Drove down the M6 this morning, through the roadworks around Jn 5.
The width restriction on the outside lane is 6ft 6inches.
Just checked the Ford Website and the current Mondeo is 6' 10" wide overall - when are we going to see some enforcement of the width limit ? ? ? ?
How many of you know how wide your car is?
I for one didn't but having checked the Octavia is 0.3" under 6' 6" overall.
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Think that they put those signs more to deter the larger commercial vehicles using it... its been 6' 6" as long as I can remember! I think that the road is normally a fair bit wider... if you want true narrow lanes try the roadworks on the German Autobahns, when they say 2 metres they mean 2 metres!
A little story re this "standard" width... we used to have a Geography field trip to the Lakes every year and the teacher used to take us to some small tarn somewhere to show us the geographical features... one year we turned up at the end of the road to be greeted by one of those 6'6" signs and he just told the driver of the coach to carry on as the road was plenty wide enough as he'd been up there in coaches for the past ten years... and we did, and we made it to the car park at the tarn as well!
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The outside lane width at Castle Bromwich section M5 roadworks is quite narrow, and the 2 inside lanes arn't full width either, if there is a truck in lane 2 it gets very dicey for anything bigger than a car to pass in lane 3.
And i agree that the main purpose of those signs is to stop anything bigger than a large car from using the lane, though the majority of large white van drivers seem totally oblivious to the things.
Why do the drivers of those vans who have totally ignored the 6'6" signs blast their hooters at the truck/coach in the middle lane (correctly) as they find that they can't actually get by without hair raising closeness?
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Do width restrictions apply the same as speed limits? You can exceed them, but penalised if caught.
There's one near me, but I get the impression it's policed by the kerbs. If they're 6' 6" apart, vehicles are often widest at their DOOR mirrors.
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