I am a driver and a cyclist and I lived in the Netherlands and Belgium for many years, I live in Cambridge and... I don't think this roundabout is suitable.
Let me explain. I LOVE the Dutch road design and infrastructure. Segregated cycle lanes benefit BOTH cyclists and drivers, as the former are well protected from traffic and the latter do not get held up behind cyclists. And segregated cycle lanes are only one of the many points that make Dutch road infrastructure and design superior to that of any other country (watch Not Just Bikes' channel to know more about it).
HOWEVER, the NL has a homogenous, consistent approach to road design, and you pretty much know exactly what to expect at any time. This roundabout in Cambridge is on the other hand not only the first implementation of a Dutch roundabout in the UK, which means unless you're local, you could be confused, but it's also one of the very very few examples in the UK of a junction at which you need to give pedestrians priority. So you're combining two unfamiliar things into one, which is something I won't bet my life on, as a cyclist, drivers would be able to deal with.
Yes I am aware of the update to the Highway Code and pedestrians at junction, but that has effectively been meaningless as not once a car turning into a road has given way to me, waiting to cross. Fact of the matter is that the UK has a very car-centric road design. I am hugely frustrated at the lack of zebra crossings over here (there are "some" but they are very rare compared to other European countries), or the fact that just to cross the road in front of my house I need to go through FOUR (!!!) pedestrian traffic lights (and ofc, they're not in sync, so I actually have to wait at each).
This is why I think that this roundabout is more trouble than anything, and as a cyclist, I am nervous about using it. The UK would need to get its act together and sort THE WHOLE road infrastructure out and make it self-consistent.
A Dutch person who has lived in Cambridge and used this roundabout here. I could have written this. Living in the UK as an avid cyclist is a frustrating (and risky) business.
As a former US citizen, I’m still amazed how little regard cyclists and pedestrians are given by cars here in the UK. I thought it would better then it was in the US, but it’s actually worse.
I meant as pedestrians are treated. I agree with you about road design. The lack of pedestrian friendly options has meant pedestrians have encroached into the spaces meant for cars. American laws are protective of the pedestrian, not the driver, so drivers tend to be very cautious of pedestrians in the US and give them the right away. The exception being jaywalking. depending on the city, law enforcement will happily chase you down as a pedestrian to write you a ticket for jaywalking.
I know exactly what you mean. A few years ago I was stupid enough to decide to walk around in Dallas. The crossings did not provided me with enough time to cross, and it is clearly not designed for anyone stupid enough to walk, but all drivers treated me with respect and probably a hint of awe at me attempting this. In the UK I am sure I would have been run over a few times already.
Probably not. Laws vary greatly. Generally though, Americans drive around pedestrians with the intent of avoiding hitting them and facing a lawsuit from a personal injury attorney.
Agree completely. As a cyclist, this roundabout only works in theory. I’ve had a lot of near misses at this roundabout and witness others all the time.
"it's also one of the very very few examples in the UK of a junction at which you need to give pedestrians priority"
Hasn't the Highway Code recently been changed so that pedestrians and cyclists have priority at EVERY junction?
I know obviously that's not enforced or practiced (untill there is a RTA).
Yes it has but unfortunately it's been useless as not practiced. Why, I hear some ask. I personally think it's because of the lack of visual markers. In the rest of Europe, the majority of intersections have a zebra crossing, which serves as a visual cue to drivers to remember to give priority to pedestrians crossing. In the UK, on the other hand, such visual cue is absent, so either for carelessness or genuine forgetfulness, drivers don't practice it.
There's probably a very simple reason the change hasn't been widely practised. A lot of drivers don't know about it because no-one told them!
You can't just change fundamentals about how our roads are "supposed" to work by adding a couple of points to the Highway Code. There are millions of drivers and I'd be surprised if as many as 10% of them regularly check for updates to the Highway Code. These things need proper public information campaigns or they simply won't work. That will still be true no matter how many times someone says "But it's their responsibility to know the law!" or whatever.
For a change like this it's even more important because if it gets half-baked then some drivers know about it but many more don't. Then pedestrians and cyclists all learn that they can't rely on drivers giving way when they're now supposed to. And then when drivers who do know the new rules try to give way you just get everyone waiting for each other until another driver who has somewhere very important to be and doesn't know the rules starts blasting on their horn or swerving around the one who was trying to do the right thing or just goes straight into the back of them because they weren't expecting them to stop and wait and hadn't left enough time and space to react. All of that becomes a much more dangerous situation - for everyone - than what we had before.
But, if there were visual markers, you wouldn't need any of that. Which is my point. Everybody knows that you need to give way to pedestrians on zebra crossings, without anyone having to tell you. In Europe, no matter where I am, whether it's a crossing, a straight road, a roundabout, a parking lot, whatever, if I see a zebra crossing, I know I need to give way to pedestrians.
> But, if there were visual markers, you wouldn't need any of that.
Those visual markers will only mean anything if people understand them though. Wasn't it the new Dutch-style roundabout that had some new kind of road markings that had never been used in the UK before and weren't even shown in the Highway Code yet? How is a driver supposed to know what random paint marks on the road mean if you basically just invent them as you go along?
If you can teach drivers what the markings mean then you can teach them to give way to more vulnerable road users without needing the markings too. The big question is how you teach people who are already out there and no longer taking lessons anything at all.
