If you look at the nearer junction to the camera, there appear to be "feeder" lines across the bus lane to indicate where you should join the traffic lane from that junction, there are no such lines at the junction that was used, therefore i would suggest that it would be quite reasonable for the driver to "think" it ok to use 20mtrs or so to safely merge into the traffic flow. The council should at least get thier junction markings consistent, or is that not a rquirement of Road Marking regs?
Billy
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Sorry not wholeheartedly to agree, but it wouldn't take ages for both lanes to clear: the inner lane was a bus lane, and there's only one bus I can see, so the only lane he was waiting to clear was the outer one. But it's still a silly prosecution (although plainly not the CCTV operator's fault: even if he was such a jobsworth, whoever decides on the prosecution could have declined the prosecution).
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Same story in tonight's Standard. Alternative would be to creep and peep accross the Bus Lane and into the main flow of traffic. More dangerous and more likely to obstruct the bus. Same story if he were attempting to turn left into the lane he emerged from - much better to enter and decellerate in the bus lane then cross it at ninety degrees and risk collecting the cyclist from your nearside blind slot in the process.
Element of discretion clearly required and I sincerely hope the adjudicator finds a way to show it.
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CCTV Operator? This is 2007, not the '80s. They are run by large video analysis server grids with up to 48 CPUs (as at UK's largest airport) and expensive software from one of three Israeli companys Nice, ICTS or Serco, the whole process was probably completely automated until the Royal Mail man came to collect the sacks. This is how the machines will take over, not because they somehow become intelligent, but because they are not and never will.
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Not round here they're not still running on VHS (honestly) !
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"completely automated until the Royal Mail man came to collect the sacks"
Which means that, sooner or later, a Minister or Judge or the Attorney General will get a ticket and Something Will Be Done. Well, maybe...
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Edmund King of the RAC Foundation said:
?He ......... drove across the bus lane at an angle ......
That's not my interpretation of the photos. He drove along the bus lane until he passed the next side road. If the RAC are going to stick up for him they should get their facts right.
--
L\'escargot.
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Photos 1 & 2 are silly; the situation is foolish and he cannot imvho be prosecuted.
Photo 3, however, he is clearly breaking the law. And that Barnet have not chosen to let him drive 60' of bus lane in this situation is not, to my mind, unreasonable.
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It is ridiculous and a great waste of time and money to pursue people for crossing bus lanes, entering them to get past temporary obstructions in the form of right-turning vehicles, etc.
If cars are shown shamelessly driving down bus lanes when they shouldn't, then fine them. If they park there and hold up buses etc., then fine them. Otherwise bus lanes are just part of the road. There's nothing sacred about them. If there was they would be separated from the rest of the road by a kerb or fence.
Stop this damned idiocy now!
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Do bus-Drivers get fined if they "stray" into the traffic lane?
Billy
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>>It is ridiculous and a great waste of time and money to pursue people for crossing bus lanes, entering them to get past temporary obstructions in the form of right-turning vehicles, etc.
It is far moe ridiculous to be sitting on a bus when the driver is unable to progress because there is a LINE of people relying on the above 'exemptions'. Whilst I have some sympathy with your view, Lud, you have to draw a line somewhere. And 'none' means 'none'.
I have been wondering what I would do if in OP's driver's position. I might well turn round and return up the road in order to find a new way onto the road.
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I wonder when they will start fining people for not driving in bus lanes when they are not in operation.
Everytime I visit Edinburgh I get my very own lane travelling in from the airport through Costorphine towards the city centre. Signs clearly labelled when the lanes are bus lanes and when not and yet car drivers still sit in the unmarked lane.
Great for me, keep it up !!!
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You didn't fully understand me Mapmaker. Obviously a car which is in a line of cars all stuck in the bus lane holding up buses is causing an obstruction and can be fined. I was talking about these purely technical infractions that don't cause an obstruction. The OP was about one, and I have been pursued for one. You can't imagine how annoying it is to have some faceless loon trying to gouge you for 60 quid for absolutely nothing, and laying claim to all sorts of filmed 'evidence' of the 'incident'.
If I had adopted your favoured response (just grin and bear it, or turn tail and go another way) along with a lot of other cars, then congestion would have been made worse. Congestion holds up buses too.
I have learned to accept that buses are privileged in the modern metropolis. But the roads are very variable. The rigid photographic one-wheel-over-the-line-and-it's-Sing Sing approach may be all right in some places - where there's a lot of room for example - but is inappropriate in narrow urban main roads with a lot of junctions.
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This one did the trick. Sorry if I have posted it before:
Ealing Council Parking Services BPU 7 July 200*
PO Box 46264
London W5 2UN
Sirs,
Strong objection to PCN *********
I have been sent a video still of my car encroaching on a bus lane in the eastbound carriageway in The Vale, Acton, a few yards before the traffic light at the junction with Askew Road. The notice informed me that ?the incident? had been recorded on video.
There was no ?incident?. The bus lane ends suddenly, without the usual diagonal dotted line, some yards before the junction. It resumes, with the dotted line, after the junction.
I remember the occasion well. There were several vehicles, five or six, waiting in the right hand lane to turn right into Askew Road. It is a junction where traffic turning right in either direction is often delayed. I drove across a corner of the bus lane to reach the non-bus lane part of the nearside lane before the traffic light. There were no buses, taxis or other authorised vehicles in the bus lane. I was not driving down the bus lane. I simply crossed a corner of it for a few yards. If there really is a video, it will confirm this. It will also confirm the presence of vehicles waiting to turn right into Askew Road.
Of course I fully understand the need to keep bus lanes clear for buses. I don?t drive in them. But regulations of this sort need to be applied intelligently. The Uxbridge Road under its various names is narrow, busy and with many junctions. What is to be gained by terrorising drivers intending to continue in a straight line into queuing endlessly behind right-turning traffic? Nothing but more congestion I would think.
More to the point in this case is the decision to crop the video still so that the right-turning traffic is not seen. This smacks of sharp practice to me. Does Ealing think we are all morons or chavs?
I will not pay this penalty if I can help it. I am prepared to defend this point of view in court if necessary. Of course the famous video will need to be produced in evidence. It may well be that the road markings in the Vale need to be reviewed. But in any case this kind of enforcement, whether unthinking or, more likely it seems to me, money-grubbing and cynical, wastes everyone?s time as well as being deeply irritating.
Yours faithfully,
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