news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/bradford/4822808.stm
A one(!) mile car share lane is really the way to go Mr Darling..
It'll cure congestion at a stroke.
I can see rubber doll sales increasing tenfold.
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Having done that trip every day for 7 years I can confirm that it's the HGVs struggling up towards Hartshead that cause all the problems. Joining a M/way half way up a long hill at 30mph is not a good idea and won't be remotely affected by this daft idea. If you wanted to sort it, give the trucks a lane that feeds in at the top of the hill.
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Great, I was looking for another use for my rubber doll
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Great, I was looking for another use for my rubber doll
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Great to see a good bit of humour here, but seriously what a load of governmental nonsense to think that we dont share cars just because we are all spitefull ! The fact is it never has been and never will be practical for more than a tiny minority of people.
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The most stupid idea
There is a 2+ lane near Bristol M32 , on the main ring road dual carriageway that feeds traffic towards the motorway, all it has done in lengthen the queues by restricting the majority of cars,lorries, and vans to one lane instead of two lanes. Commercial vehicles delivering the products we need sit in the queue while mums on the school run sail past in the 2+ lane that is completely clear. How do the planners think that restricting road space is the answer to congestion ???
Most people who live near work colleagues and have the opportunity and desire to share cars already do so due to the cost of parking etc. - if people are driving alone in the rush hour it is because they have to get to work and there is no affordable alternative.
The only way a 2+ car sharing lane could be even considered would be if an EXTRA lane is built - to effectively shut off 50% of roadspace at the busiest time is completely mad.
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Car pool lanes have been common in the States for many years.
The most obvious problem with such a scheme is finding someone whose working day and times coincide with yours and who is also prepared to share.
I used to do it for several years with two friends who, like me, worked in a town some 17 miles away.
We took it in turns to do the driving but, if one member was unexpectedly held up or was running late, it meant the other two had to hang around for an indefinite period.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
What\'s for you won\'t pass you by
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I remember when the Bristol scheme came into being, it caused gridlock overnight. But despite its miserable failure it seems to still going on (I moved away years ago). So Darling's claim that the M62 lane will just be an experiment is total tosh. No matter how bad the traffic is, it will remain indefinitely. The government and councils don't really want to reduce congestion, if they did they could drastically reverse it in a matter of weeks.
Which lane is going to be used for this on the M62? Is it going to be like a bus lane, where turning left, or coming off a slip becomes dangerous as you have to leave a queue of traffic and cross a lane where a bus, taxi or BMW might be zipping through? Or is it going to be the overtaking lane, where is someone wants to come off, they'll have to come to a standstill to join the stationary traffic and risk getting rear ended? It's totally daft.
It might work in places like USA and Canada where they have big wide multilane freeways with overtaking on both sides, but it is totally unsuited to any of our road network.
I also do lift-share (4 of us, so can't get more angelic than that!), while often secretly wanting a lane to ourselves when stuck in a jam caused by an accident, just know that our journey times would increased if one was introduced on our commuting route.
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I cannot believe that this is for real,anybody who knows this stretch of road could not have come up with this idea,where does all the traffic doing 70 plus go to when they reach this stretch and who is going to police it .After the first serious accident it will be dropped and everybody who had input to this scheme will pass the buck you will not see AD for spin dust.
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The most stupid idea There is a 2+ lane near Bristol M32 , on the main ring road dual carriageway that feeds traffic towards the motorway, all it has done in lengthen the queues by restricting the majority of cars,lorries, and vans to one lane instead of two lanes. Commercial vehicles delivering the products we need sit in the queue while mums on the school run sail past in the 2+ lane that is completely clear. How do the planners think that restricting road space is the answer to congestion ???
The only time i get to use this bit of road in the morning is after i've picked my mate up from Yate and can use the 2+ lane. Very quick!
So i'm alright jack(s)
i'll get my coat...
