A hazard - where an event can happen with a damaging outcome can be identified, and then either eliminated or the risk of the event happening can be managed.
The principles apply everywhere and I reflect on the notoriety of a TfL cycle route where 3 cyclists have died in collisions with HGV’s. One of the drivers has been so traumatised that he’s vowed never to drive a truck again.
The cycle route is inherently unsafe, as the hazard of having a cyclist and any motor vehicle in the same place exists for 100% of the vehicles using the roundabout, as every one of them has to drive through the strip of blue paint to get on or off the A12. The only risk management is to rely on both drivers and cyclists, understanding and complying with the traffic signals. However the new traffic signals are so complicated that TfL has had to produce an animated video to show how to use them. This runs counter to the basic principle that any road user should be able to travel along any road and understand what the road signs mean, without having to look up additional instructions.
Fortunately over 60% of the cyclists here do their own safety management and ride over the flyover instead, where there is very little motor traffic (that’s all heading to/from the A12), and the possibility of any driver turning left is … pretty well impossible.
Looking at many of the other fatal crashes some very basic detail could have prevented them. Junctions where to make a left turn you need to put a large vehicle in an offside lane marked for travelling straight ahead, and then cut off any traffic in the nearside lane(s). This is serious gambling with safety as cars and other vehicles will all be coming up that nearside lane and have to have a non-standard priority forced on them to let the truck or coach turn the corner. Noted that this is not swinging out and turning but a full travelling in the offside lane and swinging across.
Drivers with hazardous loads pay special attention to such hazards, and will plan to make an alternative turn - for example turning right 3 times, using a roundabout or using an route which avoids that corner. Ultimately getting the road geometry fixed is the solution, but if that cannot be done a ban on left turns from the offside lanes may be a quick fix, but one that can add mileage and time, and relies again on compliance from the drivers of vehicles which cannot turn left from the nearside lane.
With some crashes being carbon copies of previous events at the same junction, or directly similar at different junctions with the same problem, the move to avoid killing people is to spot those hazards and apply sensible risk management. The quick fix is a ban on making the left turn or other manoeuvre, but the real fix is to make the move inherently safer.
Killing someone under the wheels of your truck can have a traumatic impact - the drivers who killed Deep Lee and Brian Dorling have been badly broken by their experience, and I once met a driver who in pre-tachograph days faced the “Take the load of get down the road” employer’s policy. He wiped out a family, by driving over their stalled car with a load of steel on. His attitude to driving without rest breaks was clearly formed, by his earlier experience.
So let’s debate. Road hazards which need to be removed or risk-managed. Are the users actually being listened to? Which left or right turns put you in fear of a potentially avoidable crash?