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Category Archives: Safety
Construction, Freeway, Patreon Locked, Safety, Signal/Signage
So, they’re painting ORANGE LINES on freeways now?
25
Jan
Jan
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01
Jan
Jan
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22
Oct
Oct
Petar, a fellow road fan, helps us indulge in a highly unscientific experiment: Sending a Tesla Model 3 (loaded with “Full Self Driving” tech) down California’s crookedest street! Sources cited: “Autopilot and Full Self-Driving Capability,” Tesla company statement. Retrieved 18 Oct. 2022. https://www.tesla.com/support/autopilot “SAE Levels of Driving Automation™ Refined for Clarity and International Audience,” SAE […]
Patreon Locked, Safety, Signal/Signage, Urban Issues
Los Angeles THREW AWAY all their RED-LIGHT cameras?
27
Aug
Aug
At one point, Los Angeles had over 100 cameras to catch red-light runners. Then the city tore ’em all out. Here’s why. Research: “Police look to cameras to catch traffic violators”The Los Angeles Times, 13 Jun 2000, p.B4A “Voices: A Green Light on Red-Light Cameras”The Los Angeles Times, 8 Sep 2001, p.B21 “Red-Light Cameras Focus […]
09
Jul
Jul
Some stop lights are broken. Even if every corner had a red-light camera, many people would still run red lights. Here are the three toolkits engineers use to reduce or eliminate red-light running— often without a camera!
01
Jul
Jul
Red-light cameras seem to magically know when a driver runs a red light. Here’s how engineers build real technology to take pictures of cars that don’t stop.
16
Apr
Apr
San Diego installed “Edge Lanes” (also called “Advisory Bike Lanes”) along a short neighborhood block in Mira Mesa, California. And the people living nearby lost their collective minds. Here’s why these lanes aren’t quite as bad as local TV coverage claims.
28
Feb
Feb
Crossing the street on your bike should be easy and safe. Stop lights to help you, also invite cars onto your bike route. Engineers in Tucson, Arizona solve this dilemma with two special signals just for bicycles (Toucans and BikeHAWKs).
Patreon Locked, Safety, Signal/Signage, Urban Issues
Can this “HAWK” STOP LIGHT make walking feel SAFE again?
17
Jan
Jan
Middle-of-the-block crosswalks are terrible. Most do not qualify for a stop light. I meet the inventor of the Pedestrian Hybrid (HAWK) beacon, a traffic device that fixes America’s forgotten crosswalks.
12
Oct
Oct
So, you’re having this really nice walk across town when suddenly, there’s a freeway you have to cross. Seeing a large bridges with nice big sidewalks can be a relief. But what about those pesky interchanges where cars are entering and exiting the freeway? It gets a little bit scarier at newfangled designs which work […]
24
Jul
Jul
Avid bicyclists roll their eyes as state engineers rebuild a highway through town. Tyranny of the car, right? Here’s a project in Utah which added a raised median that unlocked an avalanche of really cool safety improvements — including a traffic signal just for bikes!
25
Jun
Jun
Raised medians reduce left turns which prevents crashes (and saves lives). But cities only block left turns for some businesses and not others. How can the engineers decide fairly? And what do we do with drivers who still need to turn left? ——————————- Additional reading: ——————————- Federal Highway Administration. https://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/saferjourney1/library/countermeasures/16.htm. Accessed Jun. 9, 2021.
05
May
May
Traffic travels in both directions. So it makes sense we’d have a malicious moniker for two-way left turn lanes (TWLTLs). Are they actually dangerous, though? Let’s look at the safety of these middle lanes. After all, they are on roads pretty much everywhere in the United States. ————– Sources cited: ————– Mukherjee, D. Choosing Between […]
02
Jul
Jul
Good riddance to those unsafe little buildings which sit in the middle of high-speed roadways. But without a “cash lane,” how are you supposed to pay a toll on vacation?
13
May
May
Thirty years ago a major earthquake destroyed a double-decker freeway, leaving 42 people dead. Here’s the sad history and the lessons engineers have learned.
11
Sep
Sep
Here’s the real reason why Caltrans is removing Botts Dots (turtles) from the state’s hundreds of miles of freeway (Hint: It has something to do with Tesla). Enjoy my video? https://www.patreon.com/roadguyrob
01
Aug
Aug
Traffic signals are not scary. Roundabouts can be, especially if you’ve never driven one before. Let’s take a fun dive into America’s fastest-growing transportation design. Are these spinny circles really better that a traffic light or just a passing fad? Enjoy my video? https://www.patreon.com/roadguyrob
19
Mar
Mar
Marty McFly would struggle to find a safe to skateboard to the Twin Pines Mall. What this tells us about pedestrian safety in the real world.
25
Jan
Jan
Why you should stop fighting the speeders and start blaming the roadway itself.
09
Dec
Dec
I’m exploring a site along Provo’s 500 West, which a SafetyAnalyst project identifies as one of the most crash-prone stretches of road in the county. SafetyAnalyst allows a transportation researcher to combine data and other analytical tools to identify roadway segments and nodes which are statistically more dangerous than others, controlling for many other factors. […]
08
Dec
Dec
The signs all went up today, making Salt Lake City home to America’s fastest urban interstates. Traditionally, urban freeways are 65 miles per hour (or 55 in cities with really twisty road geometry). As far as I’m aware, no state has ever allowed a DOT to raise urban freeways to higher speeds, until now. The […]
29
Mar
Mar
North of Brigham Young University’s campus boundary sits a house at a T-intersection. Well, I should say “sat” a house. Because a young adult with a medical issue (I suspect suicidal depression, but we’ll never know) plowed an early-90s Suburban into it. And from the looks of it, the Suburban won: The force from the crash was […]
21
Jan
Jan
I have no idea what this collision’s back story is. I just happened to be driving by and saw this semi tipped on its side. It almost looks like it’s trailer fell off as it turned east onto 1860 South.
02
Mar
Mar
I had to get on the phone with UDOT right away when I saw this. Crews added two new “right-turn only” arrows. But why? That sounds really unsafe. The intersection does back up a lot during rush hour, but I think painting a protective “free right” stripe would’ve been a better option. What’s UDOT (or […]