skidmarks

Idiots guide to road safety budget allocation based on first year rate of return. Which is based on statistics and not who shouts the loudest. Cost to society of road traffic accidents by severity at 2005 cost rates Damage only ? ?1,590 (Damage only are not always reported to police) Slight injury - ?18,130 Serious Injury - ?179,210 Fatal ? ?1,558,290 Ok, let us assume there have been 8 damage only and one slight injury at this junction in the last 36months. Step 1; Cost of accidents over last 36months (8 x ?1,590) + (1 x ?18,130) Average cost per accident = ?30,850 Annual cost per year = ?10,283 Step 2; The road safety engineer will now examine the collisions and decided how many could have been prevented by engineering measures; obviously not all of them can be prevented from reoccurring but for case we assume that they will be. I think people have decided there are two options for this junction being signalisation (design and build costs approx ?120k) or softer measures such as improvements to sight lines or banned movements (design and build costs ?35k). %FYRR (signals) = (?10,283 x 100) / ?120,000 = 8.6% %FYRR (soft measures) = (10,283 x 100) / ?35,000 = 39% This is very simplistic as we have assumed all future accidents will be prevented but as pointed out signals have their own inherent risks and the softer measures don?t always work.

I still say taking the centre line road marking out will give the illusion of a narrower road and slow drivers, as we did here. Even if it didn't work it would only cost the day rate of a line marking team of ?500. http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Forest+Row&sll=53.800651,-4.064941&sspn=18.231357,39.331055&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Forest+Row,+East+Sussex,+United+Kingdom&ll=51.09388,0.052244&spn=0,0.009602&z=17&layer=c&cbll=51.09388,0.052244&panoid=dWFgNqVyBXxzE2sBhh8lJg&cbp=12,280.17,,0,7.92

trentk69 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Hi James Barber - are you saying that the report > says that there has only been 5 collisons at the > Barry Road - Underhill road in the past 3 years? > > If this is the case, then this is very wrong. I > would say there has been at least 5 collisons > there this year alone - probably more. > > I hear and see them all the time from my house. > Earlier this year the crashes there were coming > thick and fast - approximately one a week for the > space of about a month... > > Cheers The accidents you have seen are damage only and these accidents are not recorded. There have been 5 collisions in the last 3 years that resulted in an injury (slight, serious or fatal) to someone. Road safety money is allocated to reduce injury and rightly so, not to reduce the number of broken headlights and dented egos.

Waynetta drafts her next top tip. Artist?s impression. http://www.boh3m3.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/monkey-typewriter.jpg

So what is wrong with Sheepdog's girlfriend is her bum getting too big or is unwilling to change at Baker Street?

daizie Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > SUGGESTION. Try a bit of `rodeo sex`. Take her > from behind and, holding on tightly to her jugs, > call her by the wrong name. See how long you can > `stay mounted` for . And have all your mates hiding in the wardrobe ready to jump out and chant ?rodeo rodeo rodeo? until you?re kicked off, stabbed and burnt alive.

You?re going to look a bastard, so you might as well go the whole hog and be a total bastard by shagging her and then dumping her afterwards.

They are to allow cyclists to ride up from the carriageway up on to the footway and vice-versa, which allows them to use a Toucan type signalled crossing (they have the cycle symbol next to the green man) to cross the road, you can just see the zig-zag road markings for the crossing in your third photo. Edit: Just checked google maps. Yes it is the Toucan crossing by Friern Road it is to give a safe crossing point for cyclists into the Peckham Rye park. Cost wise...not much when compared to the signals themselves which cost around ?50k with civils works to install. The layout is not unusual in London, they are installed when it is considered unsafe for cyclists to try and turn right across traffic. An extract from the cycling standards is attached.

Ah, found out who designed it. The Project Centre. I have never been impressed with their work, all their staff are contract and straight off the boat from the Australia. (I am biased though as they are a competitor) http://www.projectcentre.co.uk/news.php?id=13 Check out the last paragraph. Ha

SCSB79 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Slightly off topic but.... > > Temporary lights - why don't they time these to > take into consideration cyclists using the part of > road that the lights are on? > I cycle home, using Rye Lane to get up to ED and > went through the lights near the station on green > and by the time I reached the other set of lights > cars were already coming towards me as their light > was now green. I certainly am not the slowest > cyclist out there! They do. On the controller you tell it how far the signals are apart, which changes the clearance time. This probably hasn?t been set correctly on the ones on Rye Lane. (They weren?t even working yesterday when I went through). With regards to the contra flow cycle lane, the scheme design looks as if it was headed by landscape architects who took no account of design standards. Ask to see the Road Safety Audit and see if the issue was raised about demarcation and then ask to see what the designer?s response was to the safety issue (my bet is that they ignored it).

No poison needed. Get these guys down for a holiday. http://www.ratting.co.uk/ Poison is a crap way of killing anything, it is slow and painful which ends withy the rat dying usually somewhere inaccessible and stinking the place out.

katie1997 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > street lighting is a nice novelty I must say :) Yeah my speciality was to shatter the outer heat shield of the bulb so the orange street lights would not get hot enough and would glow a bright pink. I had the whole village looking like a big brothel once. I was a good shot, I guess that was down to being given an air rifle for my third birthday, it was taller than me. Looking back I would have preferred to got drunk on a park bench with a load of teenage girls of my age than knackering the Parish councils street lighting budget. *sigh*

Have to agree with you on that one Brum. I grew up in a small village and there were around 5 other people of my age group. You couldn?t get out of the village as rural bus services were cut in the mid 80?s - we were trapped! My teenage years of consisted of shooting all the street lights in the village with my .177 air rifle, making petrol bombs and digging under a second world war nissin hut to make a hide out for me and my mates. I hit 17 and passed my driving test in 2 weeks so I could escape?to the nearest town?which was pretty small and like most rural towns full of drugs, to relieve the boredom I guess (the town was mentioned on channel4 news last week in an article on antisocial behaviour ruining peoples lives). Now when I talk to people of my age group that grew up in the cities you realise they grew up a lot quicker than we did, they were doing things that we could never do, some of them have a lot more ?issues? I?ve noted as they got involved with things probably at a far too early age.

