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Comment by giamma

4 days ago

We should aim at better drivers rather than better intersections, but bad drivers are everywhere.

Years ago I worked in a building on the side of a long straight road. The road ended with a blind curve to the right and 100m before the blind curve there was a pedestrian crossing.

Even though all drivers knew they would need to brake for the blind curve (it was visible and there were signs) the majority of them used to drive very fast and basically did not let people cross the road, only to push very hard on the brakes 10 meters beyond the pedestrian crossing.

The road design is what causes bad or good driving. The road you describe should narrow before the blind curve so the drivers would (often enough unconsciously) slow down before it. For the pedestrian crossing, small islands that separate the lanes and give pedestrians a safe space will help.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bglWCuCMSWc

The bright side of roundabouts and (curbs) annd curves is that they create better (more cautious, observing) drivers, with minor consequences (like hitting a curb).

For lowering the high speed, we can also stack roundabouts, curbs (ie diverge and coverage the road).

The other positive of raised curbs is that we can add shrubbery as a natural traffic barrier, and there are some nice safety impacts from this too, such as reduced road runoff / flash flooding - and environmental factors like shade and cooling.