Story about Trief kerb.

[Time Waster]

Story about how bad a Trief kerb is because it damages cars! Of course the fact they're designed to stop cars riding the kerb thus making it safer for pedestrians is not enough of a good thing to support it. Of course the fact that if you kerb your car it is your own fault, as per a local driving instructor who was interviewed on the kerb. Of course if motorists could be trusted but to cut the corner over a kerb in the first instance thus placing pedestrians at risk is not significant.

IMHO it is piss poor driving if you hit a trief kerb. They're big and obvious afterall.

BTW take a look at the photo if you get the chance. It is the upright part of a T junction where cars can go right or left. It is clearly not wide enough for two cars side by side at the junction so no room for a left and right turning lane.

To my thinking what's happening is the right turning cars can't make their turn quickly due to traffic. The left turners can turn quicker in my theory. They just can't get past to turn left. So I'm thinking when there's one right turner at the front a few left turners see a way to sneak through and turn left instead of waiting for their turn.

Now I reckon that's why the first trief kerb was put in. This "new" kerb is just a repair job due to damage motorists have done to it hitting it with force.

Does that sound about right to you? Do you think this story is ridiculous too? I mean stupid drivers have the stupidity tax after they damage their own car due to their own impatient, dangerous and idiotic driving.

I think they should make it higher and move it out so there is more pavement and absolutely no space to give idiots even the slightest thought they could sneak round the corner. This trief kerb is a standard kerb design that is approved for such a use. It is the drivers who are at fault not the kerb.

Anyway, what is your POV on this?

 

[Drago]

It's clearly doing its job and protecting pedestrians then.

The corner isn't all that acute. Anyone who cant navigate that probably isn't fit to be behind the wheel to begin with.

 

[raleighnut]

So I'm thinking when there's one right turner at the front a few left turners see a way to sneak through and turn left instead of waiting for their turn.

Nail Head Hit. Be a good place to put traffic lights to obviate the problem

 

[LCpl Boiled Egg]

Apparently you can build a whole new car from old hubcaps. Every day is a school day.

 

[Drago]

Interesting that the professional driving instructor believes its down to driver error. Sadly most cars drivers have egos of sufficient tenderness that they'd never admit it.

 

[HLaB]

You can't equate a dead/ injured person to a scraped alloy, anyone who thinks so shouldn't be directly behind a steering wheel!

 

[Paulus]

Another example of poor driving skills.🤬

 

[Dadam]

It beggars belief that it could somehow be somebody else's fault for damage from colliding your vehicle into a clearly visible stationary object.

I broke my rear light in a carpark on one of those steel surrounds for lamp posts. I didn't see the horizontal bit which was too high to register on my parking sensors so I thought I had another 10" of space. Still 100% my own silly fault.

 

[mjr]

I think they should make it higher and move it out so there is more pavement and absolutely no space to give idiots even the slightest thought they could sneak round the corner. This trief kerb is a standard kerb design that is approved for such a use. It is the drivers who are at fault not the kerb.

Anyway, what is your POV on this?

Well, the high restraint kerb is better than Norfolk's method of taking space away from foot/cycle ways with useless fragile fencing... and when that's repeatedly proven not to work, they take even more space away by moving the fence away from the road and installing a couple of metal bells that corner-cutting cars and trucks slide down and back onto the kerb without damaging their hubcaps. Here's one such corner from the A149:

Nail Head Hit. Be a good place to put traffic lights to obviate the problem

Would it? The example I posted above has traffic lights. Still people can't drive around the corner. Part of that may be because they have to look right in case yet another driver coming downhill from the railway bridge sails through the red light. (Yes, everyone should look to check for blue light vehicles, but they're driven through this junction more cautiously than red-light jumpers... probably because of the red-light jumpers.)

It beggars belief that it could somehow be somebody else's fault for damage from colliding your vehicle into a clearly visible stationary object.

Yes, although some road layouts can make it easier than others. For example, the Hansa Road exit in my picture is unnecessarily uphill (should have been flattened when the KFC on the corner was built, with the slope moved back a bit), wide (two lanes into the junction), with little indication that drivers turning left are entering a wide two-lane stroad, so there's no need to stay tight to the kerb). As a result, many car drivers underestimate the need to push the accelerator and overestimate the need to stay close to the kerb.

Also, the crossing traffic island sticks out into the junction enough to make some lorry drivers feel the turn is more constrained than it is. That island position is near the limit in order to stagger the foot/cycle crossing and put the carriageway lights as close to the junction as possible, both decisions that prioritise theoretical motor vehicle capacity over active travel safety or lorry driver ease. It should be rebuilt as a single-lane-side-road-level-entry CYCLOPS, as should some nearby ones, but there's no chance of that under Transport for Norfolk's current leadership. Some lorry drivers would probably be better exiting the estate by either of the other junctions which have wider corners, but there's no signs suggesting that and I don't think any sat nav would figure it out, as the estate has a central T junction which needs a rebuild to make it reliably quicker from that direction.

Anyway, what really beggars belief is that cycleway junctions with even a tiny perceived risk of rider error get designed to be obnoxiously difficult for common use (obstructions, width-restrictions and slaloms on the approach, for example), but carriageway junctions with a proven history of driver errors are left essentially unchanged for decades, with at best "mitigation" measures that effectively degrade the junction for other road users.

Like on the A149, that whole shoot fest needs redesigning to make the proven "drivers try to mount kerb" error more difficult to make. At the very least, maybe an enforcement camera and warning signs would be a good idea? Can driving on the footway be punished by video camera yet?

 

[fossyant]

People regularly hit the similar curbs on the width restrictors on a weak bridge near us. We have smashed suspension or upturned cars at least once a month. I can easily drive my van through them, which is 20cm wider than a car. If you get it slightly wrong, the tyre goes on the sloped bit of the curb, so you know to correct it. Some folk are stupid. I see nothing wrong with that curb in the picture.

 

[Time Waster]

Nail Head Hit. Be a good place to put traffic lights to obviate the problem

I just think they need to move the kerb further out so it's clear there's no way through when the first car is turning right.

Of course that would be taking road space from the motorist so you'll have a load winging about that too. I think ignore the drivers and let them damage their own cars because it's actually well designed and does it's job in keeping pedestrians safe from drivers of cars and vans trying to me ride the cars to prevent a small delay.

 

[mjr]

You can't equate a dead/ injured person to a scraped alloy, anyone who thinks so shouldn't be directly behind a steering wheel!

I'm pretty sure that would remove enough drivers from many towns to cure congestion!