carriageway?
I'm going to embarrass myself by asking the above question. I was always under the impression it was two lanes going eitherway separated by a barrier.
However, I've started taking a more scenic route home and come across one which is and isn't.
You enter it from a 40mph limit and get hit with NSL signs. As you begin, it is separated from the other carriageway for only 50-100 yards by a barrier connected to a bridge. Then, nothing separates it bar a small grass verge. If you carry on going it merges into one lane and then back into two. Slip roads feed on and off this road which is broken up by roundabouts.
Would I be correct in thinking that a 60mph limit is enforced along the entire stretch? Like I say - I'm sorry to ask but it's such a wide open road but the only "Dual Carriageway" I've come across with no separating barrier so despite having what you could call a central reservation, it isn't much to stop you careening off into the other carriageway.
Any ideas?
|
Signs, not just the fact there is a refuge.
|
Every day on the A6 I enter a dual carraigeway, from a 50 limit and pass the NSL sign. There is a grass strip only dividing the two sides. I've always assumed it was a 70 limit in the 30 years I've lived in the area.
--
I wasna fu but just had plenty.
|
|
|
|
I dont know what the legal definition is, but know some similar ones.
The A617 from the M1 to Chesterfield was the same until 2 years ago. Its 2 lanes both ways, 70mph speed limit, but had no central barriers and only side barriers where there are bridges.
They've now added central barriers, as there were a spate of crashes. My mates girlfriends former fiancee was killed by a car losing control coming across the verge onto his side of the road.
The A610 going into Nottingham has mostly been reduced to 40mph limit but theres still a stretch (less than a mile) of dual carriageway that is still 70mph limit with no central barriers. Well I assume its 70mph anyway.
|
|
|
I've always thought that dual carriageways encompass all roads with two carriageways, i.e. a central barrier. Therefore I would imagine the fact that it has 1, 2, or 3 lanes either way makes no difference, all 70mph to car drivers.
Single carriageways (no central barrrier/reservation) with more than one lane each way are still single carriageways and command 60mph to car drivers.
--------------
Mike Farrow
|
|
So what it is the position with an old three lane road, where the suicide lane had be painted with hatching? Is it now dual carriageway?
|
|
Sorry, HAS been painted.
|
Found a definition as provided by DVD here: www.honestjohn.co.uk/forum/post?t=24500
Can anyone advise? The Nottingham one I mentioned above has 2 lanes both ways, has a grass central reservation about 15 feet wide and no barrier. It starts with a NSL sign, but then after about quarter of a mile theres an extra filter lane on the left; but then traffic lights stopping all lanes mid-carriageway (access to a business park). I've always assumed its 70mph limit, as there are no signs to suggest otherwise, but will the presence of the traffic lights reduce it to 60mph limit?
|
Adamski,
I've heard about people stealing road signs to turn into scrap metal, so why not central barriers?
--
L\'escargot.
|
|
|
Rich 9-3
thanks for finding that DVD posting, I was just going to look for it.
Simiple re Nottingham. Grass constitutes 'land' so you have a dual carriageway. No reference in DVD's post to traffic lights, so you still have a dual carriageway. 70mph.
|
|
|
|
|
|
No - this is still a single carriageway subject to 60mph if NSL
|
|
Oops ... forgot to quote Doug R1!
|
There are plenty of dual carriageways with 40, 50 and 60mph speed restrictions on certain sections.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
What\'s for you won\'t pass you by
|
I stumbled across a dual carriageway in Norfolk that didn't even qualify as a B-road on the map. 2 single-lane carriageways barely wide enough to squeeze a car down, separated by a central reservation. Presumably still a 70 limit where derestricted.
------
AngryJonny (was E34kid)
|
|
|
Stuarti wroteThere are plenty of dual carriageways with 40, 50 and 60mph speed restrictions on certain sections.<<
Indeed. You can be confident that it really is a dual carriageway if it has a 60mph limit - a single carriageway would not have a signed 60mph limit (it would be NSL).
Yuo could join an IAM car group and spend hours discussing what really makes a dual carriageway a *dual* carriageway. I just think of the US term - divided highway, the central divide is the defining property.
|
My IAM examiner asked me exactly this, when we were "proceeeding up a hill" with two lanes going up, tow lanes coming down, NSL speed signs and only paint separating the carriageways.
In fact his exact querstion was what is the speed limit here?
I said 60. When he questioned me hard about it, I started to waver, but he confirmed that unless there is a raised something or clear division between the lanes (obviously raised a bit higher than a lick of paint) it then became classed as a proper dual cariiageway, and approrpiate speed limit applied.