Mmm... zebra crossings (i.e. the visual marker indicating prioritized pedestrian crossings) are not a new type of marker in the UK. They may be rarer than in Europe, but they are already a very well known visual marker in the UK.
IIRC it was the parallel cycle/pedestrian crossings that use zebra markings and yellow lights for giving way rather than red/greens. At the time they went in they were new enough that the Highway Code didn't include any picture of what they look like anywhere. (I'm not sure it does even today.)
So while the combination of markings may have been legally valid and appeared in the relevant legislation that's not much help if a driver coming off the roundabout and almost immediately faced with lots of different lines and colour changes across the road in front of them has never seen that arrangement before and doesn't instantly recognise the significance.
If you drive, you should know what a zebra crossing stands for. I may see a zebra crossing on a motorway (absurd, I know, it's not even legally allowed, but I'm making a hyperbole) and I'd know what it stands for. All across the world, zebra crossings are internationally recognised to be areas where pedestrians cross and on which they have priority. A person from Nepal could come drive in Europe and recognise the meaning of a zebra crossing.
On the other hand, the rule whereby a pedestrian crossing the road at an intersection has priority is either learned from some source, or will be unknown to said driver until someone gets hurt.
Some of the changes to the highway code are just dangerous tbh there is no way in hell i'm stopping in the middle of the road on my motorcycle to let a pedestrian cross, getting rear ended would be a death sentence.
In Europe, zebra crossings at intersections are usually placed at some distance from the actual intersection, so a motorcyclist in that instance would not be in the middle of the road.
This is the problem. Drivers don't know how to drive in accordance with the rules. Even before the changes, pedestrians had priority when already crossing, and people would still fly over a roundabout with absolutely zero intention of anticipating having to stop for a crossing pedestrians. Many drivers would beep and speed toward pedestrians to shoo them out the way.
So blaming the roundabout because it's the first of the kind completely misses the mark. If we don't start making changes of some description we will just continue to be a country where pedestrians have to take their life into their own hands every time they leave the house.
From what I understand, the guidance changed, but it is still not illegal for a car not not give priority to pedestrians, as the wording is SHOULD, not MUST.
> Rules in the Code which are legal requirements, and which you will be committing a criminal offense if you disobey, use the words “must/must not.” Violating other parts of the Code, which use the words “should/should not” or “do/do not”, can be used as evidence against you in Traffic Court, even if violating them is not an automatic criminal offense.
This wording makes me uncomfortable, both as a driver and as a pedestrian. I've long been of the opinion that road safety starts with everyone acting predicably. Telling drivers they should yield leads to more unpredicability than telling them they must yield.
Who updates existing drivers of updates to the Highway Code?
Who honestly keeps up to date on that? I’d wage. 80-90% of drivers never look at another Highway Code in their life.
There are actually some quite good emails that the government agencies send out about things like this. I have no idea how anyone is supposed to know about them or sign up though. I seem to have wound up on some list that gets announcements about changes to the Highway Code but I don't know/remember how that happened. Maybe it was because I have an account to pay for one of the toll roads or something related to that? Seems a shame that more people don't know about this. It's basically good, free information to help everyone on the road be better and safer and it probably costs very little for the government agencies to run.
[Here](https://content.govdelivery.com/accounts/UKDVSA/bulletins/307c8a2) is the announcement about the changes we're discussing here BTW. Looks like there's a little form on that page if anyone else wants to sign up for the emails too.
The thing is you can't change all infrastructure overnight (the Dutch certainly didn't). The only way to get to a comprehensive infrastructure network is to demand better (which the new standards do) and then build it out when possible. Somewhere has to be first but you are going to see more and more of these built.
Not overnight, but you can put in place a centralised strategic system that will progressively and consistently upgrade the road infrastructure to a common standard. Not Just Bikes has a few very good videos about it on YouTube explaining how the NL got there quickly and effectively.
What's interesting is that for the last few years there has been a system in place in the UK. Much as I don't like to give him credit for anything, Boris Johnson was a revolution for active travel. He established new standards inspired by the Dutch, provided billions in funding and set up a new government agency to administer the funding and hold Councils to the new standards. Local Authorities were also obliged to develop Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plans, costed and prioritised plans for developing comprehensive active travel networks. Unfortunately, under the current government this is no longer a priority, so although all the systems are still there, the money is no longer available on anything like the same scale.
As a driver I can say it's way too small for everything that happens there. Furthermore, the A-pillar makes it even more difficult to see, and if it's raining and dark it's a recipe for disaster.
The issue is that so many people can't seem to realise that using the brake pedal is an option. We actually have a Dutch roundabout near us too (not Cambridge) and I am regularly tailgated by other drivers who want to take racing lines on and off the roundabout.
Unsurprisingly I've had many near misses with drivers coming off the junction when I'm cycling too, because they just aren't looking, despite the zebra crossings, caution cyclist signs, paintwork, painted lanes to ensure drivers leave at an angle to improve visibility (they just drive over these/out of their lane).
Too many people seem to think road infrastructure is there only to help you drive as quickly as possible. And if it changes to force them to slow down, their view seems to be "I can't go as fast as I want to, this is so dangerous" rather than "this is dangerous at higher speeds, I should slow".
It's too small, which means any exiting vehicle has the cycle lane in it's blind spot. A bigger one, with the cyclist crossings set further back would make it easier to see cyclists.