There is a story in the local Brighton paper about someone sticking needles and screws in to apples and putting them in a field with horses. People think that it is yobs but I don?t think so, yobs chuck bricks and are spur of the moment. This is premeditated and would have taken time to prepare my guess would be that it is an older, angry type man, you know the type, the ones who nearly burst a blood vessel when their neighbours trees shed some leaves on their garden or something equally unimportant in the grand scheme of things. They?re bored and get stressed over things that other people wouldn?t think twice about. Unless they?re sick serial killers in the making.

Medley Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Ah, gotcha. > > So it's like the rail companies in other words. > A little different to the train companies as TfL collect the fares directly where train companies collect fares from passengers and keep it. The train companies play around with their passenger numbers to make sure they get maximum subsidy from the government when revenue from fares should be offset from the subsidy. The way TfL manage the buses as implemented by Ken is much better as they have full control.

Medley Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Sorry, skidmarks, but you can't have it both ways. > > > Either: > there is no such thing as a profitable route for a > bus company in London only for TfL who collects > the money. (your 1st post) > > Or: > It is up to the bus operator to provide that > service for that money, the bus company makes > their profits by cutting costs. (your 2nd post). > > Sorry, I was not clear in my first post. What I meant is that the bus operator are paid a fixed price to run a route by TfL. All the risk is with TfL TfL promote and collect all revenue that service makes. A number of routes may generate more income from passengers than the cost TfL pay the operator - great for TfL. Many routes the cost to TfL will be more than what they collect in passenger revenue. The bus operator always make a profit as the risk is with TfL?unless they run a poor service and are fined.

Lee Scoresby Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- whole stupid corrupted tender system which our > masters impose on us. > I would say it is a fair system what we have in London. We end up with the lowest cost (unless the operators collude) and a level service and all profits from increased patronage go back to TfL to improve bus services somewhere else. The other way is what other cities where it is not regulated do; bus operators provide services on the profitable routes and the local council pay bus operators for services on non-profitable routes. What you end up with top notch service (at profitable times) on key routes by multiple operators with different colour buses resembling something out of scrap heap challenge. In London TfL choose the routes decide the level of service and pay an operator to run that service?.imagine if say Stagecoach did this, do you think you?d have a night bus at 4am on a Tuesday? TfL collects all the money from fares and uses it to pay for all the services in London.

Applespider Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I can understand them not forking out to add the > countdown timers to every bus stop in London in > the current climate, useful though it would be. > > But since the information is already out there > driving the existing Countdown stops, couldn't > they put it online in some format so that you > could at least check it on your phone from the bus > stop - or your computer before you leave the > house? Make it an iPhone app and I'd even pay for > it... This coming it is called Ibus. Countdown is being phased out Here http://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/projectsandschemes/11560.aspx

Medley Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > > You must be joking. How come FirstGroup, > Stagecoach et al - who are used to absolutely > bumper profits from their operations - bother > operating London bus routes then? No, TfL tenders a bus contract as follows. We want double decked buses no older than 5 years to the following timetable - 6 an hour 24 hours a day on the 37 route. It goes out to three bus operators, they come back with a price, TfL go with the cheapest. (Simplistic I know but there are bonus and fines as well). That is regulation It is up to the bus operator to provide that service for that money, the bus company makes their profits by cutting costs. All revenue from fares goes to TfL. The protest we saw today is TfL is reducing it subsidies but still wants the same level of bus service and the operators are cutting costs by freezing driver pay etc. they make their bumper profits by winning new routes from other operators and providing the service for less money than they?re been paid by TfL

The grass is always greener. The bus you want never turns up but as you wait every other route arrives at least twice. It is just sod?s law?except when it comes to the 63 there are bloody hundreds of them! All the bus companies are paid by TfL to provide a minimum level of service, there is no such thing as a profitable route for a bus company in London only for TfL who collects the money. TfL tracks and monitors the bus routes through random checks, if two buses turn up at the same time TfL class this as one bus and only pay the company for one. It is in the bus company best interest to distribute the services evenly. If you complain about a route enough to TfL something will happen. The best thing Ken did is reverse what Thatcher did and regulate the buses in London once again.

Best location would be near the station I would expect. Can you take the bike home over night and bring it back to the station in the morning, otherwise I can?t see much reason using it unless you were going to ride all the way into London? I wonder if the scheme will be successful in residential areas.

Do the free walking tour too, you meet outside the starbucks by the Brandenburg Gate around 12.30. There is a good pub on Oranieburger Str at the junction with Tucholskystra#e it has loads of different bottled beers to try and does a really good schnitzel. The street has loads of place to drink actually. Just realised I still have giggirl?s DVD. Whoops

We stayed at the Mark Apart Hotel 3 star. It was good and clean. I found it on Expedia which has some pretty good rates 15% off I think and it worked out ?60 a night with breakfast. The location is pretty good, you just had to walk up to the Zoologischer Garten train station to head into town which is about 10mins

Funny you should bring this up today http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-11309181

A dyslexic man walks into a bra.....