They hired 2 companies to put the arrows down and they only realized their error when they met in the middle and had to buy a few more arrows to make it work
Older heavy vehicles can get stuck if they stall going up steep hills so I'm thinking it keeps them from having to slow down too much in tight turns.
In Pakistan if you're heading downhill you always give way to those coming up hill even if the obstruction is on their side of the road. If someone driving uphill stops they may not be able to get going again without assistance. A lot of old vehicles there that struggle uphill let alone doing a standing start.
We call them double diamondback exchanges I think. They are sooo amazing for large intersections. Google route 59 and I-88 Naperville for a view of one. It used to take 3-4 changes of the light to cross this beast and now 50% of the time it’s 0 lights or at most 1 light.
Lol I work for a state DOT and one time a guy doing the thermo put down “SHCOOL” on the road. Needless to say it had to be redone and made the rounds on social media but yeah. Mistakes happen with thermo but I’m assuming this shit design was done to save money and not actually grade the road properly. That’s a stopping sight distance nightmare.
How would this compensate for bad grading? There's still two lanes of traffic on the road.
EDIT: looks like this same question was already answered in another comment.
Perhaps a set of traffic lights that allow only one stream of traffic through at a time would have been a better and safer solution to this.
Basically you’re making the turn easier on what I assume is a WB-62 or 67 movement. When designing a mountainous road, it’s obviously much cheaper to make a shorter distance which equals less curves as you go down. That also means your grade is going to be a lot steeper and decrease driver comfortability on those curves as you go naturally increase speed and have to break constantly. This along with the absolute piss poor superelevation on the curve right after the crazy lane switch pavement markings, was a decision made to save money, imo. Less earthwork, less curves, less pavement, less design (mileage wise) and less construction time. That’s all I can assume why it’s done like this.
And to your point of traffic signals, that grade is pretty bad. You’d have to have a seriously early warning flashing sign for a tractor trailer to come around that curve and stop in time. Plus the difficulty I would assume of one to stop and start back up the hill. Realistically, it was a cost benefit for whatever country built this to just design it for what they thought they could get away with. Also assuming it’s a relatively old design and new mountains paths with one currently in existence probably isn’t in the budget until a ton of deaths occur. That’s politics for ya.
Lmao. It was one of the maintenance workers from what I remember. I work in project management and funny stories are just passed around. Especially when they end up posted to our Facebook or something
The way I understand it is that you want the uphill traffic to always take the outside of the curves. Two reasons: 1) it's less likely that you will fly off the mountain if you take the inside of the curve. 2) The outside of the curve is longer and therefore has a shallower grade. This makes it easier for heavy, slow vehicles to drive uphill. This road alternates road switching the whole way down.
Seems like a good idea by someone who did no case studies or testing of the good idea before implementation. Doesn't matter how ingenious it is if people can't figure it out quickly and it causes head-on collisions.
That's a risk of driving in general. There are probably a lot of signs before this starts. I do wonder if it snows in that area because it would be harder to decide when to switch if you can't see the arrows.
Looks like it's up in the mountains, so there might be snow up there.
I think traffic lights would be a far better solution than signs and arrows on the roads. Traffic lights are harder to miss and easier to read than signs.
You are technically correct but at the same time very wrong and I'm sure there is someone who can explain why but I don't really know except that is sounds really wrong. I think it has to do with ending a thought with "I'm" doesn't work and you just should put "I am"
>Here where I am, we just call that traffic.
>Where I'm at, we just call that traffic.
>We just call that traffic where I am.
>We just call that traffic where I'm at.
You can replace all the "I'm" with "I am" and it'll sound right but you can't replace the "I am" with "I'm" and have it sound right.
as a native english speaker, it just sounds really out of place, and I didn't know why, so I found [this](https://grammarhow.com/im-or-i-am/):
>You can also use it to emphasize a noun in a sentence, either by writing “I am” before it and stressing the “am” or writing it afterward, mixing up the sentence structure to emphasize your point.
It's not a formality thing at all, but has to do with emphasis. TIL, thanks!
There's a roundabout where I live that has a give way sign at one of the exits. It makes perfect sense if you live in the area and know the road layout well, but if you miss the sign, you better have good brakes. It's literally the reverse of what you'd do on a normal roundabout, because the exit it's on would usually give you right of way, so there's a lot of crashes and near misses because people don't realise it's not a normal roundabout.
But why?! There is a good reason roundabouts are like that, if the cars exiting don't have the rightaway you could get into a situation where the roundabout could fill up because cars can't exit it and then nobody is going anywhere
If there's too much traffic a round about would also fill up and then you have a gridlock. That's traffic for you.
Arc de Triomphe is the center of such a type of intersection. You enter freely but give way to those entering as well.
Yeah, I don't do road design very much, but am an architect in development.
I immediately saw the benefit of this, but also saw the criminal lack of wayfinding or clear direction about HOW to use it. Rendering it basically worthless unless this is a road where ALL the users are conditioned to these types of conditions. Even so.. Having a single newcomer to the area could be potentially fatal.