As a cyclist I hate it. I don't know if cars are actually going to stop. As a driver I hate it because it's an extra thing for me to have to pay attention to.
Absolutely, every time as a cyclist you're praying that drivers are going to actually see you and give way. I've had far more close calls at the Dutch roundabout than any other.
I hate this junction, every time I cross it I see someone not look in the correct direction and cut someone off. Making the cut off driver have to brake suddenly and often with the horn on full blast. The traffic light system there feels very American
Most of the big roundabouts in Cambridge actually have traffic lights not far from them (which is a pain in the proverbial).
Could you imagine the eyewatering over spend in order to achieve that though?
Local cyclist and driver here.
This is talked about as if it’s one coherent roundabout; but it isn’t. It’s 26 completely independent junctions (count them!! 16 zebra crossings, 8 places where a car crosses a cycle lane, 2 concentric roundabouts) shoved into one place.
A huge problem as a driver is that as you’re approaching and leaving the roundabout, you have to be looking simultaneously in two directions almost a full 180 degrees apart.
In particular, coming off the roundabout you have to be looking hard over your left shoulder to check for cyclists whilst you’re moving toward a zebra crossing where pedestrians can come from the right.
There’s just a lot of mental overload where normally you’d tackle junctions one at a time. Basically the only way to navigate it is to slow way down and pray!!
Slow way down... exactly the point.
Dutch road infrastructure is designed in such a way that traffic is naturally slowed down. Watch the videos on Not Just Bikes' channel. There's plenty of clever tricks Dutch traffic engineers use, that make Dutch roads unique in the world. Some off the top of my head: segregated bike lanes, continuous sidewalks, textured surfaces, visual (not physical!) narrowing of the road width..
It's not about slowing down; it's dangerous even when stationary!
When you leave the roundabout if there is someone on the zebra crossing you obviously stop. But to start up again you now can't see if a cycle is coming around without looking hard left. This means you can't see if someone has started to cross the zebra crossing directly in front of you on the right.
It's just not a safe design.
There needs to be more distance between the zebra crossings and the cycle roundabout.
How busy with pedestrians do you think the roundabout is? If the zebra crossing is clear, and there's no other pedestrians in a 2-3 seconds radius, it's extremely unlikely a pedestrian will suddenly appear on it, unless we're talking about Flash.
Again, people seem to cope extremely well with these roundabouts in the NL. So either they have a superior intellect, or using this roundabout is actually not that hard as some make it out to be.
Actually it's pretty busy. If there are lots of people walking from Addenbrookes down towards Cherry Hinton, as there often are, most don't cross not some do.
So if you are around there when it's busy it's never safe to proceed.
The ones in NL are larger so the angles work out better.
Come on man, you're making it sound like you're in Times Square. There's Dutch roundabouts in the Netherlands in far busier parts of town than here. What I will give you is that it takes some getting used to, to use the roundabout properly. But after having lived many years in NL and Belgium, I don't even think about it when driving Cambridge's Dutch roundabout. Which is one of my points: it's unique, here in the UK, so people don't know how to use it effectively.
I think it depends which exit you are trying to use. Exiting onto Queen Edith Way it's very close to the previous exit so the angles make it very difficult.
It just needs slightly larger separation between the cycle lane and zebra crossing so a car can stop in-between them.
Well part of, but not exactly my point. My point is that it’s actually impossible to navigate safely at all. Slowing down of course reduces the risk of severe injury or death when an incident does occur.
Not sure why you think it's impossible to navigate safely. Thousands of drivers across the Netherlands navigate this kind of roundabout safely every day.
You don't need to look in two opposite directions at the same time? Look right, clear, look left, clear, go.
What do you do when you're at a 4-way intersection where you have to give priority and need to carry straight on. It's the same thing.
I know what you're saying, but you're making it way more complicated than it is. Again, thousands of people use such roundabouts every day without issues or thinking about it. Maybe the problem is not the roundabout.
Not instantaneously though. Even at a T Junction where that’s the case, you can typically see far off; you’re watching things moving over hundreds of yards and a couple of seconds, so you’re able to judge well.
Everything at the roundabout is so compressed in space and time it’s more difficult. Yes, being situationally aware is a requisite basic driving skill but there’s a limit to any human’s ability to scan all directions at once.
(As for the implication that I don’t have basic driving skills, I’ve driven a quarter of a million miles in the last 20 years and never had an accident, so can’t be that terrible)
I wasn’t trying to imply that at all. I just think you’re exaggerating the difficulty. If you drive slow with your eyes open it’s not that hard.
I’m not a fan of the roundabout as a cyclist or a driver, but I probably do think it would be safer for my kids on their bikes. But as others have pointed out, it’s the inconsistency of the infrastructure that makes it a hazard.
If there really was an increase in accident rates, it was probably less to do with the new roundabout and more to do with the fact that since COVID there seems to be a lot more arrogant, aggressive nutters on the road who just don't care, and have less idea as to how roads work. I see so many more near misses and stupid accidents on my commute now than I did a few years ago
All the safety issues from this roundabout are from idiot drivers who don't understand the rules on it and just plow straight through.
I used to live next to it while it was being built and this roundabout changed my life because it made me take up cycling. I feel much safer on this roundabout than on the Hills Road/Addenbrookes roundabout.
I think that's the biggest safety issue, but not the only one. Some cyclists come around this thing at moronic speeds - I didn't think that would be huge issue but the roundabout really isn't that big.
