of driving and overall safety between the new M9 around Carlow and the disgracefully twisty N9 south of Paulstown was unbelievable. Try it some rainy night for a display of how road engineering can make all the difference.

R.O.R

I'm with you on this one Ned

WHITE_P

The OP is bang on with his suggestion, as a driver who spends alot of time on minor roads, I can see exactly where he is coming from. Also I've seen the difference on some of the roads I travel alot, when new signs and cats eye's are installed.

I'm open to correction on this, but I heard someone discussing it on the radio awhile back and every accident that requires the emergency services to attend where someone is seriously injured or killed, costs the tax payer approx. €250,000, so even if the reduction in accident rates was fairly small, the saving to the state / tax payer could be significant not to mention people's lives. I've tried to find infomation from RSA, local councils etc. to support this but haven't come accross anything to back it up yet.

Steve

I have no doubts that this would improve road safety, if done properly.

At present, some roads are painted, some aren't some have cats eyes, some don't.
If this were to be done, it would have to be done consistently across all roads.
What I mean is: if the majority of bad bends were well marked, drivers would come to rely on the markings and therefore be able to driver faster.
This is fine until they arrive at an unmarked bend with the assumption that no markings = no bend.

What you are saying about old / myopic people driving beyond their ability does not make sense - they should not be doing it full stop and any increase in road visibility that would aid them in doing so wouldn't improve their driving safety one bit. Specsavers FTW...

ninty9er

After seeing some of the quotes I know why Gandalf is on my ignore list:pac:

The revenue required is there for this sort of measure as it is of a capital nature. Howsoever, putting catseyes on every mile of road in the country is wholly unnecessary and would be a waste of money better spent elsewhere.

Possibly putting cats eyes on the margin for 200m either side (both sides) where bends are less than, say, 130/120 degrees on the wide side (don't have a protractor to hand) might be effective.

Gandalf23

ninty9er wrote: »

After seeing some of the quotes I know why Gandalf is on my ignore list

Not sure what you mean? Care to enlighten us?

Owen

Road with catseyes :



Road without catseyes :

gsxr1

as a biker I would campaign against you on cats eyes on country roads.

A biker will use both sides of the road when safe to do so, for better visibility. Its bad enough trying to deal with white lines in the wet.

cats eyes upset the bike while leaned over . Plus they are slippy when wet.

if there was a cats eye that was flush with the road and grippy then by all means. stick them on

Im not posting a cars against bikes suggestion. Just pointing out yet more hazard's for the biker.

The wire rope barriers was the biggest disaster we have made. banned in most other countries but not backward Ireland.

veetwin

How about a simple idea to reduce road deaths thatwould cost next to nothing?

Have a law similar to those in certain US States where you must use full dipped headlights when your wipers are on?

The amount of people driving around in heavy rain with no lights or parking lights is shocking and dangerous. Introducing this rule would obviously increase everyones visibility and cost bugger all. I can't see any reason why it hasn't been done already.

Owen

gsxr1 wrote: »

as a biker I would campaign against you on cats eyes on country roads.

And as a Ducati owner (Read : biker), I'd argue for them. There's no excuse for a biker being over the line, even when riding defensively and using all the road to increase visibility. Plus, the majority of bikes I've owned, and ridden (With the exception of the Blackbird, and BMW K1200S) have exceptionally poor headlamps (In comparisson to 4 wheeled cages), and would benefit more from additional visibility in corners.

Plus, oncoming cars would have their side of the road defined for them, thereby reducing the potential for a car to stray onto your side of the road and hit a vunerable biker head on.