I'm on a road safety engineering workshop this week, and part of that is a crash reduction study.
We were given a short corridor to investigate, a short piece of Great South Road in Penrose. 1 major intersection, 3 minor intersections.
The greatest crash cause, consistently, is the way people turn across the bus lane when entering and leaving GSR. They are colliding with vehicles travelling in the bus lane.
Notably, of the 12 injury crashes in the 5 year period we looked at, 5 involved a motorcyclist, and 2 involved a cyclist.
Travelling in bus lanes is legal for motorcyclists, but it is simply one of the most hazardous things we can legally do. People just don't look for us travelling down the outside of traffic, whether we are in a bus lane, a cycle lane (illegally), or legally overtaking stationary vehicles on the left.
I can almost see the need for a public information campaign on this. But because nobody ever thinks it'll happen to them, I feel that the message would be lost.
The sad thing is, even before the site visit yesterday, I could have told you what the causes were likely to be. It's just that predictable.
So why don't we prevent it?
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