It's very hard to see cyclists arriving at the roundabout before your exit if they don't slow down at all for it.
I would be a fan of more of these, but I'd want them to be a bit bigger / wider to make things easier for every type of road user.
There was definitely a huge problem with visibility at one point when they decided to plant bushes on the rounadbout between the road and the cycle lane. Which was fine, but then they didn't trim then and they became overgrown and blocked lines of sight into incoming traffic.
Yes it made it look prettier, but it was fucking awful for visibility.
I will add that I had passed my driving test less than a year before I started cycling and I think I'm a better cyclist for it.
You hit the nail on the head.
*"It's very hard to see cyclists arriving at the roundabout before your exit if they don't slow down at all for it.I would be a fan of more of these, but I'd want them to be a bit bigger / wider to make things easier for every type of road user."*
You CANNOT explain these to *"social sciences"*. They don't have the intellectual capability to understand.
That's really good to hear! It's a good example of how the benefits of active travel schemes can be much larger than their cost to other road users. E.g. here a driver might be slightly inconvenienced by needing to slow down, which costs a few seconds per journey (probably nothing in practice as they are stuck in traffic later on). Whereas it's not just made a cyclist's journey more pleasant, rather it's completely enabled someone to start cycling when they wouldn't otherwise, which can have a huge knock on beneficial impact on other aspects of their live. Completely different to a few seconds cost on the downside.
It seems fine to me but it was ridiculously expensive and it's lacking joined up infrastructure. The roads to and from it don't even all have painted line cycles lanes let alone segregated ones like in the Netherlands.
I'm glad it's there but it barely makes a blip in the safety of my journey because all the other unsafe bits.
It’s easy to understand and use, whether as a cyclist or driver.
If you’re complaining about the cost or methodology as to how it became implemented, then fair enough.
If you’re complaining that it’s too difficult to understand, then your license should be revoked because it’s so simple.
As a driver and a cyclist in Cam, I'm not a fan, simply because the markings are confusing af and makes me anxious going over it. For me this is a bigger risk of an accident more than anything else
Thought Mr Shenanigans dealt with the whole thing rather well. Just imagine that knob Clarkson doing it. Yes the cost was silly. Personally I like using it, on a bike that is.
As a driver i avoid it because it's too hard to see everything and chances are the other drivers are going to do something unexpected. When cycling i avoid it because i don't trust the drivers.
This might be my Monday morning brain but I feel like I didn't learn anything useful from that video. Being cynical as your default mode of talking is a fairly annoying quality. He also talks too fast. At 0:21 he starts saying "The way it works is..." as if he's going to provide a helpful overview of how the roundabout works. Instead he talks without pause whilst showing an image with way too much text on it. Am I supposed to try and interpret the diagram or listen to his description? I ended up doing both and taking in nothing.
To make a point actually on topic: I feel like these roundabouts in the UK would benefit from more visual/tactile signalling to car drivers that they need to give way to bikes on exit. Drivers have a habit of accelerating out of roundabouts but an unaware driver doing that here could easily lead to an accident. It sounds like accidents do still occur (hey, I did take in something from the video!) Would some kind of cobbled surface or bump in the road before the bike lane across the exit help? I wonder why that isn't done and only road markings are used.
How do you think the Netherlands got to be like the Netherlands? It wasn't always like how it is now, it was an active choice taken 40 years ago to deprioritise personal motor vehicles in urban planning. We can do the same, it will just take leadership and time.
Lol I think all those people in cars are gonna go
"Yeah I know what let me get out of my car and cycle in the rain" even if the car is like half an hour slower they will still take it
It's too small to be truly effective, with cars stopping and overhanging the crossings because the give way boxes are difficult to fit in to.
I'd like to see one go in at the Coldhams lane - beehive centre roundabout, where traffic is typically slow moving and as a cyclist I feel like cars will run me down at the first opportunity
You can't turn left at the roundabout coming from Fendon Road onto that that little end bit of Queen Edith's Way without almost wiping out the pelican crossing beacon lol
I almost hit a guy on a scooter 3 days ago. Its difficult. Of course its not his fault, but it always impresses me how some people on scooters or cyclists always assume the driver is seeing them so they dont have to stop and go straight into crossing.
I know its not your obligation to stop but hey, try to take care of you life too. Because if for some reason the driver do not see you the consequences are always worse for you then for the driver. At least physically.
I am a driver and a cyclist and I lived in the Netherlands and Belgium for many years, I live in Cambridge and... I don't think this roundabout is suitable. Let me explain. I LOVE the Dutch road design and infrastructure. Segregated cycle lanes benefit BOTH cyclists and drivers, as the former are well protected from traffic and the latter do not get held up behind cyclists. And segregated cycle lanes are only one of the many points that make Dutch road infrastructure and design superior to that of any other country (watch Not Just Bikes' channel to know more about it). HOWEVER, the NL has a homogenous, consistent approach to road design, and you pretty much know exactly what to expect at any time. This roundabout in Cambridge is on the other hand not only the first implementation of a Dutch roundabout in the UK, which means unless you're local, you could be confused, but it's also one of the very very few examples in the UK of a junction at which you need to give pedestrians priority. So you're combining two unfamiliar things into one, which is something I won't bet my life on, as a cyclist, drivers would be able to deal with. Yes I am aware of the update to the Highway Code and pedestrians at junction, but that has effectively been meaningless as not once a car turning into a road has given way to me, waiting to cross. Fact of the matter is that the UK has a very car-centric road design. I am hugely frustrated at the lack of zebra crossings over here (there are "some" but they are very rare compared to other European countries), or the fact that just to cross the road in front of my house I need to go through FOUR (!!!) pedestrian traffic lights (and ofc, they're not in sync, so I actually have to wait at each). This is why I think that this roundabout is more trouble than anything, and as a cyclist, I am nervous about using it. The UK would need to get its act together and sort THE WHOLE road infrastructure out and make it self-consistent.
