[OSM-talk] Traffic, Safety, Danger, Oh My!

Paul Houle paul at ontology2.com
Tue Jun 22 15:30:04 BST 2010


    As a response to a proposal to add perceived safety information to 
OSM (which may or may not be accurate) I was thinking last night about 
what kind of safety information would be useful and correct.

    The county I'm in has a GIS system in which they put "red dots" for 
every accident that is reported to the police.  I also see monitoring 
devices on the (rural) roads near me all of the time,  so unless 
somebody is doing a master's thesis on my neighborhood,  extensive 
traffic data is available for both the major and minor streets.

    Periodically the Ithaca Journal runs an article on "The Most 
Dangerous Roads In Tompkins County",  derived from actual accident 
data.  Of course,  each of these roads has a story about why it is 
dangerous,  and that's particularly useful to travelers.  For instance, 
a rpad near me is on an exposed hilltop (gets covered with snowdrifts in 
the winter) and has a 90 degree turn.  There's also a plateau just north 
of Cornell that has several roads that go up a steep incline.  Some of 
these have hairpin turns that often accumulate multiple stuck and 
crashed cars during winter storms...  And if you think that's bad,  try 
the one that goes straight up the hill and seems to get several tractor 
trailers stuck in it every year [despite the sign that tells trucks not 
to enter]

    Generally it seems that traffic engineers in Upstate NY like 
building unusual intersections -- I can think of many interstate 
intersections around Albany and Binghamton that baffled me the first 
time I saw them,  and there's a particular approach to Ithaca in which 
traffic on the left is supposed to yield to traffic on the right.  All 
of these intersections "make sense" when you look at the big picture of 
traffic flow,  but many people get confused when they see them 
infrequently,  and sometimes they do the wrong things.

    It seems to me that it would be useful to mark particular hazards 
and give people enough information that they can understand the 
curveballs along routes.




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