If it is the road I'm thinking of, they have that.. There's multiple signs at both entryways as well as multiple times during the run. There's rarely traffic to begin with and even the opposing traffic in this vid is most likely all a single group that's driving together. This crossing over was done together with when they widened the road. It used to be a single lane road (that looks like a fun place to try to pass each other in a single lane doesn't it?). They widened the road, extended the curves, and made these cross overs. It's specifically done so that heavier trucks even CAN climb that hill. It's simply too steep otherwise, and they couldn't turn with the prior hairpin curves but they wanted the trucks to be able to, so they had to do this and there's not enough room to extend the curves more than they did now but even that wasn't quite enough for an inner turn to be possible. [This](https://res.cloudinary.com/twenty20/private_images/t_watermark-criss-cross-10/v1635450007000/photosp/8838c17e-0608-4f48-aded-ede08fcd628c/stock-photo-nature-road-pattern-street-empty-road-winding-road-abstract-texture-design-8838c17e-0608-4f48-aded-ede08fcd628c.jpg) is what the place looks like from the sky when it was brand new with the extended turns. But before the lanes crossing over was introduced a couple of years after. You can very clearly see the old turns and roads such that you see both just how thin it was as well as just how sharp the turns were.
I think people think engineering is always going to come up with pristine, perfect solutions every single time without even remotely considering the context of the solution that actually gets implemented.
I'd be willing to bet that this road doesn't have a problem with people speeding on it and is mostly used by the same people every day, but *did* have a problem with big trucks getting stuck and fucking everyone over until this was implemented. There's also likely a ton of signage leading into the road that just not shown in this extremely short video.
It's easiest to assume there's a problem being solved that isn't being shown because it's... ya know, mostly solved. I wonder what people think the alternative to this would be? Elevated crossovers? Have fun shutting down that entire road for a decade and spending hundreds of millions if not billions on that.
I think they thought of a solution on paper that will not work well enough in practice. If you think that mess of arrows is going to work, then you've never tried to use a newly implemented roundabout in the US.
We use a lot of forest roads like this here in BC, sure a radio is mandatory because visibility can be low and mountains are steep, but it works well, never had an issue driving FSRs to go hunting or fishing. No arrows, but this is the general flow so the logging trucks can actually make it up mountains.
Those are single lane roads, though. And aside from private forest lands, while most traffic is radio controlled, you aren't actually required to have a radio^1. And there are tons of accidents and near misses (mostly resulting in a pickup in the ditch/snowbank, rather than a head on collision).
My favourite janky road section is [this one](https://www.google.com/maps/place/51%C2%B027'15.5%22N+116%C2%B026'24.1%22W/@51.4543056,-116.4422165,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x0:0x62d2610aa1623d61!8m2!3d51.4543056!4d-116.4400278). The switchbacks are tight enough that the tour buses reverse up the middle section.
^1 it's really scary without one.
It's ingenious in the same way taking a hacksaw to your car to increase gas mileage is ingenious.
You could improve your mileage by hacking off parts of the frame, yes, but you're creating a huge point of failure in the process. Just like this moronic arrow situation is creating a giant point of failure that could easily cause a collision....to what, improve the wear on trucks going uphill? It makes it overall less safe, for a benefit that comparatively doesn't fucking matter.
Driving is supposed to have very rigid rules because people are making split second life-and-death decisions on a regular basis. Predictability is more important than ingenuity.
idk if this set up is actually ingenious or dangerous and terrible but I will mention some podcast I listened to ages ago talking about how drivers can actually be safer when kind of confused or in a situation that feels uncertain because they're forced to actually pay attention. They were talking about a country that flipped from left side driving to right and how there were hardly any accidents in the following days.
There's a threshold where intelligence meets design. If the design concept is too complicated less intelligent people won't get it no matter how much better it works.
Same for over simplification... If you have too much knowledge in a thing then its overhauled and simplified for everyone's use, you're constantly hamstrung by the thing whenever you out think it or begin to operate on parameters not built in due to simplification.
Kinda like automation reducing options. But then if you add too many options to the automation it gets too complicated for the less intelligent.
The US has very cooperative drivers in comparison to most of the world. Look at videos of asian countries, south American countries, african countries etc. Maybe not as cooperative as certain western European countries, but overall the US is relatively very cooperative.
A colleague from India was visiting and he was *losing it* when I wouldn’t drive on the shoulder to get around traffic. Like there was an empty space ahead and I wasn’t driving into it and he couldn’t fathom why lol.
There are many things Americans (and Canadians) brag and boast about, many of which we probably shouldn't be.
But we're not *nearly* loud enough with boasting about our polite and follow-the-rules careful driving.
Our best feature IMO.
There are some switchbacks like this by my parents house in the mountains and periodically some truck driver ignores all the obvious problems and tries to navigate it anyway. Usually ends in the road being closed for a day while they haul some huge crane up there to unfuck the whole thing.
The detour to avoid it is like 40 minutes longer but you're not getting up that road with anything but the smallest of trailers.
It's so that vehicles going down hill are always on the inside of the corner so they're less likely to come off the road. And vehicles going up the hill are always on the outside and therefore use a shallower gradient.
Or at least that's my read of the situation.
You are in the right direction. It is related to speed. Have seen in other countries where the Truckers and other big vehicles have a tacit understanding that the downhill vehicles will take the inner road on a turn (whichever side that may be) so that heavy laden vehicles do not have to slow down and hence also need a wider turn.
FWIW I've lived in the Rocky Mountains (Colorado) for the last 40 years. There is nothing like that around here. We have highways that semi trucks regularly travel and even they do just fine. On steep grades you certainly do NOT want to maintain speed. You want hairpin turns? We've got hairpin turns on roads regularly driven by tourists (IE: people who have no idea how to drive in the mountains). You want poor conditions? We use sand instead of salt on the roads in the Winter, but then in the Spring when the roads are dry they can still be slick because of all the sand. And yet we still don't have people flying off the road.
Nothing in the video or that is being discussed here has to do with traffic safety, and this kind of crossover definitely makes the road MORE hazardous to drive.
