Pedestrian hit by biker - biker trying to claim from pedestrian

Lum

JQ. wrote: »

But according to the Maps link you posted the right lane is for straight on or turn right. And using streetview indicates that there is not a seperate light for turn right, that would have the impact you are suggesting.




If that is the correct junction, then the lights were either red or green. Based on the witness it sounds like they were on green.

Nope, junctions that look just like that exist where the left hand set of lights operate on a different sequence to the right hand set of lights.

There's a load of them in South Wales. I hate them as they are likely to cause exactly this sort of confusion.

Here is a street view link to one in Newport which shows how much of a problem it is as they have had to put up a sign saying "Right turn wait for green signal" because of right turners proceeding when the left hand light is on green.

NBLondon

Lum wrote: »

There's a load of them in South Wales. I hate them as they are likely to cause exactly this sort of confusion.

That's a crap bit of design then isn't it? How much more effort/money would it take to have the left lane be a "straigh-ahead" arrow and the right lane a "turn right" one? Just change the lens surely?

JQ.

Lum wrote: »

Nope, junctions that look just like that exist where the left hand set of lights operate on a different sequence to the right hand set of lights.

There's a load of them in South Wales. I hate them as they are likely to cause exactly this sort of confusion.

Here is a street view link to one in Newport which shows how much of a problem it is as they have had to put up a sign saying "Right turn wait for green signal" because of right turners proceeding when the left hand light is on green.

Have you looked at the overhead shot the OP linked to? The example you've linked to is completely different, where one lane is left only and the other lane is right only.

The junction the OP has linked to has both lanes as straight ahead, but you can turn right from right lane, hence the queueing traffic in the right hand lane. There's nothing confusing about the junction, looks like any other normal road junction to me.

Lum

^^ I have. But I wouldn't put it past someone to still attempt to use this design in that situation. It is a very cheap design, much cheaper than filter arrows. Maybe they will have put arrows in place of the standard green lens and somehow think that's ok, but that still wont have stopped the OP's wife from looking across and seeing a red light.

NBLondon wrote: »

That's a crap bit of design then isn't it? How much more effort/money would it take to have the left lane be a "straigh-ahead" arrow and the right lane a "turn right" one? Just change the lens surely?

Yes, it's a crap design, I am not defending them at all. I hate them.

Even if they had green arrows this would not have prevented the OP's wife's accident as she still would have seen a red light and presumed it was safe to cross.

The correct solution is to have two green lights, one for straight ahead and one for right turn. The lights would then rotate through a normal red/amber/green cycle. At the time of this accident they would have been showing two straight ahead green arrows. The OP's wife would have looked and saw a green light, or at least would have seen the absence of a red light, and most likely decided not to cross. If this is a common place for people to cross then perhaps converting it into a pelican crossing would also help.


However all road users have to make do with what is put there and deal with it, unless they can show negligence on the part of the council. In this case* it could be argued that the pedestrian should have checked both lights (and looked for oncoming traffic) and therefore contributed to the accident to some degree.


* based on the assumption that this junction is indeed one of the stupid designs that I describe above.

PollyOnAMission

Looking at the set of lights further ahead (the middle green light in the distance when you look at that picture), it seems to be L shaped thus suggesting a right turn filter arrow. To me that suggests the lights on either side operate on the same cycle, but the extra filter arrow comes on when traffic coming from the other direction has stopped. So right turners can either proceed with caution under the "normal" green light if nothing is coming, or wait for the filter arrow which will come on when the way should be clear.

Is this right?

JQ.

PollyOnAMission wrote: »

Looking at the set of lights further ahead (the middle green light in the distance when you look at that picture), it seems to be L shaped thus suggesting a right turn filter arrow. To me that suggests the lights on either side operate on the same cycle, but the extra filter arrow comes on when traffic coming from the other direction has stopped. So right turners can either proceed with caution under the "normal" green light if nothing is coming, or wait for the filter arrow which will come on when the way should be clear.

Is this right?

Yes that's exactly how I see it.

The choice are :
Red - Stop
Single green - both lanes ok straight on
single green + filter green = both lanes ok straight on and right turn ok

JQ.

Lum wrote: »

^^ I have. But I wouldn't put it past someone to still attempt to use this design in that situation. It is a very cheap design, much cheaper than filter arrows. Maybe they will have put arrows in place of the standard green lens and somehow think that's ok, but that still wont have stopped the OP's wife from looking across and seeing a red light.

But they have'nt, it's quite clear from streetview, there's no ambiguity. The junction is quite clear - a pedestrian will either see red or green when looking left. Trying to compare the junction to a completely different one just confuses the issue.

Lum

I didn't notice the filter arrow in the distance. I was just trying to provide a possible explanation for why the pedestrian saw red and the biker+witness saw green.

Given what you have said, that means that two people claim it was green and the pedestrian claims it was red. The independent witness will swing it.. the pedestrian was mistaken in thinking it was red and stepped out in front of the oncoming bike.

The case will then go on how close the bike was, and how fast they were going, when the pedestrian stepped out. Could the bike have reasonably stopped in time and was their speed reasonable for that situation?

Did the witness say anything about those?

JQ.

That's my thoughts. Looking at the streetview, the pedestrian would be partially shielded by the low wall, with only half their body visible, which when standing next to the traffic light collumn it could actually be very difficult to see them. Added to the fact that a biker would be cautious of a car suddenly swinging out from the stationary traffic to the right, it's quite feasible a bike wouldn't see a pedestrian standing at the side of the road. Pedestrian looks at lights, mistakenly thinks they're on red and steps into the road - bang. Not much a biker can do to avoid a collision.

Obviously, this is making certain assumptions, that could actually be incorrect :

• That this is the actual junction
• That the road layout hasn't changed since the Google car went passed
• That the witness and biker were correct in that is was a green light.

Lum

It's also interesting if you look at the wear patterns on that road.

It looks like the vast majority of drivers who are in L2 end up turning right. There appears to be no wear marking showing people going straight ahead from L2.

From this it is probably safe to conclude that, unless the junction has a really generous right turn filter, it will be common to see people queueing stationary waiting to turn right while L1 flows freely straight ahead.

It's also common to find at least one idiot who believes that the presence of an unlit filter arrow overrides the round green light and thus they will not enter the junction and instead queue behind the stop line unnecessarily, giving the impression of a red light being on to those who cannot see the lights.

People who do that annoy me. I have been known to assume that they're broken down and their hazards don't work, so carefully undertake them (while checking for cars in L1 and pedestrians crossing, of course) and make a perfectly legit right turn on green. I wonder if this is what the biker did, sans the pedestrian check?