Priority and safety at Charlbury road junctions

Sun 18 Jan 2015, 10:26

This junction has seen a few collisions, but probably not enough serious ones to justify major works in the current financial climate.

The 4 way stop suggestion is rather good but unlikely to be adopted as it doesn't feature in UK motoring culture. Unfamiliarity = potential confusion, chaos and more minor accidents albeit at low speeds.

Simply changing the priorities to favour the Slade / Nine Acre, making the traffic leaving the town centre and that arriving from Enstone give way is a great low cost suggestion.

It is certainly the traffic from Enstone that arrives at the crossroads at the highest speeds. All you would need is to burn off the existing markings, relocate or renew the posts and signs and repaint the road markings to suit. No huge expense so OCC could not deny on grounds of cost.

Mon 22 Dec 2014, 15:37

There is another solution to this that would just involve four road signs and about an hour of the County Council's road-painting team's time: Four-way stop. Admittedly rare here, but commonplace at road junctions in North America, particularly in residential areas.

The system is simple - if several cars arrive at the junction at more or less the same time from different directions, the first to arrive sets off first, then everyone else in their sequence of arrival at the stop line. It works, and pedestrians have a safer place to cross as well.

Having said all that, looking at the effectiveness of the stop sign at the bottom of Browns Lane, the chances of people actually taking any notice of four stop signs together could well be remote ...

Mon 22 Dec 2014, 15:36

Thanks for the link, Liz. I don't think the issue is to do with who has priority at the road junction. The problem is mostly with the speed of cars approaching the junction, especially from Enstone.

A lower speed limit on Banbury Hill, & with the sign moved further back towards Enstone, would probably help. It would also help if the sign flashed if going too fast, as does the one on The Slade. Ideally there would also be 2 pedestrian crossings -- one on Banbury Hill and one on Nine Acres Lane. But presumably these would cost at least as much as a mini-roundabout.

Crashmap only seems to include accidents with casualties since 2005. If one counted the number of times the wall of Tollgate Cottage has been knocked down, it would be a quite different total!

Mon 22 Dec 2014, 14:58

The Enstone Rd/ Slade crossroads was raised during the course of the Community-Led Plan consultations and forms part of the ongoing work being conducted by Charlbury Neighbourhood Forum. The cost of a conventional mini-roundabout is likely to be in six figures. Our adviser also noted that making it an expenditure priority for OCC would probably be difficult. See www.crashmap.co.uk as an indicator of numbers of accidents at different locations. We probably need to arrive at solutions to problems using unconventional thinking.

Sun 21 Dec 2014, 06:04

I think I mean "priority" rather than "right' of way, sorry

Sun 21 Dec 2014, 06:01

Many busy junctions in residential parts of East Oxford have no allocated right of way, all vehicles should stop to ascertain whether it is safe to proceed and it seems to work

Sat 20 Dec 2014, 19:22

Yes, traffic would have to give way to the right, but the speed of vehicles coming down from Enstone would be very significantly reduced as it would also have to stop to give way to vehicles emerging from Nine Acres - this would be much safer for all.

Sat 20 Dec 2014, 15:48

The subject of safety at the Enstone Rd / Slade / 9 Acres Cross roads has been raised in the "20 mph" thread, but in accordance with Richards plea regarding cyclists I am following up as a separate topic:
There is obviously an issue regarding safety at this cross roads and the idea of a mini-roundabout has occurred to me in the past. I agree there is confusion regarding priorities and a roundabout would overcome some of this. However there would still be one drawback; vehicles emerging from the Slade would still have to give way to traffic from the right: the direction in which visibility is poorest.