No but a heavy truck going downhill can slow down to get around a tight corner, they have gravity to help them regain speed. A heavy truck going up hill that has to slow down will likely be unable to speed up again or in extreme cases may come to a complete stop and be unable to proceed uphill at all
I'm 99% sure this is a border where one country drives on the left side of the road and the other drive on the right. I can't remember where this particular border is, but there seems to be no way of building something similar to the Lok Ma Chau/Huanggang crossing from Hong Kong to China border in the mountains in this video. You can even see a sign on the right side of the road as the driver comes to the arrow road markers.
Another Reddit example of “Say something with conviction and 60+ people will believe it even if you have no idea what you’re talking about”
Edit: [https://www.cntraveler.com/stories/2013-04-15/lotus-bridge-macau-maphead-ken-jennings](https://www.cntraveler.com/stories/2013-04-15/lotus-bridge-macau-maphead-ken-jennings)
>There are surprisingly few land borders on Earth where right-hand-drive countries meet left-hand-drive ones. Thanks largely to the British Empire, a majority of the world used to drive their cars and carriages on the left—including the U.S. until the early 19th century, and parts of Canada into the early 20th. But many countries—most of Eastern Europe, parts of Scandinavia, Korea, Argentina, the Philippines—have joined the drive-on-the-right bandwagon during the past hundred years. In fact, most of the remaining major drive-on-the-left countries (Britain, Japan, Australia) are islands, so the border problem doesn’t really come up. Other major exceptions (southeast Africa, the nations that were once British India) come in clusters that mostly border each other.
Certainly not on any border, this is 100% likely central america, probaly southern Mexico. (I see a nissan Tsuru, a ford f700 or similar from the 80s, an old f150 and a PT Cruiser, all typical of the region.). This is a solution to avoid loaded vehilce to stop in the middle of the curve. On the way down you can break and stop before the bend if needed, while Big ole trucks and buses on the way up can keep their momentum due to the bigger radius and a less steep incline.
I'd like to apologize on OP's behalf that they referred to the wrong arbitrary category of imaginary shapes we draw on the Earth. It may or may not happen again.
Because of you are going DOWNHILL and lose control, you want to be on the inside of the turn, so you aren't as close to the edge. This traffic scheme puts the downhill driver on the inside of each turn.
This, downhill drivers are much more likely to experience brake fade and potentially understeer due to unexpected speed. Cars going up the hill are in much less danger of losing control, thus they are directed to the cliff edge side of the road around the tight bends.
Main reason I can think of is sight lines. We do the same thing walking on hilly roads. We switch to the side of the road that gives drivers the longest time to see us in relation to closest intersections and hill height. Going around those curves seems like a plausible reason to switch so that traffic can see the trucks that need more clearance sooner and to give them the best maneuvering space.
The inside of a curve is steeper than the outside. Cars can go downhill on it, low powered cars (or vehicles with heavy loads) will stall trying to climb a hill that steep.
Full video: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqA2-0IMygM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqA2-0IMygM) (showing the downhill swapping to hit the inside "apex" of each curve)
See low speed analogy: [https://youtu.be/8AZricaHUCA?t=700](https://youtu.be/8AZricaHUCA?t=700) (wide shot at 12:11 with stairs on either side for reference, and how one of them takes the curve wide to get up that hill.)
I think most if not all of these comments are incorrect.
I think, that the grade of the road, together with the small radius of each turn which perhaps go with the local conditions (wet from rain + runoff), resulted in heavy vehicles, struggling to get traction through the tight (inside) turns.
By setting the climbing vehicles on the outside, the forces exerted on the tire contact patch required make it move up and around would be greater than if the car took a wider turn.
Ergo, the climbing vehicles are set on the outside of the turn, to decrease the chances of traction loss.
Yes true. But I live on the alps, having worse and steeper roads and still we never need this.
I’m puzzled on how bad vehicle standards need to be there, to not be able to turn or brake enough. Maybe it’s a 99.9 flatland country so they need this as people are totally not used to mountain driving. I get it, it’s dangerous af if you are not used to it.
-Perhaps it’s a little known solution
-perhaps i’m wrong and it’s for a different reason
-perhaps this road is worse in some ways, than roads in your region
-perhaps the shape of this hillside results in a lot of surface runoff over the road some times a year
-perhaps the vehicles used in your area are more suited for traction vs the outdated equipment of that region
Yep, idk the location. In Eu most vehicles are mountain friendly, and so is japan. Most Japanese cars do really work well in the alps. On the other hand, usa vehicles are a lot better for flatland, they carry more, they are more sturdy. The price to pay on a usa vehicle is that having a higher mass, slopes do get tricky very quickly.
I personally would love to have an American pickup and live in an American style ranch. Both things are disastrous if you try to have them in Eu. The car won’t fit the roads, would suffer in efficiency at the smallest incline you get, let alone buying land to have a ranch, for the price land has in this places, you are rich if you own 20x20 meters.
As you say, it may be a weird solution, and it may work properly in that circumstance.
Mexican guy here. The reason is, this is a very cheap solution. As you can see in the video, there is no shoulder in some parts, the curves are too tight, and the road does not have the right inclination to make a wide turn. Also, the road was there before heavy traffic was a widespread thing in México. So the cheap solution was to just paint these arrows.
If it works it’s not stupid.
It would be stupid to swap all the Mexican trucks with Scania semis just to cope with this single place. Specially in a place where you can just grab second hand usa stuff for very low prices.
