A zebra crossing on Northcourt Road, near Dunmore Primary School, has been built to make pedestrians safer. This road sees a lot of traffic, especially during school hours. (According to crashmap.co.uk, there have been three minor accidents on this stretch since 2018). The new crossing was built over an existing speed bump and funded by Oxfordshire County Council. The final carriageway work was planned for half term and took a day.
Glad to see a crossing put in; interested by the modern trend to place such crossings on junctions, where visibility for and of pedestrians is restricted.
A car approaches the T-junction and has no clear view left. Checking right and across and seeing clear, the driver turns right only to be confronted by a child (hitherto obscured from view) dashing over the road to catch up with a friend. Let’s hope nothing untoward happens – and, by the way, hope is not a plan…
But this scenario could happen with or without the crossing, which is clearly in the best place at the exit from the primary school.
The Zebra crossing is the least effective of pedestrian crossings because it exercises no light signal control (unlike the Pelican, Puffin, Toucan and Pegasus). What I would like to have seen in that location is some railings to prevent the mad dashers who cross five or ten yards away from the actual crossing.
As to the current location, Kelly’s explanation provides a clear answer to my earlier question. Thank you.
I believe that the behaviour and actions of car drivers in any given situation should be measured against the metric “What would happen if you did that in a driving test?”.
If the answer is ‘Fail’ then perhaps there are some drivers who need to go on a bit of a refresher.
I agree, Tim, which is why I have been engaged in advanced driver training for the past 20 years. I belong to RoSPA and local group information for bikers and driver is at https://roadartvg.org.uk/ All are welcome to improve their road safety with us.
This crossing has been a long time coming frankly. I recall when there was a lollipop lady (or man, fuzzy memory) there, and then they got rid of her. It’s been years with nothing, and it’s most definitely better than nothing.