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Having travelled this track for some years on the way to work in Bradford I'd like to say that no law will make me take a passenger to take advantage of this extra lane. I prefer to listen to what I want to listen to, to not talk if I don't feel like it, to pick my nose in peace, to pas wind if necessary and to do it all on my own. Passengers - who needs 'em? Even if it was made compulsory by law I'd not do it. I like my 30 minutes of personal space every morning.
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>>I remember when the Bristol scheme came into being, it caused gridlock overnight. But despite its miserable failure it seems to still going on (I moved away years ago).>>
But it was only introduced a year or so ago?
I heard some twerp on the radio today claiming that the Bristol and Leeds schemes both save car sharers 15 to 20 mins a day, tosh! Ths Bristol scheme is one way, into Bristol only, and even if as a lone driver one has to queue it is only ever a delay of a few minutes.
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The real issue is that car sharing is really only possible by accident not design, i.e. if you happen to have a neighbour who works near where you do and does the same hours as you.
Therefore it is undemocratic and downright unfair that two blokes in the next village who work in the same factory on the same shift should be able to use a lane that I am excluded from simply because I dont have a neighbour that works near me and because I work various hours!
The principal of it makes me so cross!!!
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Totally agree.I would love to share my commute with a work colleague.I commute over 120 miles a day.None of my work colleagues live within 30 miles of where I live.Start too early/finish too late to use the train.My company which employs over 900 people tried introducing a car sharing scheme three years ago.It failed miserably,mainly because
1.Every body starts and finishes at different times according to work load.
2.The work force is spread over the whole of southern England,with many,like myself commuting over 100 miles a day
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>>I remember when the Bristol scheme came into being, it caused gridlock overnight. But despite its miserable failure it seems to still going on (I moved away years ago).>> But it was only introduced a year or so ago?
You're thinking of the A370 Long Ashton bypass. Jacks means the A4174 Avon (south Glos) ring road, Willy Wicket to Hambrook
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And after we have all been forced to share cars, what will that man in No 11 do to make up for the lost fuel tax revenue? By then I suppose he will be in No 10...
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Do you think the current residents of Nos 10 and 11 Downing Street will share a car for the half mile trip along Whitehall to the House?
(Yes I know they actually live at different numbers, but you get the idea!)
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You're thinking of the A370 Long Ashton bypass. Jacks means the A4174 Avon (south Glos) ring road, Willy Wicket to Hambrook
Thanks Mare!
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news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/bradford/4822808.stm
"Lane rules will be enforced by either cameras or extra police patrols, a Highways Agency spokesman said"
It makes one want to weep.
Extra police patrols for this rubbish?
I have a feeling that there are quite a few people who would want this scarce resource deployed to do other things.
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Maybe they have a cuboard which stores these extra police because you never see them normally.
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So a captain of industry being chauffeur driven in his Rolls-Royce Phantom will be able to use the 2+ lane while someone else on their own in an MCC Smart!!
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Should read:
So a captain of industry being chauffeur driven in his Rolls-Royce Phantom will be able to use the 2+ lane while someone else on their own in an MCC Smart won't!!
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If they really want to force people out of their cars, a better way would be to simply close off one lane completely! No need for cameras or policing, just put up those heavy road-works type barriers.
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So a captain of industry being chauffeur driven in his Rolls-Royce Phantom will be able to use the 2+ lane while someone else on their own in an MCC Smart!!
I can go one better. If i could afford it, my taxi driver mate could whisk me to my office in half an hour in his Galaxy and i can do some work in the back. Very Alan Sugar. But because i work in Bristol, we can breeze down the bus lanes! That would save me 15 minutes.
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A far better solution, but of course more costly, would be to totally re-engineer this junction. Another reason for the queues (as well as the HGVs joining an uphill section) is because the M606 to the eastbound M62 involves a roundabout with traffic lights. The M606 to the westbound carriageway has a nice loop slip road so traffic does not have to stop to get from the M606 to the M62, for some reason this was never done for eastbound traffic. At great expense this has just been carried out on the M62/A1 junction which has less traffic than the M606/M62 junction.
