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Why this British crossroads was so dangerous

Tom Scott · 3.9M views · 2020-04-27 · 4:12

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Overview

Tom Scott explains why Ipley Cross in England's New Forest was one of Britain's most dangerous junctions. The angled crossroads lets a car's A-pillar hide approaching traffic and cyclists because there is no relative motion in the driver's view.

On Hacker News

Used as the go-to visual demonstration of A-pillar blind spots and badly designed junctions.

Recommended by 3 HN people across 3 months · HN mentions 2020–2025

Topics

Transit, cities & urban planningUX & UI design
Search by tags
a-pillar blind spotroad designcyclist safetyintersectionsvisibility

What people said

DoughnutHole · 2022-08 · Recommendation

Tom Scott has a good video for anyone looking for a visual of this phenomenon: [VIDEO] He shows off a rural (and thankfully now fixed) crossroads in the UK with seemingly great visibility and an unusually high rate of cyclist fatalities - the roads are at such an angle that any reckless driving speed can align with a reasonable cycling speed such that the driver's door pillar can block visibility of a cyclist with right of way right up to the point of impact - and it's compounded by the fact that the car is necessarily approaching from behind the cyclist, so a passing cyclist will be unaware of the danger possibly until they get hit. Of course if drivers in the area actually followed the stop signs no one would get hit - but if you watch the video in a five minute period genuinely only about half of the cars passing through actually come to a complete stop at the stop sign. You need more than signage and quietly hoping that people to do the right thing.

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zinekeller · 2022-02 · Recommendation

The Wired reporting is based on Bez's article on Singletrack (as stated): [LINK] Tom Scott made a good complementary video about this: [VIDEO] It's already fixed just last month: [LINK] and [LINK]

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sitharus · 2020-04 · Recommendation

The Tom Scott video has a good animation on this: [VIDEO] Because of the layout of the junction the cars are actually approaching from behind the cyclists.

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Sources

Video by Tom Scott, played through YouTube.

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