I was driving one night about a week ago when a close call ahead of me gave me an idea.
Note: (For those who may find the story boring and only want to read the idea, skip the following paragraph).
The driver who was two cars ahead of me was signaling a left turn, but seemed to have trouble finding the side road. The man who was impatiently driving the car between us seemed to know where the road was, because he suddenly sped up when he thought the car ahead of him ought to have been turning. The first driver, not knowing where the road was, stopped dead, rather than slowing and turning. This caused the man ahead of me to swerve and slam on his breaks, narrowly avoiding the other car. It reinforced one obvious point: that impatient drivers cause accidents; but it also brought up a new one. When drivers traveling on highways (especially at night) are attempting to turn onto roads they are unfamiliar with or can’t find, it can lead to close calls or even accidents.
Note: (Those without attention spans start reading here).
So my idea is pretty simple, though still possibly far-fetched. The way our system is setup right now, there is a sign that warns you of a road coming a few hundred metres up, and then a sign right after the road. However, there doesn’t seem to be any set distance used for each road, which means that it is sometimes hard to find them. I think that there should be two signs which are two-sided , on either side of the road (let’s say 20 feet away from the edge of the road on each side). This would mean that drivers coming from either direction could simply look up and see that they have to turn in the exact middle of the two signs ahead of them. I think it would be simple enough for even the most novice drivers to figure out.
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2 comments:
You are preaching to the choir on this item, as former professional driver you would be amazed at how many near misses I've seen. Two things are at play here though other then bad signs. First is an unprepared driver,in my training it was always stressed to know your route whenever possible. Second is relax, give yourself the time to miss a turn or two, we rarely will drive off the end of a road if we miss a turn and going back after we have turn around safely is always a better option. Next the second driver was following to close, we were taught that 5 to 7 second lead time on the vehicle ahead of you under ideal conditions is need for a decent safety margin, night is night ideal conditions. However your point on sinage is good, their is no standard in Ontario for placement of signs, if there were it would make life a little easier for drivers, and placing a sign directly opposite to the turn would be a good idea, cll your local MPP and suggest it, or start a petition I'll sign it!
I'm so tired of inexperienced drivers on backroads. I live on the backroads and have to deal constantly with drivers not knowing where their turn is. It gets annoying but most often, there are signs before the road saying where they should be turning. Unfortunately, that isn't always the case and people just have to learn to deal with drivers not sure of where they are going. BUt most drivers just need to assume that the car infront of them has no idea where they are going and expect them to stop at any given moment. Impatient drivers are the reason accidents are caused.
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