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A comment on A Type of Road Junction that Kills Cyclists. Parent comment

Re:A Type of Road Junction that Kills Cyclists by larkeith on Wednesday January 10, 2018 @01:35AM (#16112954)
Having lived near a very similar intersection, also with frequent accidents (it has a 2-way stop with heavy 50-70 mph cross-traffic and frequent left turns, depending on the time of day), cost may be a significant portion of the reason; a neighborhood campaign to replace the 2-way stop with a traffic light fell through due to a >$1 million price tag for adding a light to a countryside road, and it's doubtful a roundabout would cost less.
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Re:A Type of Road Junction that Kills Cyclists by Piskvorrr on Wednesday January 10, 2018 @03:27AM (#16113342)
Anecdata: fixing frequent accident sites (e.g. 70 kph main road x 50 kph access roads) with traffic lights reduces minor accidents, but there was a major accident on one of them just recently...because "traffic lights be damned, nobody ever comes out that road anyw-BOOM." Traffic lights are a discretionary access control mechanism ("ignore at your discretion"), roundabout is a mandatory access control mechanism.
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Re:A Type of Road Junction that Kills Cyclists by ajmurmann on Wednesday January 10, 2018 @10:40AM (#16115703)
I wonder if that happened because the traffic light was just on a timer rather than taking actual traffic in account. If the smaller road hardly ever sees traffic the light would be red very infrequently and getting your attention when red.
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Re:A Type of Road Junction that Kills Cyclists by Piskvorrr on Wednesday January 10, 2018 @02:36PM (#16118177)
It's a timer, yes - but if you do not have enough attention to see two RED lights on an otherwise empty intersection (one overhead and one right at your eye level), you have no business being behind the wheel, as you either a) are legally blind, or b) have the attention span of a proverbial goldfish.

The suggestion that anything important should be screaming and blinking (otherwise the poor driver couldn't have noticed) is patently ridiculous. There's quite a lot of other, less conspicuous things that a driver needs to be aware of (such as pedestrians or potholes).

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Re:A Type of Road Junction that Kills Cyclists by njarboe on Wednesday January 10, 2018 @01:37AM (#16112963)
A roundabout might cost less. I wonder how much of that signal price was getting grid electricity to the site.
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Re:A Type of Road Junction that Kills Cyclists by larkeith on Wednesday January 10, 2018 @01:53AM (#16113012)
Interestingly, there is a flashing red/yellow light there (similar to [1]) and plenty of houses/powerlines, so it shouldn't be the power costs. I imagine the price of buying and laying signal cable might be similarly expensive, however, as the nearest signaled intersection is about two miles away, if I recall correctly.

[1] https://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/intersection/other_topics/fhwasa...

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