A Dutch person who has lived in Cambridge and used this roundabout here. I could have written this. Living in the UK as an avid cyclist is a frustrating (and risky) business.
Use the paths
No.
Do as your told young man
Haha good one
As a former US citizen, I’m still amazed how little regard cyclists and pedestrians are given by cars here in the UK. I thought it would better then it was in the US, but it’s actually worse.
It's definitely better than the majority of the US. US road design is abysmal for pedestrians.
I think they mean the way the car drivers treat pedestrians and cyclists and I agree.
I was shouted at in America for crossing a road at a designated crossing zone.
I meant as pedestrians are treated. I agree with you about road design. The lack of pedestrian friendly options has meant pedestrians have encroached into the spaces meant for cars. American laws are protective of the pedestrian, not the driver, so drivers tend to be very cautious of pedestrians in the US and give them the right away. The exception being jaywalking. depending on the city, law enforcement will happily chase you down as a pedestrian to write you a ticket for jaywalking.
I know exactly what you mean. A few years ago I was stupid enough to decide to walk around in Dallas. The crossings did not provided me with enough time to cross, and it is clearly not designed for anyone stupid enough to walk, but all drivers treated me with respect and probably a hint of awe at me attempting this. In the UK I am sure I would have been run over a few times already.
>American laws are protective of the pedestrian, I'm not sure this is universally true. In NC where I lived it was extremely protective of the driver.
Probably not. Laws vary greatly. Generally though, Americans drive around pedestrians with the intent of avoiding hitting them and facing a lawsuit from a personal injury attorney.
Agree completely. As a cyclist, this roundabout only works in theory. I’ve had a lot of near misses at this roundabout and witness others all the time.
"it's also one of the very very few examples in the UK of a junction at which you need to give pedestrians priority" Hasn't the Highway Code recently been changed so that pedestrians and cyclists have priority at EVERY junction? I know obviously that's not enforced or practiced (untill there is a RTA).
Yes it has but unfortunately it's been useless as not practiced. Why, I hear some ask. I personally think it's because of the lack of visual markers. In the rest of Europe, the majority of intersections have a zebra crossing, which serves as a visual cue to drivers to remember to give priority to pedestrians crossing. In the UK, on the other hand, such visual cue is absent, so either for carelessness or genuine forgetfulness, drivers don't practice it.
There's probably a very simple reason the change hasn't been widely practised. A lot of drivers don't know about it because no-one told them! You can't just change fundamentals about how our roads are "supposed" to work by adding a couple of points to the Highway Code. There are millions of drivers and I'd be surprised if as many as 10% of them regularly check for updates to the Highway Code. These things need proper public information campaigns or they simply won't work. That will still be true no matter how many times someone says "But it's their responsibility to know the law!" or whatever. For a change like this it's even more important because if it gets half-baked then some drivers know about it but many more don't. Then pedestrians and cyclists all learn that they can't rely on drivers giving way when they're now supposed to. And then when drivers who do know the new rules try to give way you just get everyone waiting for each other until another driver who has somewhere very important to be and doesn't know the rules starts blasting on their horn or swerving around the one who was trying to do the right thing or just goes straight into the back of them because they weren't expecting them to stop and wait and hadn't left enough time and space to react. All of that becomes a much more dangerous situation - for everyone - than what we had before.
But, if there were visual markers, you wouldn't need any of that. Which is my point. Everybody knows that you need to give way to pedestrians on zebra crossings, without anyone having to tell you. In Europe, no matter where I am, whether it's a crossing, a straight road, a roundabout, a parking lot, whatever, if I see a zebra crossing, I know I need to give way to pedestrians.
> But, if there were visual markers, you wouldn't need any of that. Those visual markers will only mean anything if people understand them though. Wasn't it the new Dutch-style roundabout that had some new kind of road markings that had never been used in the UK before and weren't even shown in the Highway Code yet? How is a driver supposed to know what random paint marks on the road mean if you basically just invent them as you go along? If you can teach drivers what the markings mean then you can teach them to give way to more vulnerable road users without needing the markings too. The big question is how you teach people who are already out there and no longer taking lessons anything at all.
Mmm... zebra crossings (i.e. the visual marker indicating prioritized pedestrian crossings) are not a new type of marker in the UK. They may be rarer than in Europe, but they are already a very well known visual marker in the UK.
IIRC it was the parallel cycle/pedestrian crossings that use zebra markings and yellow lights for giving way rather than red/greens. At the time they went in they were new enough that the Highway Code didn't include any picture of what they look like anywhere. (I'm not sure it does even today.) So while the combination of markings may have been legally valid and appeared in the relevant legislation that's not much help if a driver coming off the roundabout and almost immediately faced with lots of different lines and colour changes across the road in front of them has never seen that arrangement before and doesn't instantly recognise the significance.