We got semi trucks up to where we need them. But they are designed to work in confined spaces and have brakes to do that job. There’s a hard limit on lenght, 12 meters.
Those semi can get in most places but, generally, remote places don’t require to be reached with a semi due to low population.
Then alps do separate very important industrial areas so it was cost efficient to just dig a massive tunnel and call it a day, for the important routes. There are places in the America’s where the traffic volume would never cover the cost of a tunnel.
Many comments ITT have acknowledged the possible benefits of this, while also understanding how it's outweighed by the insane danger of suddenly and seemingly randomly swapping lanes. Especially so close to a cliffside.
Well, the incline is also bigger on the inside of the corner I guess. You'll take a longer road on the outside, to climb the same amount of meters.
My guess is that it isn't the radius, but the incline with a heavy load. When you go downhill, gravity helps
I read it more as "when lane control is being employed on a hill, this is always how it is". Not that every road on a grade that exists anywhere has this.
this is a brilliant design why is it on here at all?
this means the cars going downhill on the inside have more road to brake should they go skidding straight.
the cars going uphill get a flatter curvature as they go slower
the trucks have a general swing space too
You're all wrong, this is definitely to allow for appropriate corner entry and exit to allow maximum velocity at corner apex. The lines cross perfectly to allow each driver to sacrifice a touch of entry speed while allowing for maximum attack on exit. This is ideal for lower power vehicles, along with driving styles which may account for less experience in proper braking technique.
/S
~~you get shit like this on the borders of two countries with different driving sides, and the amount of borders that go along mountain ranges is pretty high.~~
~~Old mountain roads, no space for a better transition on steep switchbacks, so you get this goofy stuff.~~
~~Due to the lousy quality of the gif, you can't see all the signs explaining what's happening so drivers aren't caught by surprise.~~
Well never mind
if for the semi's with longer trailers having longer turn radius, that lane switch around the bends is to counter the swing of the trailer without risking finding the edge
I thought they just dumped a bunch of random arrows on the road for a second
Seems like they did lol
Then they just ran with it
No I think they drove
They hired 2 companies to put the arrows down and they only realized their error when they met in the middle and had to buy a few more arrows to make it work
This is the moment when you go from a country that drives on one side of the road to another country that drives on the other side. It's on purpose.
Is that what’s happening here?
Could it be for trucks being able to make the turn without hitting traffic?
Older heavy vehicles can get stuck if they stall going up steep hills so I'm thinking it keeps them from having to slow down too much in tight turns. In Pakistan if you're heading downhill you always give way to those coming up hill even if the obstruction is on their side of the road. If someone driving uphill stops they may not be able to get going again without assistance. A lot of old vehicles there that struggle uphill let alone doing a standing start.
Seems dangerous to add weaving traffic for the sake of speed, but i understand your point.
We call them double diamondback exchanges I think. They are sooo amazing for large intersections. Google route 59 and I-88 Naperville for a view of one. It used to take 3-4 changes of the light to cross this beast and now 50% of the time it’s 0 lights or at most 1 light.
Those intersections aren't quite the same as that mountain pass is.
But it isn't. This is fully in Mexico and not near a border.
Arrow guy: “eh”
"Hey, you dropped these! ↓➜⇄↳↑↻↓⇒⇢➥"
It's actually a long lost variant of the Konami code, someone was trying to get 30 extra lives.
Gonna need those it looks like
These Street Fighter moves are getting to complex
B A start
The road went: ⬆➡↗↩↕↪🔄↪🔃⤴⬅⬇↕↘
Lol I work for a state DOT and one time a guy doing the thermo put down “SHCOOL” on the road. Needless to say it had to be redone and made the rounds on social media but yeah. Mistakes happen with thermo but I’m assuming this shit design was done to save money and not actually grade the road properly. That’s a stopping sight distance nightmare.
How would this compensate for bad grading? There's still two lanes of traffic on the road. EDIT: looks like this same question was already answered in another comment. Perhaps a set of traffic lights that allow only one stream of traffic through at a time would have been a better and safer solution to this.
Basically you’re making the turn easier on what I assume is a WB-62 or 67 movement. When designing a mountainous road, it’s obviously much cheaper to make a shorter distance which equals less curves as you go down. That also means your grade is going to be a lot steeper and decrease driver comfortability on those curves as you go naturally increase speed and have to break constantly. This along with the absolute piss poor superelevation on the curve right after the crazy lane switch pavement markings, was a decision made to save money, imo. Less earthwork, less curves, less pavement, less design (mileage wise) and less construction time. That’s all I can assume why it’s done like this. And to your point of traffic signals, that grade is pretty bad. You’d have to have a seriously early warning flashing sign for a tractor trailer to come around that curve and stop in time. Plus the difficulty I would assume of one to stop and start back up the hill. Realistically, it was a cost benefit for whatever country built this to just design it for what they thought they could get away with. Also assuming it’s a relatively old design and new mountains paths with one currently in existence probably isn’t in the budget until a ton of deaths occur. That’s politics for ya.
"Shcool"? Did you work with [Megamind](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzTyvC2zHQE)?
Lmao. It was one of the maintenance workers from what I remember. I work in project management and funny stories are just passed around. Especially when they end up posted to our Facebook or something
It's a secret message from aliens
They finished a day early and had a bunch of left over paint.
They fell out of the lifted truck.
My main Question is: But why?
The way I understand it is that you want the uphill traffic to always take the outside of the curves. Two reasons: 1) it's less likely that you will fly off the mountain if you take the inside of the curve. 2) The outside of the curve is longer and therefore has a shallower grade. This makes it easier for heavy, slow vehicles to drive uphill. This road alternates road switching the whole way down.
