Re: Different defects
" it can result in accidents where people apparently haven't seen a pedestrian or cyclists that was in plain sign, and they have no idea why."
I can give an example myself from 30 years ago, not far from New Zealand's Parliament house
Narrowish but extremely busy one way road, cars both sides (various doors opening) slightly uphill, behind a cyclist weaving all over the lane, because I needed to turn 50 metres past her and didn't want to jump in front/cut her off
I was concentrating so hard on looking for car doors flying open and being wary of the cyclist (who seemed on the verge of falling off) that I completely missed the zebra crossing (cars illegally parked hard up against it either side) and pedestrian who had walked out onto the road without looking, until she was in front of me (my three passengers were also startled. We were ALL worried about the cyclist)
Thankfully I was going slow enough to stop even though completely startled. Although there were markings on the road for the crossing it was extremely faded and essentially disappeared in wet weather (anyone who knows Wellington knows this is "most of the year").
It was very much a case of if you knew the crossing was there you paid more attention to the footpath, but this crossing was a unicorn (it was a VERY busy road and the signage was nearly invisible).
Later on I lived in that area and as a pedestrian on foot I _never_ went on that crossing without checking carefully as it was too easy to have to dodge 40mph cars not slowing down (particularly on weekdays)
A complant to the council resulted in a safety assessment and the crossing being completely rebuilt/remarked and repositioned - apparently I wasn't the only driver who was surprised by the crossing and safety officers observed a bucketload of near-misses (which gelled with my experience on that crossing as a pedestrian)
Biting the hand that feeds IT
