Advocacy: Why We Do What We Do
Mike Watson | Advocate Coordinator , Pedal Power ACT
Chapter Six: Rules for Everyone Moving at Faster than Human-Powered Speeds – and Why
In the previous chapter, we explored the alerted see-and-avoid principle: the natural way humans avoid collisions when moving at human-powered speeds in shared spaces.
When Humans First Went Faster
Until 1829, this principle worked perfectly for everyone. Then George Stephenson’s Rocket locomotive changed everything. Reaching a then-incredible 30 miles per hour (50 km/h), it introduced speeds far beyond everyday human experience. Before that, the fastest travel came from horse-drawn stagecoaches, still within the limits of human reaction and the horses’ own instincts to avoid hazards.
When railways arrived, passengers and the public had no frame of reference for the lethal potential of high-speed collisions. This was a turning point: humans could no longer rely solely on seeing and avoiding in time [1].
From See-and-Avoid to Rules-of-the-Road
Today, we routinely travel at speeds where seeing and avoiding alone is not enough. Instead, we rely on traffic rules to prevent collisions; rules that only work if everyone follows them. Whether on roads, railways, shipping lanes, or airways, the logic is the same: the network stays safe because users adhere to shared rules.
Road junction designs reflect the need for all users to pass each other safely. A simple junction may have a give way sign; and reduced sight lines on the approach may justify a mandatory stop instead of a give way. With increased complexity, speed or traffic density, a roundabout or traffic lights may be justified.
At speeds below 50 km/h, roads can rely on design to encourage slower driving: narrow lanes, curves, or traffic-calming measures make high speeds impractical. In these environments, drivers must look outside the car to negotiate hazards, while cyclists, rarely exceeding 30 km/h, can safely operate without speedometers. Slower environments are ideal for see-and-avoid to work effectively.
Case Study: The Joys of a Wombat Crossing
For readers outside Australia, a wombat crossing is essentially a zebra crossing raised on a speed hump. It’s named after the sturdy Australian marsupial, famous for cube-shaped droppings (Google it) or click this link.
Before the Wombat
At the Dryandra Street crossing on Canberra’s C3 principal cycle route, cyclists once crossed 40 metres before the entrance to a busy roundabout. Drivers approaching from different directions were often focused elsewhere:
From the north: drivers focused on the roundabout entrance, not the obscured cycle path to their left.
From the south: drivers exited the roundabout up to 60 km/h, with little time to react to anyone on the crossing.
From the west: drivers accelerated away from the roundabout, typically spotting pedestrians or cyclists too late.
While there were no recorded bike–vehicle collisions, near misses were frequent, and vehicle-damaging accidents occurred on the roundabout itself after rain.
April 2020 April 2021
After the Wombat
In spring 2020, a wombat crossing was installed 15 metres closer to the roundabout. The cycle path was realigned to meet it, giving southbound drivers clear sightlines past the previous blind spot.
The effect was immediate. Vehicles now slowed to around 10–12 km/h over the crossing, helped along by a few early lessons involving spilled tools and supplies from speeding utes. At this lower speed, drivers had ample time to see and give way to cyclists and pedestrians. The risk of accidents fell dramatically, and the area felt, and became, much safer. Cycling traffic has since increased, although multiple factors may have contributed to this rise.
Why It Works
The wombat crossing works because it forces cars to move at bike speed, enabling the same eye contact and negotiation cyclists naturally use to avoid collisions. Instead of accelerating away from or towards the crossing, vehicles approach at a speed that makes stopping easy.
Even the local kangaroos seem to have figured out the rules. How traffic police plan to enforce their compliance remains a mystery!
[1] L.T.C. Rolt vividly described the public’s initial fear, and misunderstanding, of early rail travel:
“Its baleful breath would cause crops and stock to wither and die in any fields through which it passed. As for those who were foolhardy enough to travel behind the monster, even if they were not first asphyxiated by its headlong velocity they would certainly be whirled straight to death and damnation.
These first prejudices were all too soon overcome. The railways claimed their first victim at the opening of the Liverpool & Manchester Railway. The fate of the unfortunate Huskisson, who was run down by the Rocket and mortally injured, showed clearly enough that the new power was not to be trifled with. But the eager public who packed the first trains showed themselves incapable of estimating their speed or realising its dangers and only learnt their lesson by experience. This lack of judgement was one of the most fruitful causes of the earliest accidents. Company by-laws forbidding passengers to travel on carriage roofs seem ridiculous today, but it was quite otherwise then. Accustomed to the outside seats on stagecoaches, passengers invaded the rooftops on the slightest provocation, only to miss their footing or to have their brains dashed against the arch of a bridge. Similarly, and with consequences equally dire, they would unhesitatingly leap off a train travelling at speed to retrieve a hat blown off in an open or semi-open carriage.”
—L.T.C. Rolt, Red for Danger: The Classic History of British Railway Disasters (London: Pan Books, 1955), 6–7.
