"History will be kind to us, because we will write it"
Caitlin has sent in these pictures with this explanation:
So here are the pictures I took of the aftermath. It happened at the top of the hill where the Cohen street extension comes past the Westfield Bus Station.
It’s a horrible intersection, and while cars are meant to give way to any buses coming or going, they just don’t.
I’ve witnessed a lot of near misses, and it was only a matter of time before something this bad happened.
The car ran into the bus around 2.15 this afternoon, it was the bus before ours, doing the 71 route.
Apparently another car went in front of the bus, and the bus honked at it, this girl hesitated then tried to make it through before the bus and this happened.
There were 3 passangers in the car, and they all walked away from the accident, and were taken to the hospital by ambulance.
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Tsk tsk tsk…
One more person that will learn what give way means I guess!
Buzz
Bus 1. Car 0.
It’s just a car, as long as no-one was hurt that’s the main thing.
Of course, it is a pretty silly accident.
how can you not see a bloody bus right in front of you?
Cars are obviously vulnerable, flippant about road rules, and have the potential to cause serious accidents. They should be banned from public roads for their own safety.
…all the signage in the world isn’t going to stop accidents there… it is a very confusing intersection to approach, what; with all the give way signs and big red patch on the road, it’s hard to work out who should go first. And it is only a huge bus you risk hitting if you get it wrong… more needs to be done! [TFIC]
Classified said :
I hope that the next accident isn’t her running over her 5 y.o. by confusing brake and gas pedal…
How can a give way sign be confusing?? Personally I would have a stop sign there, but that still might confuse people??
Gerry-Built said :
I actually think its quite simple. You give way to any buses you see. They are bigger and hurt you more than you hurt them
Bloody silly intersection, which is an accident waiting to happen, especially the speed at which buses come up the hill towards the bus station. Maybe what is needed to balance things out is a speed bump on the bus lane just before the intersection, a bit like the speed bump in the car lane heading the other way.
Ian said :
Pretty simple, isn’t it…?
This was bound to happen,
I ride past it every day and avoid crossing there with a passion (wait at the traffic lights instead of cutting across using the ‘bike path’).
I’ve driven down that way too in a car (where the accident is) and you have to be extremely careful at the junction.
At least it wasn’t a person getting hit this time! (Chan St Crossing!)
Ian said :
What he said.
Plus those give way signs look abnormally large, im quite surprised somebody can miss them. They won’t, but it would be nice if they (the car owner) got a fine for negligent driving.
JC said :
Yep. Agreed. It was only matter of time before this happened. Such a stupidly designed intersection.
Gerry-Built said :
I hope that is laced with sarcasm.
http://www.nearmap.com/?ll=-35.239104,149.064085&z=21&t=h&nmd=20110902
Honestly, what is so hard about it? You slow down, check left and right, then proceed straight? If you’re not sure where to drive, stop the car, look ahead and follow the markings on the road?
If you can’t do that, you should probably go hand your license in.
JC said :
A speed hump to slow buses down? Not a good idea to slow down buses approaching an intersection when they have right of way, that causes accidents by other vehicles trying to beat the bus through the intersection. Plus, visibility of oncoming vehicles at that intersection is not obstructed, and vehicles (esp. large green and orange) are hard to miss.
From my experiences, if the intersection is approached with caution, there is ample time and opportunity to give way to buses. Inexperienced drivers may find it difficult to negotiate, however, the size and amount of signage should make it clear who has right of way.
Henry82 said :
There’s not one, but two large give way signs I can see in that picture. Now, if I remember my road rules correctly, unlike most people, that means that you need to give way to the cross traffic..
I hope the car driver has a insurance and a cheque book. The fine for negligent driving, plus forking out for a new car, plus paying back ACTION for breaking their almost new bus will be quite expensive.
Henry82 said :
One of the biggest problems is that it doesn’t look like a normal intersection. The giant red markings on the road combined with the strange speed hump and one way nature of the street makes it confusing. I’ve had numerous passengers ask the usual, “what the hell?”, “are we allowed to drive down here?”, “what kind of stupid intersection is this?”.
tg_703 said :
Not to mention the effect on passengers when a bus goes over a speed hump at 50kph. I have a bad back and the unpleasantly wild ride in some buses puts me off from getting on one.
JC said :
The city planner behind it needs a kick up the arse.
Not a good spot for an intersection….right on a corner!
I’ll concede that the entire Wesfield bus stop/interchange is pretty poorly designed for passengers and traffic, but anyone who is confused by this intersection should head down to the nearest Government shopfront and surrender their licence.
On a similar note, the number of Canberra drivers I see who are baffled by 4-way unsignalled intersections is both astounding and disturbing.
arescarti42 said :
’tis indeed…
It is a difficult intersection (as anything a little different is), but there is ample direction to “get it right”.
TFIC – Tongue Firmly in Cheek, not the ‘other’ meaning…
there are also (clearly obvious in first photo) huge letters on the road that spell out “G-I-V-E W-A-Y”… in case a driver misses the oversize signs either side… and they are right behind a speed hump… I don’t recall what the signs above the Give Way signs says, but I think it is about buses…
Posted give way sign, a massive ‘give way’ printed on road and a dotted line across the road. The driver must have been sleeping at the wheel.
Mysteryman said :
^— this
Of course, everyone here on RA is well above average in driving competence. We’re not the problem. Has the driver involved made a post/comment here? See?
The gummint (rightly or wrongly) habitually caters to the lowest common denominator. This intersection fails in that regard.
Keijidosha said :
I totally agree, when I am confronted with an intersection that confuses me I slow down and then stop if required. This intersection is pretty easy though. You have a giant red lane that intersects your road. Without any other signage I would take it you need to stop for the big red lane. I have no idea what the red means but it isn’t normal so it must be important to give way.
Intersections with more than two stop signs messed with me the first time I saw one so surprisingly I came to a stop then thought about it and proceeded. The general rule of give way to your right works well like on a roundabout works well.
The problem with the intersection is that is completely unintuitive.
In most situations I can think of, traffic turning at a cross intersection must give way to traffic travelling ahead. Or if you think of the interchange as a kind of parking area, traffic on the road has right of way over traffic turning into/out of the interchange. It doesnt matter how many give way signs you throw at it, people’s very first instinct (thats instinct, before thinking enters the equation) at that intersection will be that they have right of way over the bus.
Theres a usability principle that you don’t make your user think, but rely on previously ingraned behaviour to improve flow and experience. Granted, it’s a web design principle, but I think it applys pretty well to designing any system that other people will need to use.
In this case, you’ve flipped the usual rule on it’s head. The give way signs, red patch of road, etc, elict in a first time user a mindset of “wait, wot?”. You then get the slow down, maybe go again, slow, while they figure out these new rules that their ingrained (and trained) behaviour is resisting. At best, they screw up the flow of traffic. At worst, they drive in front of a bus.
Additionally, no driver is ever fully switched on 100% of the time. Sad, but true. I believe that road design needs to account for that as best as possible. If someone is acting on auto-pilot at this intersection and assume they have the right of way, they are likely to run into grief.
Yes, this car was obviously in the wrong. But the whole thing could have been avoided in the first place if the intersection didn’t go against the convention that drivers are used to.
Henry82 said :
I think they will if the car did go through the Give Way sign and made contact with the Bus.