So there has to be at least a kerb or grassy knoll, in my opnion.
|
|
Note that roundabouts on dual carriageways are 60mph limit unless otherwise posted according to my police friend!
|
A central barrier is irrelevant - dual carriageways existed long before any barriers were used, most of the original M1 was built without barriers.
Since there is a statutory difference in the NSL for dual and single carriageways, I'm surprised that there's no statutory definition of a dual carriageway.
|
|
i would say it must have o continouse raised barrier.dought 90%drivers would know the answer.
|
|
Note that roundabouts on dual carriageways are 60mph limit unless otherwise posted according to my police friend!
If there is other traffic close behind me I usually try to drive close to the limit so that I don't hold them up and annoy them. It now looks like I ought to try to speed up around roundabouts! ;-)
--
L\'escargot.
|
|
|
|
|
>>You can be confident that it really is a dual carriageway if it has a 60mph limit>>
Not true.
I know of plenty of dual carriageways with a 70mph limit; in fact there's one near my home which also incorporates short 50mph stretches because of serious accidents in the past at a couple of junctions.
If I go in the opposition direction, again there are dual carriageways with a 70mph speed limit. In all cases the national speed limit signs are featured.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
What\'s for you won\'t pass you by
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Why oh why do people post responses when they've no idea and don't bother reading the other posts. Thank you to somebody (your name's not up on the screen at the moment) for saving me from finding DVD's posting from 2004 which I reproduce here by way of public service announcement.
DVD wrote
Schedule 6 Part 1 Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 deals with speed limits for various vehicles on Motorways, DUAL CARRIAGEWAYS not being a Motorway and other roads.
Part IV of said schedule is the interpretation part and defines Dual carriageway as-
a road part of which consists of a central reservation to separate a carriageway to be used by vehicles proceding in one direction froma a carrieway to be used by vehicles proceeding in the opposite direction.
Central reservation is not further defined but is so at Traffic Signs and General Directions 2002 : -
"central reservation" means -
(a) any land between the carriageways of a road comprising two carriageways; or
(b) any permanent work (other than a traffic island) in the carriageway of a road,
which separates the carriageway or, as the case may be, the part of the carriageway which is to be used by traffic moving in one direction from the carriageway or part of the carriageway which is to be used (whether at all times or at particular times only) by traffic moving in the other direction;
I would argue that white lines alone do not create land at (a) above.
|
The dual carriageways to which I am referring earlier all have a wide grass section (plus trees on bends to prevent glare at night on the first example) in the centre.
In fact it was those trees that saved my life one night on a right hand bend stretch whilst I was overtaking another vehicle. I realised that the out of line of sight oncoming headlights were brighter than uusual despite the trees and, in a split second, had to swerve in front of the car I was overtaking because the oncoming car was on the wrong carriageway - mine...:-)
There wasn't much more than the thickness of the paint between all three vehicles at the time; it still makes me sweat to think just how close I came to a head-on smash that wouldn't have been my fault. Not that I would probably have needed to ponder on that fact afterwards...:-(
The driver had left a night club a short distance away and failed to realise that he or she had to cross the central barrier section to reach the correct carriageway despite the proper signpost.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
What\'s for you won\'t pass you by
|
|
|
|
Nice boat, Adam, do you careen it often?
If you read DVD's post, then it is clear from his understanding of the law that your grass verge constitutes 'land' so it is dual carriageway at that point.
Where there is no grass, but merely paint, then it is single carriageway.
|
A lot of people appear to think that the limit on the A46 Lincoln bypass is 60 because when they see the speed camera on a long downhill stretch they brake down to 60. Most annoying.
--
L\'escargot.
|
|
What is the reasoning that makes white paint on a wide section in between the two carriageways not "land"?
|
Could it be Cliff that a bit of paint seperating a two lane dual really is a four lane carriageway and all that entails ????
dvd
|
Thanks for all of the replies. I can now careen in peace.
Sorry for not remembering names but someone said roundabouts separating stretches mean it's a 60 limit but there are quite a few definite 70mph Dual Carriageways around here separated by rounabouts. (The East Lancs Road springs to mind) and in fact, a stretch of it has been wrongly reduced to 60mph recently and there's been a bit of a fuss.
Still, at least now I know I haven't been breaking the law. I can now travel at 80mph with impunity ;-)
|
>>I can now travel at 80mph with impunity ;-)>>
You old slow coach...:-)
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
What\'s for you won\'t pass you by
|
|
|
Sorry for not remembering names but someone said roundabouts separating stretches mean it's a 60 limit .......
If you're thinking of Marlot, then what he said was "Note that roundabouts on dual carriageways are 60mph limit unless otherwise posted according to my police friend!".
It's the roundabouts that have the 60 limit ~ unless posted otherwise ~ not the roads.
--
L\'escargot.
|
|
|
|
|