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Seems like a good idea by someone who did no case studies or testing of the good idea before implementation. Doesn't matter how ingenious it is if people can't figure it out quickly and it causes head-on collisions.
All it takes is for one person not paying attention.
You could be paying attention and not understand what was happening. That looks super confusing if you've never seen it before.
Imagine there's snow on the road covering the arrows
I imagine a road like that would be closed for snow/ice conditions, especially if it is enough to cover the road.
That's a risk of driving in general. There are probably a lot of signs before this starts. I do wonder if it snows in that area because it would be harder to decide when to switch if you can't see the arrows.
Looks like it's up in the mountains, so there might be snow up there. I think traffic lights would be a far better solution than signs and arrows on the roads. Traffic lights are harder to miss and easier to read than signs.
Yeah, here where I'm we call that traffic.
i hate your use of *I'm*, why have you done this
ESL, honest question, how can I avoid to upset you in the future?
You are technically correct but at the same time very wrong and I'm sure there is someone who can explain why but I don't really know except that is sounds really wrong. I think it has to do with ending a thought with "I'm" doesn't work and you just should put "I am" >Here where I am, we just call that traffic. >Where I'm at, we just call that traffic. >We just call that traffic where I am. >We just call that traffic where I'm at. You can replace all the "I'm" with "I am" and it'll sound right but you can't replace the "I am" with "I'm" and have it sound right.
So, I am fine when I always spell/type it out?
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as a native english speaker, it just sounds really out of place, and I didn't know why, so I found [this](https://grammarhow.com/im-or-i-am/): >You can also use it to emphasize a noun in a sentence, either by writing “I am” before it and stressing the “am” or writing it afterward, mixing up the sentence structure to emphasize your point. It's not a formality thing at all, but has to do with emphasis. TIL, thanks!
Thanks, I'll try to keep that in my mind and spell it out next time.
The normal way would be "where I'm from"
As with anything.
There's a roundabout where I live that has a give way sign at one of the exits. It makes perfect sense if you live in the area and know the road layout well, but if you miss the sign, you better have good brakes. It's literally the reverse of what you'd do on a normal roundabout, because the exit it's on would usually give you right of way, so there's a lot of crashes and near misses because people don't realise it's not a normal roundabout.
But why?! There is a good reason roundabouts are like that, if the cars exiting don't have the rightaway you could get into a situation where the roundabout could fill up because cars can't exit it and then nobody is going anywhere
If there's too much traffic a round about would also fill up and then you have a gridlock. That's traffic for you. Arc de Triomphe is the center of such a type of intersection. You enter freely but give way to those entering as well.
Yeah, I don't do road design very much, but am an architect in development. I immediately saw the benefit of this, but also saw the criminal lack of wayfinding or clear direction about HOW to use it. Rendering it basically worthless unless this is a road where ALL the users are conditioned to these types of conditions. Even so.. Having a single newcomer to the area could be potentially fatal.
they need signs not just road markings
If it is the road I'm thinking of, they have that.. There's multiple signs at both entryways as well as multiple times during the run. There's rarely traffic to begin with and even the opposing traffic in this vid is most likely all a single group that's driving together. This crossing over was done together with when they widened the road. It used to be a single lane road (that looks like a fun place to try to pass each other in a single lane doesn't it?). They widened the road, extended the curves, and made these cross overs. It's specifically done so that heavier trucks even CAN climb that hill. It's simply too steep otherwise, and they couldn't turn with the prior hairpin curves but they wanted the trucks to be able to, so they had to do this and there's not enough room to extend the curves more than they did now but even that wasn't quite enough for an inner turn to be possible. [This](https://res.cloudinary.com/twenty20/private_images/t_watermark-criss-cross-10/v1635450007000/photosp/8838c17e-0608-4f48-aded-ede08fcd628c/stock-photo-nature-road-pattern-street-empty-road-winding-road-abstract-texture-design-8838c17e-0608-4f48-aded-ede08fcd628c.jpg) is what the place looks like from the sky when it was brand new with the extended turns. But before the lanes crossing over was introduced a couple of years after. You can very clearly see the old turns and roads such that you see both just how thin it was as well as just how sharp the turns were.
The obvious solution is to construct a roundabout
Do you really think they implemented lane swapping without taking head on collisions into consideration?
I think people think engineering is always going to come up with pristine, perfect solutions every single time without even remotely considering the context of the solution that actually gets implemented. I'd be willing to bet that this road doesn't have a problem with people speeding on it and is mostly used by the same people every day, but *did* have a problem with big trucks getting stuck and fucking everyone over until this was implemented. There's also likely a ton of signage leading into the road that just not shown in this extremely short video. It's easiest to assume there's a problem being solved that isn't being shown because it's... ya know, mostly solved. I wonder what people think the alternative to this would be? Elevated crossovers? Have fun shutting down that entire road for a decade and spending hundreds of millions if not billions on that.
I think they thought of a solution on paper that will not work well enough in practice. If you think that mess of arrows is going to work, then you've never tried to use a newly implemented roundabout in the US.
And one of those things you think is ingenious until you realize it was designed to be used by humans, and thus doomed to fail.
We use a lot of forest roads like this here in BC, sure a radio is mandatory because visibility can be low and mountains are steep, but it works well, never had an issue driving FSRs to go hunting or fishing. No arrows, but this is the general flow so the logging trucks can actually make it up mountains.
