Car traps

[nowster]

Incidentally, Firefox's built-in translate function renders the name of such a place as a "Pull-out".

[nowster]

No Free Software?

[Vierwielen]

The Vienna Convention on Road Signs provides language-neutral signs for most situations.

If a Brit came across the following sign, would you instantly know what it was for?

France_road_sign_ID24.svg.png
(Image sourced from https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fichier:F ... n_ID24.svg)

Iwould not have guessed, but then my car would not have been wrecked if I ognored it.

[FosseWay]

Two points - firstly UK law explicitly prohibits "man-traps". In the event of a serious incident, this law could be used agiant the authority who put the its in place.

A man trap is a clawed object that closes around the foot/ankle of the person who stands in it, causing bodily harm. It is hidden in grass so people passing by don't know it's there. As a concept, it is on the same continuum as an anti-personnel land mine. Moreover, the situations in which they tended to be used involved trespass on private land, which is not in itself a criminal offence. To find a relevant equivalent for cars, the object would have to (a) intentionally cause damage to vehicles, (b) be hidden, and (c) operate in situations where no offence has (yet) been committed.

If you want to compare bus gates of this kind with something you'd find when out walking, barbed wire is probably a better analogy. Its purpose is not to cause harm, but it may rip your clothing if you insist on climbing over it. It is clearly visible and says clearly to anyone observant, sensible and not bent on nefarious activities, "Don't go here." But even then, the legal difference still applies - trespassing past some privately erected barbed wire is unlikely to be an offence in itself, while driving a private car along a bus lane is.

The Vienna Convention on Road Signs provides language-neutral signs for most situations. The UK has a poor record in not using such signs. For example, this sign could have been replaced by a weight limit sign. It is a shortcoming of the TSRGD that there are no signs for residential areas, industrial areas etc.

There are several pictorial signs that tell drivers of private vehicles that they mustn't drive on a particular road or lane. The blue bus lane sign is one, the "no motorbike stunts" sign is another, with or without plate "Except buses". Yes, the latter is in English text, but if you speak no English and see a sign whose principal meaning is clear to you and says "don't drive here", you'd have to be a special kind of idiot to presume that whatever the plate said made an exception for just you.

[FosseWay]

The Vienna Convention on Road Signs provides language-neutral signs for most situations.

If a Brit came across the following sign, would you instantly know what it was for?

France_road_sign_ID24.svg.png
(Image sourced from https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fichier:F ... n_ID24.svg)

I had to go looking for whatever that meant - it turns out it points to a recycling centre. That sign demonstrates why pictograms aren't necessarily better than text.

1. AFAICS it's a French sign, not an international one. To the extent that recycling points are signed at all in Sweden, they are signed with the words Återvinningsplats or Återvinningscentral depending on the size of the facility. To someone who has no experience of French roads and who doesn't speak Swedish, neither is more comprehensible than the other, but at least you can use Google Translate to translate the text.

2. Regardless of language issues, a pictogram must clearly depict what is intended. This is why the "train" image used on level crossing signs looks like Thomas the Tank Engine and not a modern train. The train shown is basically a caricature of a train, designed specifically to emphasise its "train-ness" - the characteristics that distinguish trains from other vehicles. Similarly for the Victorian camera used to define speed enforcement. Some concepts simply don't lend themselves to unambiguous iconisation, and for the vast majority of users the vast majority of the time, a textual explanation is easier to understand and act on. Even IKEA sometimes resorts to text in its instructions.

3. Related to the last point, the more abstract and complicated a concept, the more a pictorial sign for it needs to be commonly encountered for it to be reliably understood. We understand the extended meaning of a camera (= enforcement camera) because we see it in context all the time. We understand the clearway sign for the same reason, even though it means absolutely nothing other than what convention says it means. Signs pointing to recycling centres are not especially common, so the familiarity hurdle the sign needs to overcome is higher.

There are two signs specified by the Swedish equivalent of TSRGD that I had no idea what they meant when I first encountered them, and the context of the road I was cycling on at the time didn't give me any clues. They were and .

