My wife’s cousin is a traffic engineer in the metro area and when we complained about the traffic lights disrupting the flow of traffic, he said that’s why they are called stop lights and not go lights. Heh heh. Then went on to say that when stop lights are installed at an intersection, accidents go up. Go figure. Color blind?
I have developed a dim view of the MNDOT planners though in the last few years. No problem spending a few million putting in a round-about where really none was needed. The latest was a half million re-doing an intersection to restrict cross traffic like it has been for 70 years to eliminate the high accident rate. There was one two years ago.
Then we have a two lane road that develops into a single lane freeway entrance, but just before that has an access intersection for a residential road. So the spent north of $900,000 putting in a left turn lane. So now we have three lanes approaching the freeway entrance. So folks in a hurry speed up in the left lane only to discover they need to change to the right lane for the freeway entrance. Never seen the wisdom in that one except it puts all the pot holes in the turn lane instead of the drive lane. Maybe it’s in the 20 year plan to re-do the freeway entrance.
What I’m seeing is an arrow that seems to show a vehicle that missed the immediate right turn and had to enter the circle to make their right turn (which of course has merely turned into a normal exit from the circle). No problem; I assume the vehicles taking the immediate right are supposed to yield to the vehicles exiting the circle.
First of all - we don’t say ‘accident’, we say ‘crash’ ‘Accident’ implies that something was completely unpreventable.
Yes, certain types of crashes tend to increase when a traffic signal is installed, especially rear-end crashes. But these tend to be minor injury or property damage only, whereas the really bad ones (e.g., angle crashes, head-on) are significantly reduced.
I’m not sure why you would be opposed to MNDOT restricting turns at an intersection for safety, just because people have been getting killed/injured there for 70 years. The question I usually ask is if your loved ones were killed/injured at the intersection, would you still be okay with the status quo? Yes, not being able to make a direct turn is annoying, but the lives being saved are part of other people’s families…
That entrance ramp thing does sound messy, they probably should’ve added some additional signage or not approved the access road there in the first place…
Heh heh. Some of us will always call them accidents regardless of the efforts to re-program us. Now down south they’ve been calling them wrecks for years or rayeks. Used to be fun listening to them on the radio. “There was a two car rayek out on 99 by the county line.
Sheriff Homer is investigating”. I always learned though when crossing an intersection to watch for traffic before proceeding. Just can’t engineer every hazard out of driving. My tax dollars at work.
‘Accident’ implies that something was completely unpreventable.