This is Ipley Cross, in the middle of the New Forest, in south-west England.
I couldn't find any official statistics for the most dangerous crossroads in Britain,
but this is certainly a contender.
Because even though it's quiet and rural here, there's not much traffic,
there's an average of two incidents a year here.
Two cyclists have died in the last ten years in near-identical crashes:
both times, a driver failed to stop
and hit a cyclist who had right-of-way on the main road.
But the visibility is excellent here.
It's well-signed. Actually, really, really well signed,
now I'm here it's obvious there's a lot of road markings for such a rural junction.
But people keep getting hurt here.
So why is it so bad?
For the research here, I'm indebted to someone called Bez.
That's the only name I could find, I couldn't track them down,
they didn't reply to messages,
but Bez wrote the definitive article on why this place is such a disaster.
Let's say there's a driver approaching on the side road at around 40mph.
They're not slowing down, because they're reckless,
and they can see the main road is clear.
Here's their view.
The cyclist, until the very last second, was exactly in the blind spot
caused by the driver's door pillar.
The driver didn't slow down for the stop sign, which would have shown them the cyclist.
They didn't move their head, which would have shown them the cyclist.
The speed involved doesn't have to be some magic bad number.
Because of the angle of these roads,
for every possible speed that a reckless driver might be travelling at,
there is a reasonable speed for a cyclist on the main road
that'll keep them right in that blind spot all the way.
But why won't the cyclist see the car?
They have right of way, yes, but surely they'd notice that the car's not slowing down.
Well, if these two roads were crossing at right angles to each other,
yes, they would see them.
Don't get me wrong, the driver would still be reckless,
but at least the cyclist would notice and be able to take evasive action.
But these roads aren't at right angles.
There's one other subtle thing here: in this situation, the car is approaching from behind the cyclist.
The cyclist won't see it until it's too late.
And even if they do, when both car and bicycle slam on their brakes,
simple simulations don't work any more .
Because it's not up to trigonometry at that point, it's up to human reactions
and how both of them try to avoid the collision.
This junction is at the worst possible angle.
And it happened by accident: you can see on old maps
that this was just the angle at which two paths happened to intersect,
and those were the paths that happened to become roads over time.
This wouldn't be built nowadays: but at some point in the early 20th century,
before it was possible to travel by road at these sorts of speeds,
this was a reasonable junction.
The local council has made some changes. Not only the paint:
but you can see on Google Street View that the signs here used to be 'give way', not 'stop'.
Stop signs are really rare in Britain,
they're only meant to be used in exceptional circumstances like this,
and almost everyone just rolls through them anyway.
And they're clearly not working, because people keep getting hurt.
So why hasn't it been redesigned?
Speed bumps or a chicane on the approach would solve the problem,
but it's not legal to have those unless you also have street lighting,
which would mean laying miles of new electrical cable at enormous expense.
That's assuming you could get around all the regulations
that define this area as a conservation area,
and the objections from the locals about putting bright lighting
in a place famed for its dark skies.
Same problem with a traffic light.
The best solution is to stagger the crossing, to curve the two side roads
so they meet the main road at right angles, force the drivers to slow down.
But again: conservation area, conservative locals,
and a budget estimated at around £100,000.
The cheapest and easiest way to solve it, of course,
would be for drivers to stop at the stop sign.
But road safety, and anyone's safety, shouldn't require faith in human nature.
Thank you to Bez, whoever you are!
The research for this video started with that article, so
I've put a link in the description, please do go and read it.