It turns out that these mean "warning of people with hearing disabilities" and "warning of people with sight disabilities" respectively. Nothing in the iconography says this (like the clearway sign), but unlike the clearway sign, the number of times any given road user will encounter these is tiny. It would be much better IMO simply to use the standard hazard sign with a plate "Personer med nedsatt hörsel/syn" or similar.

[RichardA35]

The Vienna Convention on Road Signs provides language-neutral signs for most situations.

If a Brit came across the following sign, would you instantly know what it was for?

France_road_sign_ID24.svg.png
(Image sourced from https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fichier:F ... n_ID24.svg)

I had to go looking for whatever that meant - it turns out it points to a recycling centre. That sign demonstrates why pictograms aren't necessarily better than text.

1. AFAICS it's a French sign, not an international one. To the extent that recycling points are signed at all in Sweden, they are signed with the words Återvinningsplats or Återvinningscentral depending on the size of the facility. To someone who has no experience of French roads and who doesn't speak Swedish, neither is more comprehensible than the other, but at least you can use Google Translate to translate the text.

I've always understood and used the French word "dechetterie" for tip/recycling centre and never noticed the symbol on the one I have used most frequently over the last 30 years. I also had to look up the symbol making it a useless addition for me.

[Nathan_A_RF]

In any case when visiting another country in your car, there are no doubt websites like this that explain the main basic differences and translations of basic phrases. Vice versa for foreign drivers in the UK.

Regardless, if I see a no entry sign with "sauf" underneath followed by some words I don't know, as a responsible driver I wouldn't drive past the sign having not fully understood the exceptions.

[AndyB]

Two points - firstly UK law explicitly prohibits "man-traps". In the event of a serious incident, this law could be used agiant the authority who put the its in place.

A man trap is a clawed object that closes around the foot/ankle of the person who stands in it, causing bodily harm. It is hidden in grass so people passing by don't know it's there. As a concept, it is on the same continuum as an anti-personnel land mine. Moreover, the situations in which they tended to be used involved trespass on private land, which is not in itself a criminal offence. To find a relevant equivalent for cars, the object would have to (a) intentionally cause damage to vehicles, (b) be hidden, and (c) operate in situations where no offence has (yet) been committed.

And (d) the occupants of the car would not be able to get out and walk away unharmed. An excellent explanation.

To reiterate what has been said before, we know that a small but significant number of tickets are issued to people who make honest mistakes, either because they are unfamiliar with the area or they autopilot into a section of road they were used to using.

It’s why camera enforcement is often done in phases - warning letters for a period before tickets are issued. It’s also why they offer safety awareness courses for those who aren’t much over the speed limit, because the manpower doesn’t exist to pull people over, have a quiet word and send them on their way. We all make mistakes, but as we see in social media comments, the biggest noise comes from those who are aggrieved because they get caught not paying attention to their speed or ignoring other moving vehicle restrictions.

[FosseWay]

^^ Playing devil's advocate slightly for a moment, a lot of the frothy-mouthed end of the opposition to fines of various kinds for driving infractions has to do with the enforcement being a "cash cow" (or other similarly emotive phrase). I think we could make it systematically clearer that enforcing road traffic legislation isn't about raising money. Effectively, all enforcement *should* cost money, and whether we as a society are willing to spend that money should depend on our keenness to deal with the problem, just as is the case when we decide which treatments to offer on the NHS or whether to have covid restrictions. No enforcement should "pay for itself", and fines aren't "income" but rather a penalty on the errant driver. As said, we could make this clearer by ensuring that all fine money goes to a charity fund (the National Lottery fund, for example) and auditing this to ensure complete transparency.

[Nathan_A_RF]

Money from fining drivers usually goes into public transport and active travel provision, does it not?

[Vierwielen]

Money from fining drivers usually goes into public transport and active travel provision, does it not?

No - it goes into the general kitty.

[tom66]

Money from fining drivers usually goes into public transport and active travel provision, does it not?

No - it goes into the general kitty.

Very few taxes and fines are hypothecated in the UK. It's a pervasive myth, things like national insurance paying for pensions for instance...