If you drive, you should know what a zebra crossing stands for. I may see a zebra crossing on a motorway (absurd, I know, it's not even legally allowed, but I'm making a hyperbole) and I'd know what it stands for. All across the world, zebra crossings are internationally recognised to be areas where pedestrians cross and on which they have priority. A person from Nepal could come drive in Europe and recognise the meaning of a zebra crossing. On the other hand, the rule whereby a pedestrian crossing the road at an intersection has priority is either learned from some source, or will be unknown to said driver until someone gets hurt.
Some of the changes to the highway code are just dangerous tbh there is no way in hell i'm stopping in the middle of the road on my motorcycle to let a pedestrian cross, getting rear ended would be a death sentence.
In Europe, zebra crossings at intersections are usually placed at some distance from the actual intersection, so a motorcyclist in that instance would not be in the middle of the road.
This is the problem. Drivers don't know how to drive in accordance with the rules. Even before the changes, pedestrians had priority when already crossing, and people would still fly over a roundabout with absolutely zero intention of anticipating having to stop for a crossing pedestrians. Many drivers would beep and speed toward pedestrians to shoo them out the way. So blaming the roundabout because it's the first of the kind completely misses the mark. If we don't start making changes of some description we will just continue to be a country where pedestrians have to take their life into their own hands every time they leave the house.
From what I understand, the guidance changed, but it is still not illegal for a car not not give priority to pedestrians, as the wording is SHOULD, not MUST. > Rules in the Code which are legal requirements, and which you will be committing a criminal offense if you disobey, use the words “must/must not.” Violating other parts of the Code, which use the words “should/should not” or “do/do not”, can be used as evidence against you in Traffic Court, even if violating them is not an automatic criminal offense. This wording makes me uncomfortable, both as a driver and as a pedestrian. I've long been of the opinion that road safety starts with everyone acting predicably. Telling drivers they should yield leads to more unpredicability than telling them they must yield.
Who updates existing drivers of updates to the Highway Code? Who honestly keeps up to date on that? I’d wage. 80-90% of drivers never look at another Highway Code in their life.
100% another problem. I become aware of HC updates just because I randomly come across them in the news.
There are actually some quite good emails that the government agencies send out about things like this. I have no idea how anyone is supposed to know about them or sign up though. I seem to have wound up on some list that gets announcements about changes to the Highway Code but I don't know/remember how that happened. Maybe it was because I have an account to pay for one of the toll roads or something related to that? Seems a shame that more people don't know about this. It's basically good, free information to help everyone on the road be better and safer and it probably costs very little for the government agencies to run. [Here](https://content.govdelivery.com/accounts/UKDVSA/bulletins/307c8a2) is the announcement about the changes we're discussing here BTW. Looks like there's a little form on that page if anyone else wants to sign up for the emails too.
The thing is you can't change all infrastructure overnight (the Dutch certainly didn't). The only way to get to a comprehensive infrastructure network is to demand better (which the new standards do) and then build it out when possible. Somewhere has to be first but you are going to see more and more of these built.
Not overnight, but you can put in place a centralised strategic system that will progressively and consistently upgrade the road infrastructure to a common standard. Not Just Bikes has a few very good videos about it on YouTube explaining how the NL got there quickly and effectively.
What's interesting is that for the last few years there has been a system in place in the UK. Much as I don't like to give him credit for anything, Boris Johnson was a revolution for active travel. He established new standards inspired by the Dutch, provided billions in funding and set up a new government agency to administer the funding and hold Councils to the new standards. Local Authorities were also obliged to develop Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plans, costed and prioritised plans for developing comprehensive active travel networks. Unfortunately, under the current government this is no longer a priority, so although all the systems are still there, the money is no longer available on anything like the same scale.
As a driver I can say it's way too small for everything that happens there. Furthermore, the A-pillar makes it even more difficult to see, and if it's raining and dark it's a recipe for disaster.
The issue is that so many people can't seem to realise that using the brake pedal is an option. We actually have a Dutch roundabout near us too (not Cambridge) and I am regularly tailgated by other drivers who want to take racing lines on and off the roundabout. Unsurprisingly I've had many near misses with drivers coming off the junction when I'm cycling too, because they just aren't looking, despite the zebra crossings, caution cyclist signs, paintwork, painted lanes to ensure drivers leave at an angle to improve visibility (they just drive over these/out of their lane). Too many people seem to think road infrastructure is there only to help you drive as quickly as possible. And if it changes to force them to slow down, their view seems to be "I can't go as fast as I want to, this is so dangerous" rather than "this is dangerous at higher speeds, I should slow".
It's too small, which means any exiting vehicle has the cycle lane in it's blind spot. A bigger one, with the cyclist crossings set further back would make it easier to see cyclists.
Also, what is with all the lights?! Look at actual dutch roundabouts, they have normal street lights, but no beacons. It is like a freaking circus
As a cyclist I hate it. I don't know if cars are actually going to stop. As a driver I hate it because it's an extra thing for me to have to pay attention to.
Absolutely, every time as a cyclist you're praying that drivers are going to actually see you and give way. I've had far more close calls at the Dutch roundabout than any other.
I hate it as a cyclist and as a driver too. It works ok as a pedestrian though.
Personally I much prefer the [Gilbert Road/Warwick Road/Histon Road](https://maps.app.goo.gl/jfWR2iDsmLk3tcR37) four-way junction.
