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Jaywalking is an offence in Northern Ireland. Though it is rarely enforced. I do know a police constable who has actually charged an individual for it! 

Didn't know that; thanks.

I wonder why NI has jaywalking when the mainland doesn't...

brooksby wrote:

Didn't know that; thanks.

I wonder why NI has jaywalking when the mainland doesn't...

Must be all the marching.

brooksby wrote:

Didn't know that; thanks.

I wonder why NI has jaywalking when the mainland doesn't...

I'd guess that it's a handy law that can be applied according to the whims of the police - a handy authoritarian tool.

Goes back to when we had our own govt between the twenties and seventies when it was dissolved. There's quite a few differences right across the board a lot of which have been brought into line with the rest of the U.K.  Interestingly it is still a legal requirement to have a bell fitted at all times. This has never to my knowledge been enforced beyond a peeler growling at you to fit a bell. 

Road users were also responsible for clearing hazards from the road if they could safely and ably do so. I've seen me stop and pull light branches and packaging off the road to the verge and jam it into the hedgerow or somewhere safe. Can't figure out why people would sooner swerve round a hazard at speed than stop and clear it. 

On the other other hand, BBC Three does now have the Ogmios School of Zen Motoring up & available on iPlayer.  

Clem Fandango wrote:

On the other other hand, BBC Three does now have the Ogmios School of Zen Motoring up & available on iPlayer.  

Excellent - I didn't know he'd done more than the three on YouTube.

If I ever find time to watch some telly I will have a look at this, I see one of the episodes features my sleb neighbour (well just around the corner) Mr Benjamin Zephaniah.

SimoninSpalding wrote:

If I ever find time to watch some telly I will have a look at this, I see one of the episodes features my sleb neighbour (well just around the corner) Mr Benjamin Zephaniah.

I watched the last 3 episodes last night and didn't enjoy them as much as the first three. He seems to be focussing less on the driving, though I did enjoy his scootering in Milton Keynes.

Mr Zephaniah is in the last episode - god on a quad.

Edit: I just looked up Mr Zephaniah (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Zephaniah) and he's been in Peaky Blinders too. Also of note is that he righteously turned down an OBE

Benjamin Zephaniah wrote:

Me? I thought, OBE me? Up yours, I thought. I get angry when I hear that word 'empire'; it reminds me of slavery, it reminds of thousands of years of brutality, it reminds me of how my foremothers were raped and my forefathers brutalised... Benjamin Zephaniah OBE – no way Mr Blair, no way Mrs Queen. I am profoundly anti-empire.

Just found him! Double-wave to you!

Although unfortunately they have now "scripted" some of it. I suppose he definitely wants to get his music into it but now but I'm wondering how much is the real roads and natural like he did in the first two (and I didn't mind his road marking man game in the 3rd). 

Pothole man 3000?

Must admit, the TV version isn't quite as good IMO. Has its moments though.

It does, probably the normal bits without the scripted scenes. 

Safe passage my friend

I love how they use it as an Anti ped crime thing, and not use it as an anti speeding thing to remind drivers that the things they driver towards and not actually stop for is bone and flesh and stands no chance against steel and plastic. 

visionset wrote:

Roads are typically built to increase road speed, such as high radius kerbs on junctions.  So in that respect they are more dangerous.  Seems a bit daft to expect everyone to drive at the correct speed that conditions dictate when you design those cherries in.

Minor pedantry - I think it's the "capacity" that they're trying to maximise (while keeping costs down - I'll not say "minimizing" as that begs the whole question). Yes - in places this would equate to increasing speed (especially "arteries").

Agree on our default being to design for higher speeds. In the UK we also fail to make our road designs help cue / enforce the speed limit or rather we put high-speed designs in inappropriate places, then try to "sign it better" which is pretty hopeless.

Mass cycling infra design is of course also concerned with capacity but the slight difference is that bikes work best if momentum can be maintained.  Slower speeds are OK but stopping is a real turn-off. Of course we should be making cycle paths you can go a decent speed on safely if you want. Despite awareness of the TdF lots of people are shocked that the average human being can get above 15mph on a bike!

