Yesterday Salem Reporter published on a welcome sign drivers keep hitting.
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| via FB |
They say,
Since 2021, the sign has been struck at least once a year....“There has been no official determination for why the sign is frequently damaged,” according to Trevor Smith, spokesman for Salem’s Public Works Department....The frequent damage to the sign began a year after it was built [in 1994].
Seemingly, it's a mystery why it happens.
But this is centrally a refusal to see, an instance of autoist blind spots.
Zooming out just a pinch, you see the sign at an intersection of stroads, overengineered for speed. The southbound continuation of River Road operates like a slip lane and even a highway exit lane.
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| Going South: Big stroads, overengineered for speed |
Drivers are going at high rates of speed here.
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| Going North: "Do not enter" and sweeping curve (rubble from a previous crash also!) |
In the other direction, there's a stroad with a sweeping curve and the "straight" movement is into that one-way slip lane.
The spandrel, the unused triangle in which the sign is mounted, is a result of engineering roads for speed and capacity.
Last minute lane decisions are a likely cause of at least some crashes. The problem to solve is high speed, and the solution is much slower speed. This is a drivers, driving, and car problem, not a sign location problem.
Even if the compound intersection is tricky, slower speeds allow drivers to parse the intersection and make unrushed decisions.
We might also compare it with similar "roadway departure" crashes.
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| Storefronts aren't safe (July) |
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| Sidewalks aren't safe (March 2022) |
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| Homes aren't safe (2017 via Twitter) |
The common denominator here is not roadside objects (or people) in the wrong place, which might be moved further away from the road as has been one traditional approach to "roadway departure" crashes. Houses and stores, not to mention people, even those some find objectionable, should be safe! The common denominator is driver error, speed, and roads that allow or even induce it.
Additionally when media erase the driver by saying "car hits" or "hit by car," journalism fails the topic and mystifies the event, making it an accident that falls from the sky at random and obscuring relevant detail, ultimately making it more difficult to find solutions. Dependence on car industry advertising revenue also does not help with any clarity.
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| Recently adopted MTSAP |
As we move to a "safe system approach," as the just-adopted Metropolitan Transportation Safety Action Plan does, and as Salem's Vision Zero Plan seems likely to do, we should acknowledge that three of these, "safer vehicles," "safer people," and "post-crash care," don't address the problems of these crashes. Mainly it's "safer speeds" and "safer roads" designed for slower speed.
2 comments:
You're ignoring the obvious problem for the Welcome sign. Keizer.
Yesterday's SJ also had a story about the "welcome" sign's damage. Maybe it's not necessary to mention, but it does totally ignore the Salem Reporter piece, which preceded it by a few days. Journalism is weird about that!
Other bits in it:
- Reiterates that the sign is inside the City of Salem and is Salem's problem to solve. (Not sure, Anon, how Keizer is to blame here, other than sharing a general approach to stroads. Also if you want to continue the conversation, please use a pseudonym.)
- Assigns blame to drunk drivers, but is silent on the road configuration that allows them to get up to speed. Blames individuals not any system problem.
- Exemplifying the point about car advertising revenue, it mentions "retired businessman" Dick Withnell's donations and interest in repairing it - but should instead say "retired car dealer"!
- Suggests the sign itself is functioning as a safety barrier, and that other interventions might harm motorists. But nothing about interventions to slow the stroads and make them safer for other road users. The only safety that matters is for those inside of cars.
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