There was a time when many wider roads were divided into three lanes - with a free for all 'killer' lane down the middle. There were no solid white lines to control which direction had use of the centre lane.
I can't remember the last time I encountered this type of road - have they all been eliminated in favour of the 'solid white' kind?
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There's a section of the A22 near where I live (Halland) that I guess used to be three lanes but has been taken down to 2. People still treat is as 3 lanes because the road is more than wide enough to get 3 across (overtaking can be interesting on that stretch of road).
Chris
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(overtaking can be interesting on that stretch of road).
Yes, Chris, that's the word I remember for it :-)
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North Devon Link road from Barnstaple to Tiverton (A361). There are no dangerous roads only complete Richard head drivers. We lose loads here and it's on the news, but still they keep piling in......"It won't happen to me" Syndrome.
MD
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Never understood the term"killer-lane", ok, both directions can use it, but same overtaking rules apply as to any two-lane road, basically, if theres something coming in that lane from the other direction DON'T overtake! - simple.
Billly
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Back in the 60s I remember driving a Landrover and towing a caravan kitted out as a demonstration vehicle. Was overtaking in the middle lane and met a lorry head-on. We both stopped, face to face......
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Aretas
A 1960s Land-Rover.... Towing an exhibition unit.... Overtaking...?
A cyclist? A broken-down vehicle?
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A 1960s Land-Rover.... Towing .... Overtaking...?
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it happens.....early 70's had a family holiday in France and the transport entourage consisted of a SWB Landie towing a caravan, with a Cortina Est hire car
can remember one bit , up a long hill with a suicide lane, where amazingly the Landie could overtake something... I was the front seat passenger in the Cortina blindly following the Landie. Unfortunately for us, when the Land Rover finished the overtake and pulled in, we were left with rather a large lorry facing us, timing his overtake coming down the hill to miss the Land Rover... It was a 4 into 3 urgently with all sorts of shouting and praying......not nice. Learnt a lesson though even at 12 yrs old.
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not nice. Learnt a lesson though even at 12 yrs old.
Like yesterday eh Westpig?
The real ones are all like that. Engraved on the memory in letters of pure, er, bronze doen't sound quite right.
Perhaps that stuff the Russians use to kill people? Something truly awful and unforgettable anyway.
They used to call it education but it's probably banned now.
:o)
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Screwloose - It was a long time ago and I don't remember all the details. I seem to remember there was a lot of traffic and visibility was not good. Obviously, a rotten piece of driving from which a huge lesson was learnt.
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basically if theres something coming in that lane from the other direction DON'T overtake! - simple.
Aahhh, but the problem is when two people pull out the same time.......
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Years ago I remember a road in Uxbridge, Middlesex, where there were signs at the roadside telling you WHEN you could use the middle lane, ie, between 8 and 10 am and 4 and 5pm. Travelling in the opposite direction it told you that you could use the centre lane outside of these times.
Back then (18 odd years ago) not every car had a clock and if so, would the clocks have all been synchronised so as to avoid a '10am' changeover crash?
Either that or how many accidents could have been caused by drivers a: digesting the information on the road sign and b: checking their clock/watches?!!!
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Used to be quite long stretches on the A5 between Milton Keynes and Rugby. Most remarked as two lanes in the early nineties (though old lines still visible in places).
Still at least one short section beween Weedon and Towcester
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Come to think of it there are urban stretches on Weedon Rd, part of the link between Northampton and M1 North @ J16. Most fairly clearly "belong" to one direction or the other, though the peak hour bus lanes complicate further.
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Yawn.
You just blasted along them overtaking everyone slower than you.
If there was something coming at you down the middle lane when you were overtaking, you had to make a decision about what to do.
If both parties hesitated for too long, there would be a high-speed head-on crash.
Never minded them myself, but some people thought they were awfully dangerous. Of course they wouldn't be at the compulsory mimse of today. Unless the drivers hesitated too long of course.
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Pembrokeshire still has roads with a coroners corridor down the middle, and an ongoing history of head-ons to go with it. In fact the road to the ferry port which by-passes Fishguard has one and it has only been open ten years at the most.
--
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Skipton to Harrogate stretch of A65 has a few miles of it, but on slopes so not really a level playing field.