Once people realise its never policed (because it won't be after the first 12 months or so as the cash will run out) it will be abused, just like the current 2+ lane in Leeds already is. Last time I was queing on there 40% of vehicles using it in rush hour had only one person in the vehicle.
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Living in rural North Yorkshire where there are more sheep and cows than people, the phrase "tail back" has a somewhat different meaning up here! On the few occassions I do have to travel on the m/ways it seems pretty obvious that the problem is with the exits to the m/ways. Drivers need to be able to exit as quickly as possible, if they cannot a tail back grows.
If the govt. are quoting the US model as a success can we also make undertaking legal as that really does seem to keep the traffic moving a little better.
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>>>"Lane rules will be enforced by either cameras or extra police patrols, a Highways Agency spokesman said"
Calm down everyone - there's a quite cheap solution if you want to use this lane on your own: As suggested, use an inflatable dummy. But because some people employing this method have been 'found out' in previous schemes, here's a suggested improvement: Dress the dummy in a burqa.
While you're at it, why not dress yourself in one as well? Then when you get snapped by a forward-facing Truvelo, your wife and daughter can genuinely plead that they don't know which of them was driving at the time.
(p.s. this is NOT any form of incitement, it's a frank idea.)
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Going slightly off-thread but continuing the burqa theme, and again without any incitement intended, I find it quite dangerous when I see other drivers wearing them.
Especially at junctions, you do rely on slight eye-to-eye contact with other drivers so that you can 'see' if they've seen you. If the other driver is wearing a burqa you are denied that contact.
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But you don't even need a burqa.
An old child safety seat with a large doll, dressed in a hooded playsuit/anorak would be fine.
The law doen't say you have to be sharing with an adult, does it?
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What about schizophrenics, people with multiple personality disorder or the rare instances where a normal-looking person is genetically two different people? Can they claim to be multiple occupants.
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>>schizophrenics
Apparantly the politically correct term is now polyphrenics or somesuch word.
There was some pregnant woman in California fighting the conviction, predictably backed by the pro-life group, on the basis that her [unborn] child was with her. I never did hear the outcome.
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An old child safety seat with a large doll, dressed in a hooded playsuit/anorak would be fine.
Wearing a hood makes it too easily confused with a terrorist - it would be shot on sight.
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anyone know the legal status of motorcycles in these lanes ?
It would appear that they are not legal (unless carrying a pillion), but sometimes they are allowed - as in some bus lanes.
Anyone got a web URL that defines their status ?
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"I can go one better. If i could afford it, my taxi driver mate could whisk me to my office in half an hour in his Galaxy and i can do some work in the back. Very Alan Sugar."
Not as daft as it sounds, Mare - Michael O'Leary, of Ryanair fame, applied for a taxi licence so he could use the bus lanes between Dublin Airport and the city centre. IIRC, the idea was to set up a hackney company whose only customer was Ryanair.
He didn't get the licence, but it did raise the question of why Dublin had so many tradesmen who'd suddenly taken up driving hackney cabs as a second job...
- Gromit
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It's not often that one quote can sum up a single proposal, but i believe that this just about says it all:
>>>"The £2.5m lane, on the busy route between Bradford and Leeds, will cut rush-hour journeys by eight minutes on average."
£2.5m for 8 damn minutes. Just think how many poor souls could have their pensions shored up with that money. Totally ridiculous, no wonder this government is in debt up to its eyeballs
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He didn't get the licence, but it did raise the question of why Dublin had so many tradesmen who'd suddenly taken up driving hackney cabs as a second job... - Gromit
Like it! They call such behaviour "adapting to change" in management speak i believe...
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There was some other plutocrat who did that in London with a black cab - can't remember who it was. Quite stylish behaviour actually
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