... is illegal in the UK, but whilst reading the lengthy, but in places very interesting link home.att.net/~texhwyman/autobahn.htm I learned:
"Recently, in an attempt to help improve traffic flow, traffic is now being permitted to use the emergency shoulder as a traffic lane during congested periods along some sections of Autobahn. Lane control signals or signs indicate when this is permissible"
Sounds like a good idea to keep trafic moving (the same article makes the point earlier on that 30% of all German traffic is on autobahn(en?)) but I wonder what happens when there's a problem, and the emergency services need to get through.
Still, I wonder if it'll ever be trialled here, as the practice is already used in many sections of motorway roadworks?
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Discussed at some length at
www.tinyurl.com/bzx2
with some mixed feelings
DVD
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At some length indeed!
TVM.
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If it's in use on the continent, they must have sorted the problems we are voicing, why can't the relevent transport authorities explore this.
On another matter:
I do not agree with violent repeated lane swopping, but another way to make more use of UK's limited road access is to permit undertaking (already in use on the M25 roundabout!) it is also used a lot around the world.
It might actually make people drive cars in the right lane!
K2
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I thought the powers to be were seriously considering allowing it when the Highway Code was last revised?
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Leif,
You have mentioned the new Ripley book a few times - one of his suggestions was to use the hard shoulder as an acceleration lane, if you need to, when joining a Motorway.
I cannot quote verbatim as I loaned the book to a very senior IAM observer who agreed with Ripley, to my surprise.
My personal feeling is that, in an ideal world it is a good idea, but that in practise it is very open to the kind of selfish abuse that the other thread on roundabouts clearly demonstrates - but potentially much more dangerous?
Matt35
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Where I live we not only drive on the hard shoulder but also get
5 streams of traffic in a road marked with 3 lanes: Filipino logic -- if it's got room for a car then you can put a car in it. And if you don't put yours in it, someone else will so you better not let him.
I just returned last night from my old Gulf stamping grounds where, in Bahrain, traffic police were arresting drivers using the pavement during rush hour jams(!) In Dubai I read that, for a population or roughly 90,000, Dubai drivers managed to rack up some 7,000 traffic tickets so far this year for running red lights. I was deeply impressed by the statement of the Colonel incharge of Traffic which was simple and elegant, and to the effect that after eight "black marks" (sic) on his license an erring driver using the hard shoulder would be arrested, imprisoned, have his license cancelled and his car confiscated. Getting both back would require him to take a special driving test. The Colonel was quoted as saying this would be "especially difficult" to pass. Sounds like those sheikhdoms with their simple summary views on justice could teach the rest of the world a thing ot two, with the caveat that in Dubai they've got plenty of desert to park all those confiscated cars in.
However, if our erring driver gave his predicament some deep thought, he would probably work out that a trip to the neighboring Emirate of Ras al Khaimah, somewhere you're unlikely to have heard of unless you're a regular reader of Stanley Gibbons stamp catalalogs, would enable him to get another license. But he'd better be careful getting to and from there too, since for a population estimated at 141,000 (that's people), R.a.K. has seen 72 fatal traffic accidents so far this year.....
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Its all these ex camel drivers Mr. Mainwaring.
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I have erred, jetlag at work. Dubai has of course some 900,000 inhabitants and is arguably the most futuristic place on the planet since Hong Kong spluttered to a halt after we gave it back.
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7,000 driving tickets from 900,000 inhabitants. It seems to me that the strict laws of Dubai are not working - apologies if I have misunderstood the jist of your message.
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Yes, but think what those figures might have been if they hadn't these strict laws. I joke not.
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