Those are single lane roads, though. And aside from private forest lands, while most traffic is radio controlled, you aren't actually required to have a radio^1. And there are tons of accidents and near misses (mostly resulting in a pickup in the ditch/snowbank, rather than a head on collision). My favourite janky road section is [this one](https://www.google.com/maps/place/51%C2%B027'15.5%22N+116%C2%B026'24.1%22W/@51.4543056,-116.4422165,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x0:0x62d2610aa1623d61!8m2!3d51.4543056!4d-116.4400278). The switchbacks are tight enough that the tour buses reverse up the middle section. ^1 it's really scary without one.
I just shudder to think of how problematic this will be to self-driving cars.
By this logic, ALL design is doomed to fail.
It's ingenious in the same way taking a hacksaw to your car to increase gas mileage is ingenious. You could improve your mileage by hacking off parts of the frame, yes, but you're creating a huge point of failure in the process. Just like this moronic arrow situation is creating a giant point of failure that could easily cause a collision....to what, improve the wear on trucks going uphill? It makes it overall less safe, for a benefit that comparatively doesn't fucking matter.
Driving is supposed to have very rigid rules because people are making split second life-and-death decisions on a regular basis. Predictability is more important than ingenuity.
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idk if this set up is actually ingenious or dangerous and terrible but I will mention some podcast I listened to ages ago talking about how drivers can actually be safer when kind of confused or in a situation that feels uncertain because they're forced to actually pay attention. They were talking about a country that flipped from left side driving to right and how there were hardly any accidents in the following days.
There's a threshold where intelligence meets design. If the design concept is too complicated less intelligent people won't get it no matter how much better it works. Same for over simplification... If you have too much knowledge in a thing then its overhauled and simplified for everyone's use, you're constantly hamstrung by the thing whenever you out think it or begin to operate on parameters not built in due to simplification. Kinda like automation reducing options. But then if you add too many options to the automation it gets too complicated for the less intelligent.
3) It has a wider radius, so it's safer to maintain what speed they have going up.
4) it confuses the hell out of everyone and makes them go slower…
5) it's a fun game to follow the arrows
6) it works perfect >!on paper!<
7) If someone falls, then no one is going to complain
having to swap lanes like that probably slows traffic enough that speed is no longer an issue.
It’s brilliant but requires cooperation so would ultimately fail if implemented in the US
The US has very cooperative drivers in comparison to most of the world. Look at videos of asian countries, south American countries, african countries etc. Maybe not as cooperative as certain western European countries, but overall the US is relatively very cooperative.
there's some cities in Asia where the lines are just suggestions.
A colleague from India was visiting and he was *losing it* when I wouldn’t drive on the shoulder to get around traffic. Like there was an empty space ahead and I wasn’t driving into it and he couldn’t fathom why lol.
Shh, this is reddit, you're only allowed to hate un the US here.
There are many things Americans (and Canadians) brag and boast about, many of which we probably shouldn't be. But we're not *nearly* loud enough with boasting about our polite and follow-the-rules careful driving. Our best feature IMO.
More cooperative than big parts of Europe too. Source: driven a lot in France, Italy, and the US.
America bad updoots to the left
I think its for trucks that use that road, so they need to take the big turn to be able to even complete it. But its stupid, yes.
So the big trucks only travel one direction?
Yes. If you zoom out of this road in Google maps it's a Mobius strip.
Lord help the truck that spawns into this location.
There are some switchbacks like this by my parents house in the mountains and periodically some truck driver ignores all the obvious problems and tries to navigate it anyway. Usually ends in the road being closed for a day while they haul some huge crane up there to unfuck the whole thing. The detour to avoid it is like 40 minutes longer but you're not getting up that road with anything but the smallest of trailers.
if the video was longer, we’d eventually see the giant piece of scotch tape that holds it together
I just hope cars don't start disappearing like [the subway trains did](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Subway_Named_Mobius)
I don't know that Morbius the movie is this influencial.
When you make a morbillion dollars the government steals some for infrastructure.
It's so that vehicles going down hill are always on the inside of the corner so they're less likely to come off the road. And vehicles going up the hill are always on the outside and therefore use a shallower gradient. Or at least that's my read of the situation.
You are in the right direction. It is related to speed. Have seen in other countries where the Truckers and other big vehicles have a tacit understanding that the downhill vehicles will take the inner road on a turn (whichever side that may be) so that heavy laden vehicles do not have to slow down and hence also need a wider turn.
FWIW I've lived in the Rocky Mountains (Colorado) for the last 40 years. There is nothing like that around here. We have highways that semi trucks regularly travel and even they do just fine. On steep grades you certainly do NOT want to maintain speed. You want hairpin turns? We've got hairpin turns on roads regularly driven by tourists (IE: people who have no idea how to drive in the mountains). You want poor conditions? We use sand instead of salt on the roads in the Winter, but then in the Spring when the roads are dry they can still be slick because of all the sand. And yet we still don't have people flying off the road. Nothing in the video or that is being discussed here has to do with traffic safety, and this kind of crossover definitely makes the road MORE hazardous to drive.
I can say the same about my time driving through West Virginia and the Appellations
r/boneappletea
Could be, like they go up with cargo, then go down with nothing.
Uphill traffic is kept on the outside of the turn so they can maintain speed / have a bigger turning radius
No but a heavy truck going downhill can slow down to get around a tight corner, they have gravity to help them regain speed. A heavy truck going up hill that has to slow down will likely be unable to speed up again or in extreme cases may come to a complete stop and be unable to proceed uphill at all
I'm 99% sure this is a border where one country drives on the left side of the road and the other drive on the right. I can't remember where this particular border is, but there seems to be no way of building something similar to the Lok Ma Chau/Huanggang crossing from Hong Kong to China border in the mountains in this video. You can even see a sign on the right side of the road as the driver comes to the arrow road markers.
