Critical Design — Road Crossings
Critical Design
Humans and cars have shared the roads for millennia. Although the motor-powered car has been a relatively recent invention in the grand scheme of things. The ancient roman times showed that it was not only the safety of humans that needs to be considered when talking about roads, but that of everything in their surroundings as well. Although this is still relevant in today’s issues, the main issue of this text is concentrated at humans and the issues that we create by the dangers we take when crossing roads.
“If safety is a joke, then death is the punchline” — Paul Laforest
You would think that the prospect of signalised road crossings, with counters to the light of the green man should benefit our society and improve road safety. Allowing pedestrians to prepare for the action of crossing the road would surely make you think that their general whereabouts of cars and attitude towards crossing the road would be safer. However, in the UK, there is on average 1 fatality and 15 serious injuries every day, so it is very clear that although these numbers are low considering the number of people that take to roads on a daily basis, but there is still room for improvement and this paper looks at what we could do to improve this issue. Admiral car insurance has recorded, that in the last 5 years they dealt with over 5,000 cases where “a motorist has hit a pedestrian”.
“And although the Highway Code is due to be reviewed to help protect pedestrians and cyclists, we’ve dealt with 5,723 claims in the past five years where a motorist has hit a pedestrian.” — Admiral Car Insurance
The councils have put countdown signals in as measures to ensure that safety is at the forefront of peoples thinking when considering travelling in congested areas. However, the implementations that these measures have taken on society, aren’t quite what the councils were hoping for.
The signalised crossing counters are clocks that count down to the illumination of the green man thus allowing the pedestrian to cross the road safely. They operate in correlation with traffic lights in order for pedestrians to cross the road safely. The countdown can change in duration every time, but will always end with the green man illuminating on zero. The reasoning behind these designs being installed in congested public areas is due to council’s concern for the safety of the pedestrians. In a research paper published by the University of Belgrade (1), 79.5% of all examined pedestrians took some sort of risk whilst crossing the road. Whether that risk was pre-empting the green light or ignoring the countdown all together, it doesn’t matter, because the safety of the pedestrian and all other road users is then put at risk.
So, what is wrong with the design that we have at the minute? Is the human’s necessity to always rush their lives the downfall of our design? Or is it a product of the society that we live in? More often than not, the contributing factor to a person’s haste is due to work or other important commitments. Is the idea of a clock, that counts down to the thing we need to do so very much, an influencing factor in our so very rushed lives? The truth is, we live our lives at a pace that quite often society can’t keep up with. The thought of waiting for a red light leaves us with a certain twitch that is hard to rid ourselves of. Our mentality towards taking the risk of crossing the roads comes from an impatience to halting our lives for such a little time and, the fact the sign counts us down to the green man leaves us even more impatient. The fact we have the vision to see whether a car is coming or not is a hugely contributing factor in our decision to cross the road. This is the fault in the counters design, the designers have realised the issue at hand, but have not taking enough action to result in any drastic change. In order to create a solution for this problem, we need to scrap the idea of a countdown all together!
The current intervention does not have a big enough impact to its viewers. One easy way to eliminate the problem all together is to build a bridge, so the pedestrian doesn’t need to step foot on the road at all. The infrastructure and materials needed for this, is far more than we can afford. Instead, an interactive design would be more appropriate. Something that captures the user’s attention so the time waiting for the green man to flash seems to pass quicker. How can we do this? A solution to the problem — create something with a stronger illumination, something that captures the pedestrian’s imagination or even better, catches them by surprise. A surprise that the user can anticipate, but still can’t prepare themselves to react to. Obviously, safety is paramount in the invention of this, however, creating something that catches the attention of the user is of even more importance. The user needs to clearly see the sign or intervention in order for action to be taken. A proposal to create something that physically stops pedestrians crossing roads when inappropriate would be more ideal for the situation. In addition to this, although this paper has focussed solely on pedestrian crossing, but all aspects of roads should be considered. In my opinion, J walking should be made illegal in all of Britain, thus forcing pedestrians to cross at signalised pedestrian crossings. A better solution to this issue would be illuminating a zebra crossing, not so much for the aim of aiding people that have difficulty seeing. But rather, illuminating it with luminous green lights when appropriate to cross and when inappropriate, luminating the zebra crossing red. This would allow both pedestrians and drivers to easily see when pedestrians are planning to cross the road. The crossing would be activated similar to lights at a junction, with cameras and sensors. The green lights would illuminate in the direction of the walking pedestrians, whereas the red lights would illuminate in the directions of the oncoming cars. With such bright lights shining, the visibility of the pedestrians on the road would be improved thus allowing drivers to anticipate having to stop at a greater distance.
References
http://ijtte.com/uploads/2014-03-26/935be804-cbbe-3179IJTTE_Vol%204(1)_4.pdf
Pictures Sourced
https://511contracosta.org/new-laws-for-2018/
https://medium.com/@TheWarcos/how-to-improve-pedestrian-crossings-a45c4b893db6