The road to Fishguard, ah yes, I overtook a car on the downhill to Cardigan and he didn't much care for it so chased me giving it all the hand signals for about 10 miles, before I shook him off.
Guess who pulled up next to me in the queue for the ferry?
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Yawn. You just blasted along them overtaking everyone slower than you.
Yes lud has it there. The middle lane was there for the capture. Take it, use it at high speed and *dare* anyone to come out in your line of fire.
------------------------------
< Ex RF, Ex TVM >
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One always sticks in my mind is the A38 Bristol to Glouster,remember on one occasion pulling so hard on the flash headlanp stalk to clear (my) centre lane that it broke off,am now much older,fortunately,and wiser.
ndbw
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The "killer" lane very much in existance on the A1079 in East Yorkshire - Market Weighton hill now made much worse with a badly positioned newly installed speed camera placed just before a blind bend. Some motorists wait until they are clear of the camera before overtaking on the killer lane crossing a double white line on a blind bend! a major accident waiting to happen.
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Erm, how about virtually the whole of Portugal? 2 lanes always become 3, 4 lanes become 5 or even six.
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The A5 in Shropshire near Shrewsbury does not have the "Chicken lanes" as my dad used to call them any more. But the road is still very wide and makes for some interesting overtaking!
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A435 Evesham by-pass has the 'free for all' central area, and the near suicidal driving that it attracts. It's punctuated by a series of roundabouts so the people who risk life and limb to get past you are then held up a few hundred yards further on! And don't get me started on the bikers...
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A179 out of/into Hartlepool.
I use it every day!
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Some older drivers seem to have flashbacks to these roads when using our local main road, Yarm Road, Eaglesclife, Stockton on Tees.
It has a bus lane, and a lane southbound, single lane northbound.
I met a driver head-on this week who thought the southbound lane (which is positioned smack in the middle of the carriageway becoause of the bus lane) was a middle "overtaking lane".
In general, road layouts and markets have become far too complicated and confusing. And just plain dangerous.
r
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Quote:Never understood the term"killer-lane", ok, both directions can use it, but same overtaking rules apply as to any two-lane road, basically, if theres something coming in that lane from the other direction DON'T overtake! - simple.
Ah, but the killer danger on these roads was exactly when it appeared to two drivers coming in opposite directions that middle lane was clear to overtake. This could lead to both of them pulling out to overtake at the same time, straight into a head-on collision.
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Our friends in Europe want the A5 through Shropshire to be a proper dual carriageway, so when any improvements are made its made wide enough to take dualling, but left as single carriageway. Hence the chicken lanes, or whatever.
These lanes were the scene of one of my greatest motoring humiliations. Driving a Panda 1000 Fire, I attempted to overtake a very slow moving vehicle exiting a roundabout. Planted the right foot in 3rd, got half way past and ran out of revs so went for the change up to 4th. Unfortunately I found reverse, and after much tooth grinding had to fall back behind the aforesaid slow moving vehicle.
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A few years ago I defended a minor celebrity (I wouldn't call her a personality) who forced a Police car off the road on that stretch of road in Shropshire...., she seemed to think* that she was on a dual carriageway !
*Her use of the word not mine.
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In Ireland, where they are still building new motorways, there is a certain amount of opposition on environmental and financial grounds. There is a proposal to downgrade a proposed extension of one motorway (Ireland's M3, I think) to what they call a 2+1 road. I drove on another such road. It is in effect a dual carraigeway, with a steel wire crash fence, with 2 lanes in one direction, one in the other, alternating which direction has 2 lanes every 2km. This is similar to what happened to many of our old 3 lane single carriageways, but on a grander and better planned scale, with the continuous hard shoulder that is found on all new Irish main roads.
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there are still several Cornwall such as heading north (ish) from Truro to Newquay or south towards Hayle - the latter is a nice new dual carriageway but still with 'suicide lanes' - well named IMHO. There are several places in Fife that used to have them but are now just two lanes, albeit very WIDE lanes that lead to some crazy overtaking ( Hillend by-pass anyone?)
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oh and I forgot the Falmouth to Helston road - two or three 'interesting' three lane sections too...
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