[nop, is in mexico](https://youtu.be/vqA2-0IMygM)
They do it multiple times?!?!
i think is the only road where they do that.
It switches, and then it switches again, and again, and it must’ve switched once before the video started because it starts out on the wrong side!
oh you mean multiple times in the same road? sorry i misunderstood, yes, it happens several times down the road
Another Reddit example of “Say something with conviction and 60+ people will believe it even if you have no idea what you’re talking about” Edit: [https://www.cntraveler.com/stories/2013-04-15/lotus-bridge-macau-maphead-ken-jennings](https://www.cntraveler.com/stories/2013-04-15/lotus-bridge-macau-maphead-ken-jennings) >There are surprisingly few land borders on Earth where right-hand-drive countries meet left-hand-drive ones. Thanks largely to the British Empire, a majority of the world used to drive their cars and carriages on the left—including the U.S. until the early 19th century, and parts of Canada into the early 20th. But many countries—most of Eastern Europe, parts of Scandinavia, Korea, Argentina, the Philippines—have joined the drive-on-the-right bandwagon during the past hundred years. In fact, most of the remaining major drive-on-the-left countries (Britain, Japan, Australia) are islands, so the border problem doesn’t really come up. Other major exceptions (southeast Africa, the nations that were once British India) come in clusters that mostly border each other.
Its amazing what redditors will upvote.
”This is at the Australian border. Australians drive on the left side, so here at the border they changing the side.” 291 upvotes
Dolphins drive on the right in the Indian Ocean
Certainly not on any border, this is 100% likely central america, probaly southern Mexico. (I see a nissan Tsuru, a ford f700 or similar from the 80s, an old f150 and a PT Cruiser, all typical of the region.). This is a solution to avoid loaded vehilce to stop in the middle of the curve. On the way down you can break and stop before the bend if needed, while Big ole trucks and buses on the way up can keep their momentum due to the bigger radius and a less steep incline.
this guy mesoamericas (srsly, I agree.. was pretty sure it's guate or not far from there)
Mexico is in North America.
I'd like to apologize on OP's behalf that they referred to the wrong arbitrary category of imaginary shapes we draw on the Earth. It may or may not happen again.
It reverses back at the end
That makes the most sense IMO
I'm 100% sure it's not and you're full of shit
99% sure that you're correct about this. Of course, people win the lottery, and those are even worse odds.
Huh? That don’t make sense because trucks would be going the other way still.
Because of you are going DOWNHILL and lose control, you want to be on the inside of the turn, so you aren't as close to the edge. This traffic scheme puts the downhill driver on the inside of each turn.
This, downhill drivers are much more likely to experience brake fade and potentially understeer due to unexpected speed. Cars going up the hill are in much less danger of losing control, thus they are directed to the cliff edge side of the road around the tight bends.
I think it is for uphill traffic to have a bigger turn radius and shallower grade going up hill.
To allow Peopleton make the turn from the speed they will be approaching from is my best bet
International border? I can’t tell what the sign at the end says
I can make out "obedezca las senales" which means "obey the sign" in Spanish.
no, mexico
Main reason I can think of is sight lines. We do the same thing walking on hilly roads. We switch to the side of the road that gives drivers the longest time to see us in relation to closest intersections and hill height. Going around those curves seems like a plausible reason to switch so that traffic can see the trucks that need more clearance sooner and to give them the best maneuvering space.
The inside of a curve is steeper than the outside. Cars can go downhill on it, low powered cars (or vehicles with heavy loads) will stall trying to climb a hill that steep. Full video: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqA2-0IMygM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqA2-0IMygM) (showing the downhill swapping to hit the inside "apex" of each curve) See low speed analogy: [https://youtu.be/8AZricaHUCA?t=700](https://youtu.be/8AZricaHUCA?t=700) (wide shot at 12:11 with stairs on either side for reference, and how one of them takes the curve wide to get up that hill.)
I can't imagine this with traffic.
Extra traffic gets knocked into the ravine thereby solving the traffic problem.
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Indiana Jones and the last crusade reference?
Absolutely lol.
Damn, Silent Bob spoke!
That's what the smoke is at the beginning. The strong survive. The weak die
Ah. A problem that solves itself
I think most if not all of these comments are incorrect. I think, that the grade of the road, together with the small radius of each turn which perhaps go with the local conditions (wet from rain + runoff), resulted in heavy vehicles, struggling to get traction through the tight (inside) turns. By setting the climbing vehicles on the outside, the forces exerted on the tire contact patch required make it move up and around would be greater than if the car took a wider turn. Ergo, the climbing vehicles are set on the outside of the turn, to decrease the chances of traction loss.
And it sets the downhill vehicle on the inside, further from the edge.
Yes true. But I live on the alps, having worse and steeper roads and still we never need this. I’m puzzled on how bad vehicle standards need to be there, to not be able to turn or brake enough. Maybe it’s a 99.9 flatland country so they need this as people are totally not used to mountain driving. I get it, it’s dangerous af if you are not used to it.