Have said this for years. Planners solution to fixing roads is to iron out bends, lay anti skid surfaces etc which don't discourage drivers scrubbing speed. I have noticed though on sections of the 17 they've narrowed the lanes by placing chevrons with solid lines which seems to help. Though you still get the occasional tool that ignores this feature. 

OnYerBike wrote:

When it comes to responsibility, I definitely lean towards personal responsibility. How many crashes occur in which all road users involved were complying with the Highway Code to the letter? 

But I don't think that means we should ignore road design. People aren't perfect. If we can improve road design to reduce crashes despite the fact that some people drive badly, then that's a good thing. 

I understand what you mean. Only you don't have to follow it to the letter - to the spirit is enough.

You have to cock up absolutely monumentally to stand any appreciable chance of causing a fatality, or even an injury. 

Agree. And we already do a *lot* to reduce crashes and their consequence. This mostly applies for drivers however.  Traffic lights and lighting on roads for two.

Unfortunately having achieved a globally "safe" transport system - but at other costs - we all seem happy with where we are on that in the UK.

What could a better way look like? That would be "sustainable safety"! Principles:

a) Humans are fallible b) We can predict that they'll regularly make certain mistakes - no matter how "good" / "well trained" c) We can totally eliminate certain types of mistakes by design - remove the hazard for example (general principles here) d) Where this is not possible we can make it easier for people to get right e) ...and knowing how people go wrong, we can make systems "forgiving" so people get "another chance" (rumble strips to wake you up if you fall asleep at the wheel) and so mistakes don't have drastic consequenced (e.g. sand traps / run-off areas, energy-absorbing crash barriers, extra reinforcement to stop crashing cars falling onto railway tracks etc). f) When things have gone wrong we don't just say "accident" or "random occurrence" - we look to see all the causes and if a reasonable design changes / rule tweaks could have prevented this.

One country has implemented this very thoroughly for decades.  But don't worry, they haven't discared the concept of personal responsibility.  There are still highway police and prosecutions etc.

Now it may be that a very small percentage of drivers cause the majority of the chaos.  I don't know. (The rest would be due to the large number of "careful law-abiding drivers" times the occasional mistake rate for humans). If that's true then I'd still rather leave "how can we penalise / remove them from the roads effectively" as a secondary question. Because by that point at least one person is usually dead or injured. The penalty question and tackling these folks probably leads us into much bigger social / organisational questions anyway.

My view is it's still worth going with better, safer road design - which aids the rest of us and may mitigate the effects of the reckless also.

Meh easy answer to a complex topic from the BBC there.

I'm unconvinced Rozzer priorities are the major cause tbh.  By definition enforcement is a lagging metric.  They catch people committing crimes and take them off the road, so they are only effective after the fact.  So for lack of enforcement to have an impact people have to be consciously thinking 2 things

"There are no rozzers"

"I'll drive like a tosser"

As much as I'd like to see better enforcement I just dont buy it as a major cause of change.

Far more likely that drivers general attitudes have changed and thats unconscious behaviour.  More stressed, less experienced due to lock down, lighter traffic causing higher speeds and more reckless driving.

Secret_squirrel wrote:

It's been going steadily downhill since time in memorial, I don't think lockdown has much to do with it.

Secret_squirrel wrote:

So for lack of enforcement to have an impact people have to be consciously thinking 2 things

"There are no rozzers"

"I'll drive like a tosser"

I'm not sure that's entirely true - it could have an impact on general social attitudes, and thereby on people's unconscious approach to driving. That said, it is probably a much more indirect effect that it's often credited for, and less of a factor than, for example, car design trying constantly to make the car more like an extension of the living room.

Secret_squirrel wrote:

They catch people committing crimes and take them off the road, so they are only effective after the fact.  So for lack of enforcement to have an impact people have to be consciously thinking 2 things

"There are no rozzers"

"I'll drive like a tosser".

But we want to take them off after the fact of driving poorly, not after the fact of hitting someone. Because if we catch and punish dangerous/carless driving, speeding, phone use etc. The the accidents will fall. As the bad drivers will either amend their ways or be banned.

But as we see there is no appetite within the police to action bad driving, until there is blood on the tarmac, then they appeal for information about the lead up. Of course the information they want to recieve isn't "we have given you 10 complaints of bad driving by this individual and you have not actioned them, this is a significant cause"