This week I have noticed a sign on the northbound A370 Weston-Super-Mare to Bristol road promoting the imminent introduction of a dual occupancy lane, i.e. a lane that will only be able to be used by drivers of cars with one or more passengers.
It is by pure chance, and not by choice, that an individual's spouse, child, parent, neighbour, best mate etc just happends to work or study in the same locality as themselves, not to mention having to start/finish at the same time so as to make it worthwhile sharing the journey .
Why should I have to sit in a slow moving traffic queue because I do not know anyone who fits the above criteria when a bloke in the next village who has a neighbour who works in the same factory can cruise past missing the queue.
Vat on a new car, tax on fuel, road fund licence, company car tax (for some), tax on insurance, parking permits, tolls etc etc, how much more is the innocent motorist going to be percecuted.
Outrageous.
|
|
Buy a dummy from a clothes shop and stick him in the passenger seat. :P But I have to agree why should these people get preferential treatment. Perhaps the empathies should be put on local people who could use public transport or walk to get to their destination rather then doing a 2-minute car journey.
|
I agree with your feelings but think you are missing the point here.
As in the US the intent is to get you to hook up with people who do share your travel plans in respect of location and timing.
It is meant as an incentive to get you to car share.
The difference is that in the US there is a higher volume of people travelling into a small geographic area from greater distances and they have a dedicated freephone number they can call to tie up with other people to car share with.
As with most ideas imported from the US, I suspect where it is used here it will be a cheap imitation and a waste of resources.
It's probably the council's way of saving on carriageway repairs as the HOL (High occupancy lane as it's called in Florida) won't wear out as quickly :-)
|
|
It's like an undercover dating agency! Share the love. Bus lane on the M4 now WTF is all that about????""&&####
|
|
I have some sympathy for you Cheddar, myself and one of my work mates tried to do this at one time. It was a few years back now during the fuel crisis/blockades and we lived about a couple of miles apart and both worked in the same workshop. So what we did was I would drive to his house and then we would either take my car or swap into his and then drive the 7 or 8 miles from there to work. In principle it sounded a good idea but what we found was that if one of us had to go out on recovery job and was late back it knackered it up, or if my mate was going to play golf/go to the driving range from work it knackered it up, or if one of us was going elsewhere from work it knackered it up, etc etc. Theoretically it was a logical idea, but in practice in didn't pan out like that and never being 100% sure of what was going to occur during that day and whether we would both finish on time it became somewhat impractical.
|
Some more thoughts, this type of road use is also very common in Sydney, called a transit lane it can be marked as T2 or T3 requiring at least 2 or even 3 occupants per vehicle. These are usually used on multi-lane roads (3-4 lanes each way) and they have replaced the bus lane with a transit lane. So multiple occupany of a normal car allows you to use the old bus lane.
On the dual carriageways without bus lanes prevalent in the UK I cant see them working as well.
StarGazer
|
|
|
|
Cheddar, is this the approach into Bristol at Long Ashton by any chance? Does it apply for limited hours? Interested as I will be driving this road a fair bit in the next few weeks.
I grew up in a village on the A370 between WSM and Bristol and most things have been tried on this road to ease traffic and not much has worked.
At least it is two lanes going into Bristol. coming out can be just as bad if not worse as the two lanes around the harbour area and Plimsoll Bridge drops into a single lane as it joins the A370.
StarGazer
|
|
|
![2021 Nissan Qashqai 1.3 DiG-T 160 [157] Acenta Premium 5dr DCT](http://images.honestjohn.co.uk/imagecache/url/crop/90x60/https/assets.heycar.co.uk/t_default-export/f_auto/application_assets/vehicles/pictures/da990225dbcac5ecfadc85d8ad4e2654/690936625217cd1efba5c9cdd4bc42f1.jpg)