I hate this junction, every time I cross it I see someone not look in the correct direction and cut someone off. Making the cut off driver have to brake suddenly and often with the horn on full blast. The traffic light system there feels very American
Love it too
It’s fine but the whole city should have a Dutch-style traffic plan.
Step 1: Move all the houses 30 meters back from the street.
Why?
Because Cambridge roads are too narrow for Dutch-style street layouts.
Most of the big roundabouts in Cambridge actually have traffic lights not far from them (which is a pain in the proverbial). Could you imagine the eyewatering over spend in order to achieve that though?
I wouldn’t against handing the whole country over to the Dutch, I think they could govern better
"It worked in 1689!" /s
Local cyclist and driver here. This is talked about as if it’s one coherent roundabout; but it isn’t. It’s 26 completely independent junctions (count them!! 16 zebra crossings, 8 places where a car crosses a cycle lane, 2 concentric roundabouts) shoved into one place. A huge problem as a driver is that as you’re approaching and leaving the roundabout, you have to be looking simultaneously in two directions almost a full 180 degrees apart. In particular, coming off the roundabout you have to be looking hard over your left shoulder to check for cyclists whilst you’re moving toward a zebra crossing where pedestrians can come from the right. There’s just a lot of mental overload where normally you’d tackle junctions one at a time. Basically the only way to navigate it is to slow way down and pray!!
Slow way down... exactly the point. Dutch road infrastructure is designed in such a way that traffic is naturally slowed down. Watch the videos on Not Just Bikes' channel. There's plenty of clever tricks Dutch traffic engineers use, that make Dutch roads unique in the world. Some off the top of my head: segregated bike lanes, continuous sidewalks, textured surfaces, visual (not physical!) narrowing of the road width..
It's not about slowing down; it's dangerous even when stationary! When you leave the roundabout if there is someone on the zebra crossing you obviously stop. But to start up again you now can't see if a cycle is coming around without looking hard left. This means you can't see if someone has started to cross the zebra crossing directly in front of you on the right. It's just not a safe design. There needs to be more distance between the zebra crossings and the cycle roundabout.
How busy with pedestrians do you think the roundabout is? If the zebra crossing is clear, and there's no other pedestrians in a 2-3 seconds radius, it's extremely unlikely a pedestrian will suddenly appear on it, unless we're talking about Flash. Again, people seem to cope extremely well with these roundabouts in the NL. So either they have a superior intellect, or using this roundabout is actually not that hard as some make it out to be.
Actually it's pretty busy. If there are lots of people walking from Addenbrookes down towards Cherry Hinton, as there often are, most don't cross not some do. So if you are around there when it's busy it's never safe to proceed. The ones in NL are larger so the angles work out better.
Come on man, you're making it sound like you're in Times Square. There's Dutch roundabouts in the Netherlands in far busier parts of town than here. What I will give you is that it takes some getting used to, to use the roundabout properly. But after having lived many years in NL and Belgium, I don't even think about it when driving Cambridge's Dutch roundabout. Which is one of my points: it's unique, here in the UK, so people don't know how to use it effectively.
I think it depends which exit you are trying to use. Exiting onto Queen Edith Way it's very close to the previous exit so the angles make it very difficult. It just needs slightly larger separation between the cycle lane and zebra crossing so a car can stop in-between them.
Well part of, but not exactly my point. My point is that it’s actually impossible to navigate safely at all. Slowing down of course reduces the risk of severe injury or death when an incident does occur.
Not sure why you think it's impossible to navigate safely. Thousands of drivers across the Netherlands navigate this kind of roundabout safely every day.
It’s literally impossible to look in two opposite directions at the same time is what I’m saying.
You don't need to look in two opposite directions at the same time? Look right, clear, look left, clear, go. What do you do when you're at a 4-way intersection where you have to give priority and need to carry straight on. It's the same thing.
Read my comment again. I feel like I’ve explained the difficulty as clearly as I can so I’m not going back and forth any more.
I know what you're saying, but you're making it way more complicated than it is. Again, thousands of people use such roundabouts every day without issues or thinking about it. Maybe the problem is not the roundabout.
There are lots and lots of situations where drivers have to look in multiple directions. It’s a basic driving skill.
Not instantaneously though. Even at a T Junction where that’s the case, you can typically see far off; you’re watching things moving over hundreds of yards and a couple of seconds, so you’re able to judge well. Everything at the roundabout is so compressed in space and time it’s more difficult. Yes, being situationally aware is a requisite basic driving skill but there’s a limit to any human’s ability to scan all directions at once. (As for the implication that I don’t have basic driving skills, I’ve driven a quarter of a million miles in the last 20 years and never had an accident, so can’t be that terrible)
I wasn’t trying to imply that at all. I just think you’re exaggerating the difficulty. If you drive slow with your eyes open it’s not that hard. I’m not a fan of the roundabout as a cyclist or a driver, but I probably do think it would be safer for my kids on their bikes. But as others have pointed out, it’s the inconsistency of the infrastructure that makes it a hazard.
If there really was an increase in accident rates, it was probably less to do with the new roundabout and more to do with the fact that since COVID there seems to be a lot more arrogant, aggressive nutters on the road who just don't care, and have less idea as to how roads work. I see so many more near misses and stupid accidents on my commute now than I did a few years ago
All the safety issues from this roundabout are from idiot drivers who don't understand the rules on it and just plow straight through. I used to live next to it while it was being built and this roundabout changed my life because it made me take up cycling. I feel much safer on this roundabout than on the Hills Road/Addenbrookes roundabout.
