[Secret_squirrel]

Friendly warning.  Ashley Neal’s gone full on troll (if he wasnt already).  If you havent seen his latest piece of them and us trash I’d block him before your blood pressure goes up like mine.

Do a favour and dont link it on here. (though Im sure it will be on the live blog soon).

Topic

[Hirsute]

Thanks for the extra replies

Thanks for the extra replies but I can’t make head not tail of the lights

The first light here is green for ahead but red at the next one.

What does the second light mean and what is it for ?

[HoarseMann]

I don’t think a dual-head

I don’t think a dual-head will help, as you would still get an amber next to the ahead lane 2, when it’s only a signal for left turning traffic.

I think the best option would be to change the lights on the left to be the same as in this recent NMotD, so that no amber is shown when the left filter becomes active.

https://road.cc/content/news/driver-rams-cyclist-after-traffic-light-filter-turns-green-298305

[Moist von Lipwig]

This light sequence and

This light sequence and arrangement has taken a bit of time to get my head around.  As stated by others already – I think AN has totally failed to incorprate this analysis of the lights into that incident.

I think the cyclist has jumped the lights either a) on amber to get the head start without realising what the arrangement is or has been induced to by the (technically correct – I’ve asked a traffic signals designer) signals.  The dedicated left turn does need a secondary signal.  But, Lane 2 straight ahead is controlled by the left hand signals on the primary and the lane 3 turn right is controlled by the right hand set of signals.  On the secondary set in the middle of the road, lane 2 straight head is then controlled by the right hand set of signals.  The secondary for lane 3 is only a couple of metres behind the primary to the right of about where the white car is, you wouldn’t really associate that with the secondaries in the middle of the road to realise the right hand set controls lane 2 and not lane 3.  That is most likely misleading and imo is the probable cause, as in the ASL you don’t look at the primary with the straight ahead arrow, you look at the secondary right in front of you.   The left turn in the tram track avoidance marking sort of makes it look associated to the secondary left turn arrow.  And all the signals are hooed to prevent see through, which makes the primaries harder to see from the ASL.

What my colleague did say is you would expect the right hand secondaries to be a dual head so you would have 3 sets of signal heads together that would mirror the primary heads.  That, I think, would remove the confusion.

If this incident was reported it;ll be included in the stage 3 road safety audit on completion of the works and possibly bring about a change to the design that way (and also trigger a stage 4 to check up on it a year later).

[mattw]

To me he hasn’t gone through

To me he hasn’t gone through a red light; he’s followed a Green Filter arrow ahead next to the straight ahead lane, which he is in.

There is a red light for the turn right lane, and one on the left of the road for the turn left lane.

[mattw]

hirsute wrote:

Still can’t get my head around why you would have a turn left arrow on the far ride right of a road where you can go more than one direction. How can that meet any basic design standard ?

Looking at Streetview it isn’t actually on the far right side of the road. There is a third lane to the right of the traffic lights shown and the straight ahead lane crossing the junction, which peels off to turn right down York Place.

I really don’t know what that left filter arrow relates to – perhaps the left turn onto York Place, but it is placed to the RHS of the straight ahead lane.

 

 

[brooksby]

chrisonatrike wrote:

Here’s the junction with these highlighted.  Note you are guided from right, over tracks then swing to left to line you up to go down Broughton Street ahead.  Note also the lights – particularly the one on the right.  Is it crystal clear that those in the left two lanes should only turn left and not proceed straight at this point?

That junction/area is such a mess.  TBH I’d probably just dismount and use pedestrian crossings, if faced with that… 

(Hey, maybe that’s the intention: “If we make it confusing and messy enough, none of those pesky cyclists will actually use it”)

[mattw]

Excellent analysis, though I

Excellent analysis, though I think you are too hard on the cyclist. The sequencing seems to mean that they got a “green – go across”, follwoed by a “grren arrow – follow the cycle lane”, where both are entirely misleading due to the positioning of the traffic lights.

When the cyclist “went through on red”, he had a more suitably positioned traffic light showing green arrow ahead.

The blame is 90% on the murderous incompetence of Edinburgh Council.

I think the mistake that Ashley makes sometimes is to give insufficient weight to poor infrastructure. He’s right about the cammer in his vid being 0% at fault, but wrong in asserting that all that is left – 100% – is down to the person on the bike. Too much faith in junction designers on this occasion.

I commented on that thread over on his Channel, so I’ll put an update on now that I have been thinking about it.

[HoarseMann]

Pretty sure it won’t meet the

Pretty sure it won’t meet the standards.

Some countries put filters on red lights. If you had a red arrow filter for ahead, then it might be clearer that it was still forbidden to go straight over. But in the UK we only put directional filters on the green signal, we rely on red lights on both sides of the road to signal a stop.

[Hirsute]

Still can’t get my head

Still can’t get my head around why you would have a turn left arrow on the far ride right of a road where you can go more than one direction. How can that meet any basic design standard ?

[chrisonabike]

Probably covers it. The
Probably covers it. The junction is confusing, under construction (so this area changes) and may yet finish up bad when done. So with further consideration I’d say the cyclist was likely as careful as Ashley is in his judgement of cycling in this vid. Spin that whichever way you like!

[Secret_squirrel]

What an utterly FUBAR

What an utterly FUBAR junction.  Whats the betting you could catch many different sorts of vehicle RLJing in just 10 mins with a camera out of sheer confusion?

[Secret_squirrel]

chrisonatrike wrote:

Great stuff!

Thanks for this.  Those crazy lane markings are an eye opener.

[JustTryingToGetFromAtoB]

Looks like the conclusion is
Looks like the conclusion is horrible junction, not brilliant cycling.

I’m not planning to watch the video as I don’t really want to contribute to Ashley’s new years resolution to generate more clicks. However based on the informative comments it sounds like it can be summarised as somewhat accurate in areas, woeful lack of cycling knowledge that he will never admit to and one-sided and emotive to appeal to his base… probably deliberately so which is cynical and manipulative. Urggghhh.

[HoarseMann]

I’ve watched it again and I

I’ve watched it again and I think what’s happened here, is the cyclist is waiting in the cycle box at the red lights, then as the lights either side of them have turned amber, they’ve gone for it. I’m guilty of that sometimes, trying to get a head start over the baying drivers behind.

They probably didn’t even see the green light to their right was a left-turn arrow, they were past it before it illuminated. It’s a highly unusual arrangement and an illogical placement of a left-turn arrow. I can see this happening again if the junction signals are not improved. 

[Hirsute]

The comments on the YouTube
The comments on the YouTube sight are about 99% blaming the cyclist
A handful give the sort of insight here. It does seem the cyclist made an error thinking it was green for ahead. Also one comment was that the junction is constantly changing and could be different from yesterday!

[Author]

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