Central Bedfordshire Council is rolling out new high-tech signs that detect cyclists on country lanes and warn motorists of their presence.
The council, which is seeking to encourage cycling, was looking for a way to help protect riders on country roads, where bends and hedgerows often result in limited visibility.
The result, developed by the UK subsidiary of Austria-based traffic technology company SWARCO on behalf of Jacobs Engineering, is a vehicle activated sign (VAS) which aims to make drivers aware of cyclists on the road ahead.
The solar powered signs will be deployed on defined detection zones of approximately 750 metres.
When radar sensors detect a cyclist entering the zone, the signs at either end flash up a warning to motorists who are driving at a speed in excess of a pre-defined threshold that a rider is ahead of them and they should slow down.
Paul Wright, technical estimator at SWARCO, said: “Jacobs asked us to design a scheme that would detect a cyclist in the lanes and alert motorists to their presence.
“The lanes leave both cyclists and motorists blind to one another, with high hedges that make it difficult to see the road ahead.”
He continued: “This project involved creating a bespoke solution tailored to the needs of Central Bedfordshire Council.
“Using our suite of best-in-class products and traffic technologies, we have created a reliable solution that will help improve driver awareness of vulnerable road users and increase safety for cyclists.”
According to a Pedal Cycling Road Safety Factsheet published last year by the Department for Transport, “55 per cent of fatalities, but only 31 per cent of pedal cycle traffic, takes place on rural roads.”
Besides the issues related to visibility mentioned above, another factor behind the higher-than-average fatality rate is that such roads typically have higher speed limits than those in urban areas, and with many drivers failing to tailor their speed to account for the conditions.
13 thoughts on “New warning signs warn drivers of cyclists on country lanes”
Oh goody, a new defence:
Oh goody, a new defence:
“My client only struck the cyclist as the warning signs were not clear | not working | had the sun on them | some other made up crap to excuse the fact that they were simply travelling too fast for the conditions and failed to observe properly.”
I’ve never had a hedge
I’ve never had a hedge following me down the road obscuring the view, I also like that the driver has to be speeding to get the notification… Another brilliant solution to people driving 2 tonnes of soundproofed living room dangerously!
Why not lower the speed limit
Why not lower the speed limit to the very max of 40mph on all minor NSL highways except trunk roads, put in restrictor devices in all motors plus all speed limit signs to have a sender unit in it to tell the motor that it cannot go above the limit, if it rains lower the limit by 15-20% automatically)
That would force the issue, not give weak recommendations which we know motorists ignore anyway otherwise there would be no need for these signs in the first place. Just more weak powder puff ‘solutions’ that won’t work, even less so because police/CPS/legal system is so mickey poor.
CyclingInBeastMode wrote:
Because we don’t have to crack walnuts with hammers. Alliston killed a ped at 18mph. 10mph on contact I seem to remember. 5mph limit for bikes in town centres? Need to be safe.
Rick_Rude wrote:
Alliston wasn’t found guilty of causing the pedestrian’s death, though he was found guilty of furious cycling. It was very unlucky that the pedestrian died from her fall and if she’d been wearing a helmet …
Rick_Rude wrote:
Ah. The “dead cat” tactic.
Rick_Rude wrote:
Totally not analgous at all!
But going by your thinking & given the death toll by pedestrians we should ban walking, in fact allowing people out at all on foot, it’s far more dangerous to society than people on bikes.
The chances of someone on a bike killing another is so remote that we cannot make the same rules despite the best efforts of the system to do exactly that which is part of the problem of encouraging a safe mode of travelling. Alliston was stitched up and had the law applied to him like no other motorist or pedestrian, an utter disgrace of a case, at worse he was guilty of a Construction and Regulation infraction, just like the killer of four cyclists who was done for bald tyres, we can’t be interpreting the law differently can we now?
We have to use a hammer because it’s not a walnut we are trying to crack, it’s a massive boulder that keeps on rolling and keeps on killing and maiming every single day far in excess of any so called ‘terrorist’ attacks for which we use deadly force to discourage!
CyclingInBeastMode wrote:
Because many minor national speed limit roads are safe to drive on above 40 mph.
Lets start with presumed liability.
pjm60 wrote:
+1 for presumed liability. Changing speed limits is a major change that would be unpopular with a lot of drivers, but it’s harder for them to argue against presumed liability. If a motorist complains that cyclists will be diving under cars in order to get insurance payouts, then the simple solution is to fit a dashcam.
Personally, I’m not convinced that changing speed limits will be that effective – I’d go for kitting out the police with eye-in-the-sky drones and employing a load of bored teenagers to fly them. Increasing enforcement would be more effective than just reducing the speed limits as it’s more likely to change the behaviour of some speeding motorists.
I’d also want there to be a bunch of mobile-using detection cameras e.g. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/dec/01/world-first-mobile-phone-detection-cameras-rolled-out-in-australia
Pointless.
Pointless.
Because some drivers already ignore other advisory warning signs like “Slow” and, “20 when lights flash”, and “School”.
Because some drivers already ignore other mandatory signs like “20”, “30”, “40” …
It’s just more expensive shit instead of re-education of drivers.
It’s almost like someone had RTFM for a standard warning sign and found they could draw a bike with the lights and punted it up to their eco brownie-point seeking boss.
Alliston caused ‘bodily harm
Alliston caused ‘bodily harm by wanton and furious driving’. She then died as a result of this bodily harm. End result is that he killed her. If a cyclist isn’t killed at the scene and then dies later we don’t say the driver didn’t kill them.
Rick_Rude wrote:
However, he was tried and found innocent of manslaughter, so it would be wrong to say that she died as a direct result of the bodily harm that Alliston caused. As I understand it, she died from her head hitting the road and her fall was a result of the collision, but you wouldn’t typically expect someone to die from that kind of fall. (e.g. You could bump into someone in the street and knock them over but if they happen to fall awkwardly and die from that, you wouldn’t necessarily be held responsible for their death). The bodily harm caused by Alliston was most likely bruising and although their heads collided, she didn’t die from that.
Collisions beteween cars and people typically have people dying from the extensive trauma later on, so it’s not really a fair comparison with the Alliston case.
I must be driving wrong, as
I must be driving wrong, as if there are narrow roads and lack of visibility, I slow down.