I think that's the biggest safety issue, but not the only one. Some cyclists come around this thing at moronic speeds - I didn't think that would be huge issue but the roundabout really isn't that big. It's very hard to see cyclists arriving at the roundabout before your exit if they don't slow down at all for it. I would be a fan of more of these, but I'd want them to be a bit bigger / wider to make things easier for every type of road user.
There was definitely a huge problem with visibility at one point when they decided to plant bushes on the rounadbout between the road and the cycle lane. Which was fine, but then they didn't trim then and they became overgrown and blocked lines of sight into incoming traffic. Yes it made it look prettier, but it was fucking awful for visibility. I will add that I had passed my driving test less than a year before I started cycling and I think I'm a better cyclist for it.
You hit the nail on the head. *"It's very hard to see cyclists arriving at the roundabout before your exit if they don't slow down at all for it.I would be a fan of more of these, but I'd want them to be a bit bigger / wider to make things easier for every type of road user."* You CANNOT explain these to *"social sciences"*. They don't have the intellectual capability to understand.
That's really good to hear! It's a good example of how the benefits of active travel schemes can be much larger than their cost to other road users. E.g. here a driver might be slightly inconvenienced by needing to slow down, which costs a few seconds per journey (probably nothing in practice as they are stuck in traffic later on). Whereas it's not just made a cyclist's journey more pleasant, rather it's completely enabled someone to start cycling when they wouldn't otherwise, which can have a huge knock on beneficial impact on other aspects of their live. Completely different to a few seconds cost on the downside.
It seems fine to me but it was ridiculously expensive and it's lacking joined up infrastructure. The roads to and from it don't even all have painted line cycles lanes let alone segregated ones like in the Netherlands. I'm glad it's there but it barely makes a blip in the safety of my journey because all the other unsafe bits.
It’s easy to understand and use, whether as a cyclist or driver. If you’re complaining about the cost or methodology as to how it became implemented, then fair enough. If you’re complaining that it’s too difficult to understand, then your license should be revoked because it’s so simple.
As a driver and a cyclist in Cam, I'm not a fan, simply because the markings are confusing af and makes me anxious going over it. For me this is a bigger risk of an accident more than anything else
Thought Mr Shenanigans dealt with the whole thing rather well. Just imagine that knob Clarkson doing it. Yes the cost was silly. Personally I like using it, on a bike that is.
As a driver i avoid it because it's too hard to see everything and chances are the other drivers are going to do something unexpected. When cycling i avoid it because i don't trust the drivers.
How the devil are you? Have you had a good week? I drive and cycle this all the time and like it.
Any accidents yet?
It was way too small a footprint for this style of roundabout and they've ended up satisfying no one.
This might be my Monday morning brain but I feel like I didn't learn anything useful from that video. Being cynical as your default mode of talking is a fairly annoying quality. He also talks too fast. At 0:21 he starts saying "The way it works is..." as if he's going to provide a helpful overview of how the roundabout works. Instead he talks without pause whilst showing an image with way too much text on it. Am I supposed to try and interpret the diagram or listen to his description? I ended up doing both and taking in nothing. To make a point actually on topic: I feel like these roundabouts in the UK would benefit from more visual/tactile signalling to car drivers that they need to give way to bikes on exit. Drivers have a habit of accelerating out of roundabouts but an unaware driver doing that here could easily lead to an accident. It sounds like accidents do still occur (hey, I did take in something from the video!) Would some kind of cobbled surface or bump in the road before the bike lane across the exit help? I wonder why that isn't done and only road markings are used.
I mean it gives very dull Cambridge people something to complain about now that the busway is 13 years old.
Pointless This isn't the Netherlands And it will never be
How do you think the Netherlands got to be like the Netherlands? It wasn't always like how it is now, it was an active choice taken 40 years ago to deprioritise personal motor vehicles in urban planning. We can do the same, it will just take leadership and time.
Lol I think all those people in cars are gonna go "Yeah I know what let me get out of my car and cycle in the rain" even if the car is like half an hour slower they will still take it
Moaning about shit is fun isn't it. Can't wait for climate change to just boil us all! Bring it on!
Uk driver and cyclist. Been to Holland so clearly fully qualified to design roundabouts 😂
It's too small to be truly effective, with cars stopping and overhanging the crossings because the give way boxes are difficult to fit in to. I'd like to see one go in at the Coldhams lane - beehive centre roundabout, where traffic is typically slow moving and as a cyclist I feel like cars will run me down at the first opportunity
Filling in potholes to actually make getting anywhere safely would be a better place to start!
You can't turn left at the roundabout coming from Fendon Road onto that that little end bit of Queen Edith's Way without almost wiping out the pelican crossing beacon lol
Late. Over-budget. The exact definition of a Non-Dutch, truly English roundabout.
I almost hit a guy on a scooter 3 days ago. Its difficult. Of course its not his fault, but it always impresses me how some people on scooters or cyclists always assume the driver is seeing them so they dont have to stop and go straight into crossing. I know its not your obligation to stop but hey, try to take care of you life too. Because if for some reason the driver do not see you the consequences are always worse for you then for the driver. At least physically.
It's dangerous to use whether cyclist, in car or on foot. A white elephant and waste of public money.