Nuxx:4e1a9bfe$0$2485$db0fefd9@news.zen.co.uk

Path: num2.nntp.dca.giganews.com!num1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!number.nntp.dca.giganews.com!border3.nntp.dca.giganews.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!border4.nntp.dca.giganews.com!border2.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!novia!feeder.news-service.com!xlned.com!feeder1.xlned.com!zen.net.uk!hamilton.zen.co.uk!prichard.zen.co.uk.POSTED!not-for-mail Message-ID: <4e1a9bfe$0$2485$db0fefd9@news.zen.co.uk> From: Nuxx Bar  Newsgroups: uk.legal,uk.rec.cycling Subject: Re: Shared space doesn't work! Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2011 07:45:16 +0100 References:  <64038d06-1ba8-43c4-ac65-cbfec2fac18e@m22g2000yqh.googlegroups.com>  Lines: 92 User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.7; en-US; rv:1.9.2.18) Gecko/20110616 Thunderbird/3.1.11 MIME-Version: 1.0 In-Reply-To:  Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Organization: Zen Internet NNTP-Posting-Host: 2728a6de.news.zen.co.uk X-Trace: DXC=G3WmWC9=c3QUnUG==]Oi4V0g@SS;SF6nWR9OH0:RnENTjXf;XAKU?bV`:ITG5aA:cWI2LY7oh]@6X X-Complaints-To: abuse@zen.co.uk Bytes: 6057 Xref: perfectly-safe.chapmancentral.co.uk uk.rec.cycling:816207

On 10/07/2011 09:11, Kim Bolton wrote: > > harry wrote: > >> On Jul 10, 6:34 am, "Doug" < it...@youknow.net> wrote: >>> The reason being that motorists don't give a shit. >>> >>> "Shared space' system in Gloucester is criticised >>> >>> A system which allows vehicles and pedestrians to mix on a street in >>> Gloucester has been criticised. >>> >>> The "shared space" system which relies on pedestrians and drivers mutually >>> agreeing to give way to each other was adopted in Southgate Street in May. >>> >>> A city-based pressure group says there have already been a number of "near >>> accidents" on Southgate Street. > > Ah, so no actual accidents to report, then?

Yes, quite. The car-haters like Doug, "Just zis Guy, you know?" and (apparently) the "Gloucester City Centre Community Partnership" ("We speak for the whole community, honest") just can't stand the idea of shared space junctions, and dismiss it out of hand, simply because it doesn't involve spiteful restriction of drivers for ideological and political purposes under the guise of "safety".

As you say, no accidents, so I think when the car-haters say "Our worst fears are slowly coming into fruition", they mean just that: their worst fears are that shared space will turn out to be the safest approach to junctions, and they will no longer be able to use "safety" as an excuse for holding up cars at intersections, and now those fears seem to be being borne out.

Oh no! The roads are getting safer! And it's happening without drivers being spited! It's as bad as when speed cameras were (locally) turned off! As we did when that happened, we'd better go into Dishonest Obfuscation Mode and come out with some vague misleading bullshit which implies that the roads are actually getting *more* dangerous, so that we can have the old approach back. After all, the roads won't be as safe then, but at least drivers will be inconvenienced, and that's the most important thing: as we know from JzG, a few unnecessary deaths here and there are "worth it" if it means drivers being given hell. Apparently we'll "win back" those deaths and more once all the evil dangerous drivers have been bullied off the roads or banned. So, err, that's all right then. Deliberately killing some people so that a larger number of people are saved at some unspecified point in the future (we hope, although we've got no evidence) is just fine and not despicable or barking in any way. I'm sure those who are to be needlessly killed, and their loved ones, are perfectly happy with the arrangement. So let's go right ahead and keep lying about road safety.

I'm glad (but not surprised) that shared space is working, and I think it's the right approach for most junctions (although the car-haters won't let us adopt it universally without one hell of a screeching, dirty fight: we've seen how utterly determined they are to give drivers grief, and how they're quite prepared to tell the most outrageous lies about life-and-death issues if that's what it takes).

We should be cautious though: shared space may be the right approach for junctions, but segregation is still necessary elsewhere...we don't want the car-haters seizing upon shared space in order to, for example, force drivers to share motorways with cyclists and pedestrians and drive down them at 20mph. Too far-fetched? You never know with the anti-motorist loonies. Their self-righteous, interfering unpleasantness knows no bounds. You can certainly see them trying to get grade-separated urban dual carriageways opened to playing children et al (not that they don't do that already in some cases).

>> They have copied from some place in Holland I believe. > > This politically-incorrect idea seems to have little reported on it. > > IIRC a major city intersection was stripped of all traffic-control > measures, including kerbs, traffic lights, crossings, and signs. > Traffic flowed faster, people had less wait to cross the road, and the > wait for a bus dropped on average from 50 seconds to 9. Presumably > cyclists benefitted too.

Sounds good to me. Everyone benefits. You'd think that anyone who was remotely sane would be happy with a solution where everyone benefitted. And you'd be right: anyone remotely sane would indeed be happy, but the car-haters (who aren't remotely sane) beg to differ. It's hard to believe, but if there is something which benefits cars, buses, cyclists and pedestrians alike, both in terms of journey times and safety, then that's not good enough for the car-haters: they want it removed, and removed now. If it benefits motorists then it has to go, no matter who else it also helps. Just ask Doug or "Brake". This is why, for example, you never find the car-haters advocating the badly-needed dualling of the A9 between Perth and Inverness. I find these people's level of negativity, spite and schadenfreude astounding even after all this time.