[Nathan_A_RF]

I'm not one of the "road tax pays for roads" guys!

[KeithW]

There is no road safety issue arising here, the "danger" is entirely contrived and is a disproportionate punishment for driving along a very short section of road reserved for buses.
As there is no road safety issue arising, such punishment is inappropriate and a camera and fine is quite adequate. I would see more use for rising bollards and the like to stop people driving down motorway ramps the wrong way because this is a genuine road safety issue. This is more a case of lazy driving than poor driving, I would prefer to retain the latter term for things that are dangerous.

The rising bollards in Cambridge were removed for safety reasons and the disproportionate damage they caused, often enough to write off the vehicle and cause injury to drivers. A bollard rising as you crossed it behind a bus could severely damage the suspension and engine. Modern cars are designed to resist damage from the front, sides and even the top but not from underneath.

I used to work on Thompsons Lane near this example and that happened regularly.
https://www.google.com/maps/@52.2091998 ... &entry=ttu

An added complexity was of course that buses not fitted with the coded transponders would also cause the bollards to raise. Even if the driver realised his mistake getting out mean reversing and turning in a confined space here.
https://www.google.com/maps/@52.2091692 ... &entry=ttu

That was the nail in the coffin as one truck reversing into Thompsons Lane collapsed a manhole and was stuck for some time until a heavy recovery vehicle could lift it out.

This is what is there now with an enforcement camera.
https://www.google.com/maps/@52.2091692 ... &entry=ttu

[Owain]

Money from fining drivers usually goes into public transport and active travel provision, does it not?

No - it goes into the general kitty.

Very few taxes and fines are hypothecated in the UK. It's a pervasive myth, things like national insurance paying for pensions for instance...

Another widespread misconception is that fines are about 'making money' for *insert name of relevant authority here*.

As the most common fine is surely the £100 FPN, we're talking about such a tiny amount of money that I doubt there is any profit to made: there will be a cost to operating and maintaining cameras (which is presumably the reason many of them are now abandoned!), and there will be a cost to operating and maintaining a police-operated camera van; there will be a cost for processing every single offence (e.g. obtaining driver details; sending notification to the driver); and - if the unfortunate driver chooses to attend a course instead of taking points - the cost of running the course has to be covered.

[tom66]

Another widespread misconception is that fines are about 'making money' for *insert name of relevant authority here*.

As the most common fine is surely the £100 FPN, we're talking about such a tiny amount of money that I doubt there is any profit to made: there will be a cost to operating and maintaining cameras (which is presumably the reason many of them are now abandoned!), and there will be a cost to operating and maintaining a police-operated camera van; there will be a cost for processing every single offence (e.g. obtaining driver details; sending notification to the driver); and - if the unfortunate driver chooses to attend a course instead of taking points - the cost of running the course has to be covered.

Indeed, and I'm not opposed to the concept of speed cameras. Used appropriately they can reduce the risk of speeding causing accidents. For instance there's a 70 mph speed camera on one side of the approach to this junction:

https://www.google.com/maps/@52.3727177 ... ?entry=ttu

Totally reasonable use of a speed camera there, given the risk of a side on collision is far worse at higher speeds and you'll have more time to decelerate if stopping at the legal speed limit. I doubt the camera ever flashes; people around the area know it's there, so they slow down if they normally travel at, ahem, "in excess of the prescribed limits".

There are cases where they're misused, but in general they seem to be positioned appropriately.

I doubt camera vans make much money either. £100 a fine, many of which turn into awareness courses, but you have to spend ~£50k on the van and all of its kit plus staff the van with two (?) individuals for a shift. Still, there are inappropriate uses of them. I'd prefer to see more around 30 and 40 mph roads, especially ones with a higher quantity of pedestrians, rather than on grade-separated roads with 70 mph limits.

[RichardA626]

Cross Street in Manchester had some bollards that were taken out after too many cars were damaged by them.

I'm not sure if Underbank in Stockport still has some, often I would pass them & notice some debris from cars that collided with them!