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Shanghai is an international metropolis with highly developed transportation. Public transportation, subways, private cars, non-motorized vehicles, and other means of transportation constitute Shanghai's most basic transportation network. Although non-motorized vehicles account for a small proportion in the transportation network composition, their travel safety hazards account for the largest proportion.

Recently, under the guidance of the Shanghai Municipal Public Security Bureau Traffic Police Corps, our district traffic police began to focus on rectifying the safety hazards of non-motorized vehicle left turns at intersections.

Since the beginning of this year, our district traffic police have discovered that in several traffic accidents involving left-turning non-motorized vehicles and motorized vehicles in the same direction, although the causes of the accidents were mostly due to non-motorized vehicle riders' lack of observation and competing for the right of way, the accident intersections also commonly had issues such as shared lanes for motorized and non-motorized vehicles and the lack of left turn signal phases for traffic lights. Pan Shen, a police officer from the District Traffic Police Detachment Duty Road Setup Brigade, said, "If non-motorized vehicles are turning left when the green light for motorized vehicles comes on, it indeed increases the probability of collisions with straight-moving vehicles."

In fact, this situation is also a historical legacy issue. Due to the early planning and construction era of some roads, limited by insufficient road width and the impact of traffic flow exceeding the designed capacity of the roads, it is now difficult to set up mutually independent traffic signals for "straight" and "left turn" at all intersections. In response to this situation, our district traffic police conducted a safety hazard screening for non-motorized vehicle left turns at all intersections within the scope of the entire district, identifying a total of 30 hazardous intersections, with hazard types including large non-motorized vehicle traffic volume, wide road width, lack of dedicated non-motorized vehicle left turn signals, and so on.

For example, at the intersection of Kongjiang Road and Longchang Road in Yangpu District, the non-motorized vehicle traffic volume is large, and there are no dedicated left turn signals for non-motorized vehicles at the intersection. When the green light is on, there will be a situation of motorized vehicles and left-turning non-motorized vehicles "competing for the right of way" at the intersection. The occurrence of this "competing for the right of way" situation not only increases the probability of traffic accidents but also reduces the speed of motorized vehicles passing through the intersection and lowers the traffic efficiency of the intersection.

In this regard, our district traffic police launched a campaign to rectify the hidden dangers of non-motorized vehicle left turns at intersections. At this intersection, the traffic police piloted an improvement measure of "non-motorized vehicles going first": setting up dedicated signals for non-motorized vehicles at the intersection, and turning on the green light for non-motorized vehicles 10 seconds before the green light for motorized vehicles, allowing non-motorized vehicles to turn left and pass through the intersection first, thus basically avoiding the confrontation between motorized vehicles and non-motorized vehicles in the middle of the road.

"In the past, when motorized vehicles were going straight, it wasn't so convenient for us to turn, and there were even safety hazards. Now with an additional turn signal, we feel safer."

"Having motorized vehicles going straight and non-motorized vehicles turning left separately is a bit safer than going together."

"Now that this light has been added, I feel like there are an extra 10 seconds, but after turning, there are basically no motorized vehicles competing with me for the right of way."

...

Non-motorized vehicle riders passing through the intersection of Kongjiang Road and Longchang Road all feel that this measure is very practical.

In addition to non-motorized vehicle riders, motorized vehicle drivers passing through the intersection also feel that "it's easier to drive than before." "In the past, straight-moving vehicles had to yield to turning non-motorized vehicles. Now that the light has been installed, non-motorized vehicles go first, and when we motorized vehicles go straight later, we don't have the trouble of confrontation," said Xiao Lin, a motorized vehicle driver.

Pan Shen said that after analysis and judgment, although the travel time for motorized vehicles at the intersection of Kongjiang Road and Longchang Road was reduced by 10 seconds after adopting the control method of early start for non-motorized vehicle and pedestrian signals, the traffic efficiency of motorized vehicles was also improved as non-motorized vehicles and pedestrians went first. This achieved the goal of ensuring the crossing safety of pedestrians and non-motorized vehicles without increasing congestion at the intersection, killing two birds with one stone.

In addition to the intersection of Kongjiang Road and Longchang Road, for the 30 hazardous intersections identified through screening, our district traffic police will adopt corresponding optimization and improvement measures according to the actual on-site situation.

For example, in conjunction with road improvement projects, it is planned to set up a two-stage crossing mode for non-motorized vehicles at the intersections of Shunping Road and Longchang Road, and Zhongyuan Road and Yinhang Road. It is planned to add a north-to-east left turn signal at the intersection of Longchang Road and Changyang Road. At the intersections of Zhongyuan Road and Guohe Road, and Anbo Road and Yingkou Road, following the successful experience of Kongjiang Road and Longchang Road, the "non-motorized vehicles going first" mode will be adopted, setting up dedicated signals for non-motorized vehicles and starting them 10 seconds early to facilitate the passage of non-motorized vehicles. At the intersection of Zhongshan North Road 2 and Changling Road, a left turn signal for non-motorized vehicles will be directly added, and a dedicated phase will be set... Pan Shen said that after the rectification of hazardous intersections with conditions for implementation is completed, the travel safety of non-motorized vehicles can basically be ensured, reducing the occurrence of non-motorized vehicle traffic accidents.

We learned from the District Traffic Police Detachment that at some intersections that are temporarily unable to implement facility transformation due to objective factors such as road conditions and traffic flow, measures such as increasing on-site management force during morning and evening traffic peak hours and installing warning and reminder signs will be adopted in the future.