Time for a bit of a rant, apologies if this has been covered before:
Scene today on A1:
Traffic tailed back…reach sign saying one lane closing in 800yds…traffic in closing lane starting to move quicker than the other…cars prematurely moving over to open lane…still 600yds to go…slower lane drivers starting to get peeved…lorry does honourable thing and straddles both carriageways to stop queue jumpers…still 400yds to go…horns blowing…fists being waved…road rage about 8.7 on richter scale…
Why don’t drivers use BOTH lanes until they reach the traffic cones and then merge in orderly fashion:
…shorter queue…no queue jumping…no road rage…pleasant journey…
Rant complete
Splodgeface
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Couldn't agree more. Use both lanes.
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At the risk of having a smug-in, I'd guess that most people posting here by definition think about their driving style and what goes on around them and would do this anyway. I agree with your sentiments. If there was a "I'm a plank and have no idea how to drive, can anyone help me" forum, we might make some headway.
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Hairy,
Could not agree more - did our Transport Minister (don't laugh) not at one time mention the ZIP system as used in other countries?
Matt35
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Well, these traffic control measures are all very well (the "stacker system" on the by-pass as you come off Sheffield Parkway being a classic case in point) if a) everyone knows what they are and how to use them and b) then uses them appropriately. Everyone has to be following the same principle. If not: the mix of unfairness, selfishness, "me first" and a sense of injustice takes over, thus leading to ... well, we all know, don't we?
Carole
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Hong Kong is a nightmare of spaghetti flyovers, flyunders, tunnels, 3 lanes going into 2, back out in to 3, then back to 1 all in veryt short distances. Every day I used to drive through this lot and every day it moved slowly, if smoothly, because the disciplined Chinese used the zipper system to merge. Granted the white van-ers exist there too but by and large it works. I never recalkl a traffic jam in HK, which must have at least as great a density of cars to road space as most UK cities.
In the Philippines they'll turn 4 lanes into 8 then all try and get through the venturi at once. Result gridlock. Machismo culture vs, the face-based one of lots of people living in a small space therefore having to accommodate each other. Yesterday on the freeway. normaly a 3 -lane but they've closed it to 1 lane for a year for renovation. 4 km from the warning sign to the actual merge point. Time to get through: 73 mins!
Worst offenders? Why, next to buses, BMW's of course!
UK the same, it's a "me-first" culture, no manners any more.
Ever watched lots of ants going into a a small hole in the desert? They all march in a straight and orderly fashion one behind another........
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Worst offenders? Why, next to buses, BMW's of course!
Growler - I know that I may be a little biased, and I'm not sure of the situation where you are but in the UK if I sit there in my bus and wait politely for someone to let me out (or in), I'll be there forever. Unfortunately an "I must, I must get there before the bus" attitude is rife. The only way to keep to timetable without speeding is to nudge my way in - others may see it as intimidation, but it honestly isn't. Just trying to do my job!
I agree with you about BMWs though!
Cheers
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No dig at UK bus drivers. But you need to see the buses here. You would not believe.
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Sorry, Growler. I get a little, um, defensive shall we say? My profession is not viewed in quite the way it once was!
What's up with the buses around your parts? They can't be any more clapped out than the sheds I have to drive.
Never rub another man's rhubarb.
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About 10 years ago when I was a regular commuter up the A1 from the A61 Ripon junction northwards there were roadworks with huge yellow signs saying "merge in turn" and a picture from above of cars er ... merging in turn. Progress was slow but the queue kept moving. Anyone any idea why this excellent scheme wasn't followed up?
Darcy.
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>>if I sit there in my bus and wait politely for someone to let me out (or in), I'll be there forever
This is because no one likes driving immediately behind a bus. You can't see a thing and they have a tendency to stop suddenly every 100 yards.
Don't get me wrong - I'm not anti-bus, but if I had the choice of being infront or behind a bus, I would choose infront every time.
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This is because no one likes driving immediately behind a bus. You can't see a thing and they have a tendency to stop suddenly every 100 yards.
Just a thought, Wally, but maybe if people drove correctly and didn't drive right up a bus's ar*e so that they couldn't see round it, then everything would be peachy.
I have lost count of the amount of times I've signalled left and braked gently to a stop at the side of the road, only to look in the o/s mirror to see a line of cars stopped behind me, the lead car literally inches from my back end. This, of course, because the lead car was driving far too close, not giving him (or her) a view of the road ahead. I'd also hazard a guess that he/she was in cloud cuckoo land and saw neither indicators nor brake lights until there was twelve tons of Volvo filling his/her windscreen.
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This has been standard signing in Jersey for many years and works well. No roadrage because everyone follows the guidance.
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The merge/filter in turn signs, I should add.
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Splodgeface
The reason for the early warning signs is to allow traffic to merge in a orderly fashion, the wise, "seen it all before lorry driver" is simply preventing the plonker in the closed lane from driving up to the bollards and forcing a way into the open lane at the last minute. How can "cars prematurely move over to a open lane" or have i misunderstood you post?
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How can "carsprematurely move over to a open lane" or have i misunderstood you post?
You seem to have misunderstood my post. The traffic was tailed back and we were crawling along. So my point in that situation is that moving over too early simply empties the closing lane and encourages drivers to queue-jump. Obviously if traffic had been moving at speed, moving over in good time would have been safe and sensible.
splodgeface
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