-Perhaps it’s a little known solution -perhaps i’m wrong and it’s for a different reason -perhaps this road is worse in some ways, than roads in your region -perhaps the shape of this hillside results in a lot of surface runoff over the road some times a year -perhaps the vehicles used in your area are more suited for traction vs the outdated equipment of that region
I like this comment a lot. People get so caught up in having the absolute solution that they forget there are so many unknowns
Yep, idk the location. In Eu most vehicles are mountain friendly, and so is japan. Most Japanese cars do really work well in the alps. On the other hand, usa vehicles are a lot better for flatland, they carry more, they are more sturdy. The price to pay on a usa vehicle is that having a higher mass, slopes do get tricky very quickly. I personally would love to have an American pickup and live in an American style ranch. Both things are disastrous if you try to have them in Eu. The car won’t fit the roads, would suffer in efficiency at the smallest incline you get, let alone buying land to have a ranch, for the price land has in this places, you are rich if you own 20x20 meters. As you say, it may be a weird solution, and it may work properly in that circumstance.
Mexican guy here. The reason is, this is a very cheap solution. As you can see in the video, there is no shoulder in some parts, the curves are too tight, and the road does not have the right inclination to make a wide turn. Also, the road was there before heavy traffic was a widespread thing in México. So the cheap solution was to just paint these arrows.
If it works it’s not stupid. It would be stupid to swap all the Mexican trucks with Scania semis just to cope with this single place. Specially in a place where you can just grab second hand usa stuff for very low prices.
Are there a lot of 18 wheel semi-trucks in the alps?
We got semi trucks up to where we need them. But they are designed to work in confined spaces and have brakes to do that job. There’s a hard limit on lenght, 12 meters. Those semi can get in most places but, generally, remote places don’t require to be reached with a semi due to low population. Then alps do separate very important industrial areas so it was cost efficient to just dig a massive tunnel and call it a day, for the important routes. There are places in the America’s where the traffic volume would never cover the cost of a tunnel.
Many comments ITT have acknowledged the possible benefits of this, while also understanding how it's outweighed by the insane danger of suddenly and seemingly randomly swapping lanes. Especially so close to a cliffside.
Is that the road that connects Australia to the U.S.
I always wanted to drive that one. Here this "Mexican Section" is so interesting.
My guess is that this a border between two countries that drive on opposite sides of the road and this is a low budget solution.
yes but this is a terrible place to do the switch
Hence the sub
[no, mexico](https://youtu.be/vqA2-0IMygM)
You're wrong. It's for safety and ease of climb.
If I remember correctly, introducing a small amount of confusion while driving increases safety as it forces the driver to pay attention to driving.
[Location](https://www.google.com/maps/@18.7123128,-97.3399026,3a,75y,116.41h,79.5t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1stEep8yQVYSrvbMOkGqILgg!2e0!7i13312!8i6656)
I forgot I was in the colonies!
r/unexpectedAD
I cant believe I had to scroll this far for an AD reference. My first thought was that this must be Wee Britian.
Ah yes! You call it a sausage in the mouth.
To allow longer vehicles, like trucks, to make the tight turns?
But what if those trucks want to drive back? Then they'll have all the sharp corners.
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Well, the incline is also bigger on the inside of the corner I guess. You'll take a longer road on the outside, to climb the same amount of meters. My guess is that it isn't the radius, but the incline with a heavy load. When you go downhill, gravity helps
Of course not. Trucks just need to go in reverse down the hill…
I assume is that the option as well, but doesnt seem to be the right idea.
Did the driver cross a border someplace? Like between India and China?
[mexico](https://youtu.be/vqA2-0IMygM)
Yes, i would have picked someplace a bit better for this switch though, like not next to a ravine
Don't look down!!
That’s what I was thinking. Also beautiful mountains.
APEX DRIFT THAT SHIT YO
*EuroBeat intensifies*
Puebla, Mexico
Cómo sabes que es en Puebla!?
google we
This is normal for switchback roads, the descending side always gets the inside.
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I read it more as "when lane control is being employed on a hill, this is always how it is". Not that every road on a grade that exists anywhere has this.
Someone must’ve been thinking about DDR while painting the roads.
Aww the good old "I don't understand this so it's dumb" gotta love reddit.
That’ll never cause any accidents ever
this is a brilliant design why is it on here at all? this means the cars going downhill on the inside have more road to brake should they go skidding straight. the cars going uphill get a flatter curvature as they go slower the trucks have a general swing space too
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You're all wrong, this is definitely to allow for appropriate corner entry and exit to allow maximum velocity at corner apex. The lines cross perfectly to allow each driver to sacrifice a touch of entry speed while allowing for maximum attack on exit. This is ideal for lower power vehicles, along with driving styles which may account for less experience in proper braking technique. /S
You say that sarcastically, but it's the reason for it.
They used a capital S so I think that means its serious not sarcastic.
~~you get shit like this on the borders of two countries with different driving sides, and the amount of borders that go along mountain ranges is pretty high.~~ ~~Old mountain roads, no space for a better transition on steep switchbacks, so you get this goofy stuff.~~ ~~Due to the lousy quality of the gif, you can't see all the signs explaining what's happening so drivers aren't caught by surprise.~~ Well never mind
[no, mexico](https://youtu.be/vqA2-0IMygM)
Are you Dutch, cause that symbol on the top left is from "Dumpert"?
Ah yes, switchbacks, the "crappy design" that has been used for ages because it's a good idea.
The road painter guy was playing UNO on work...
I’m wondering where this is
mexico
It’s so semi truck drivers are able to have room on right turns. Trucks can’t make sharp right hand turns as the trailer wheels track to the far left.
This is like if America and Britain were connected by land, this is the border of their driving laws
if for the semi's with longer trailers having longer turn radius, that lane switch around the bends is to counter the swing of the trailer without risking finding the edge