Yet Another Cycling Forum
General Category => On The Road => Topic started by: hellymedic on 03 September, 2017, 06:19:27 pm
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Child-shaped bollards have been installed on the kerbs near a primary school in Iver, Bucks.
Not everyone likes them.
I think they are an appropriate response to Buckinghamshire's Messieurs Toad.
Discuss.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-41130696/iver-child-bollards-aim-to-deter-speeding-outside-schools (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-41130696/iver-child-bollards-aim-to-deter-speeding-outside-schools)
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There are penguin versions in Dundee - I don't think a penguin has been injured there since they were installed, so it must be that the bollards have worked in protecting penguins :-)
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They're spooky and hideous and completely unlikely to kill or injure people, unlike the motor vehicles.
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Personally I'd drive everywhere at 70 mph. But then won't someone think of the children. Actually, I can't stand kids, so this is practically motorised ten pin bowling.
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They've at least tried to make them look like modern kids. The ones in Slimbridge look like schoolkids of the 1950s. I think they've been taken from a Jennings book.
(http://s0.geograph.org.uk/geophotos/02/73/57/2735722_b89705fd.jpg)
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I was going to mention those, Cudzo.
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You'll know how effective they are if someone gets done for trying to abduct one.
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Similarly, in Japan they put retro-reflective tape on the occasional telegraph pole by the road to mimic a Sam-Browne style high-vis belt. At night I found them to be a very effective control - If they startle you then you should be going slower. They must cost pennies too.
Edit: I wonder how many of the people who object to the fake children are really doing so because they were startled by them at night and subconsciously resent the implied condemnation of their driving habits? Or maybe I'm overthinking it.
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I don't think you're overthinking!
I suspect the objectors would be startled day AND night!
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Child-shaped bollards have been installed on the kerbs near a primary school in Iver, Bucks.
Not everyone likes them.
I think they are an appropriate response to Buckinghamshire's Messieurs Toad.
Discuss.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-41130696/iver-child-bollards-aim-to-deter-speeding-outside-schools (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-41130696/iver-child-bollards-aim-to-deter-speeding-outside-schools)
As the resident petrol head and speed freak. The creepier the better. France used to have white people shapes where people had died on the road.
We have discussed child run parents here many times and I am glad to see it is a country trait.
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The school run is most definitely not a rural trait!
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Child-shaped bollards have been installed on the kerbs near a primary school in Iver, Bucks.
Not everyone likes them.
I think they are an appropriate response to Buckinghamshire's Messieurs Toad.
Discuss.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-41130696/iver-child-bollards-aim-to-deter-speeding-outside-schools (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-41130696/iver-child-bollards-aim-to-deter-speeding-outside-schools)
As the resident petrol head and speed freak. The creepier the better. France used to have white people shapes where people had died on the road.
We have discussed child run parents here many times and I am glad to see it is a country trait.
France has black ones now. Especially near the coast it seems. They put a figure up for each death; mum, dad and two kids I have seen.
The Buckinghamshire ones look spooky all right. What will happen on Hallowe'en?
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The Buckinghamshire ones look spooky all right. What will happen on Hallowe'en?
Presumably they will come to life and wreak their revenge on the uncaring motorists?
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Seems like a great idea. Let's train drivers to recognise child-shapes as bollards and not as children. ::-) ::-) ::-) ::-) ::-) ::-) ::-) ::-)
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Surely all kids in Buckinghamshire don't go anywhere other than in the back of Mummy's Range Rover?
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Seems like a great idea. Let's train drivers to recognise child-shapes as bollards and not as children. ::-) ::-) ::-) ::-) ::-) ::-) ::-) ::-)
Yes, but............. Many drivers seem more reluctant to hit a bollard than a child so it may help.
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People are not going to confuse these bollards with real children or vice versa. The intention of these child-shaped bollards is to act as a warning device, an informal road sign.
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The intention of these child-shaped bollards is to act as a warning device, an informal road sign.
It's a temporary benefit though, the majority of people will get used to them and after that desensitisation usual behaviour returns, only now they may be less aware of real children at the side of the road as they dismiss similar looking things as bollards and unlikely to run out into the road unexpectedly.
Fixed speed cameras don't deter speeding everywhere, they deter speeding past the fixed speed cameras. Regular drivers on a route know where they are and slow down to within the limit to pass them.
For something like this to work they need to be moved around regularly (akin to the concept of the mobile speed trap).
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I remember some in Southampton a few years ago that were very similar to those in Cudzoziemiec's photo of the Slimbridge variety. After the initial shock of seeing them dies away they did indeed lose their impact. Until one morning when passing and someone had spray-painted red on their eyes. A truly disturbing effect only enhanced by the fact that the paint had run down their faces making it look as if they were crying blood!
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It's a fair point - novelty anything (with the possible exception of a novelty police ossifer or traffic warden) is a poor way to traffic-calm outside a school, because people driving outside schools tend to be parents/staff, local residents or rat-runners - all of whom will quickly acquire the relevant local knowledge.
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By novelty police I suppose you mean the novelty of a real one, as opposed to the cardboard cutouts sometimes placed at 'strategic' points.