absurd new road feature on A580 (east lancs road)

Honest John Back Room » Motoring discussion
View Threaded
Tue 27 Jan 2009 16:57
absurd new road feature on A580 (east lancs road) - bananastand
I just saw this today. On the westbound approach to the Greyhound roundabout on the A580 there is a metal central barrier of the normal type.

But, some paddles have been erected, about 2 feet tall, maybe a bit more, positioned every yard or so on top of the metal barrier so that they block out the view you would otherwise get of approaching traffic on the roundabout.

From reading HJ in the paper we know that this is on the grounds of safety, as some genius has discovered a new rule of driver psychology whereby if you can't see what's coming you have to stop. Is there a name for the law that states that decisions lower in quality the more of someone else's money you have to spend?

I think that traffic departments have to use up their budget or it gets lowered for the next year, which is why road management round here gets more and more ANNOYING!!!!
Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Tue 27 Jan 2009 17:12
absurd new road feature on A580 (east lancs road) - Old Navy
As there is little road building, I wonder what will happen to the "use it or lose it" budgets when they run out of road to chicane, add traffic light controlled pedestrian crossings to, mini roundabout, speed hump, and roundabouts to traffic light?
Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Tue 27 Jan 2009 18:09
absurd new road feature on A580 (east lancs road) - gmac
I wonder what will happen to the "use it or lose it" budgets


Oh ! I don't know. Maybe spend it on maintaining the existing road surfaces perhaps ?
Instead of dumping a tonne or so in one place why not roll it out a bit to fill the pot holes.
Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Tue 27 Jan 2009 18:17
absurd new road feature on A580 (east lancs road) - Mookfish
Maybe spend it on maintaining the existing road surfaces perhaps ?


My local council did something about potholes last year, they painted white lines round them as if they were going to fix them, then left it at that!

Edited by Mookfish on 27/01/2009 at 18:19

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Tue 27 Jan 2009 17:19
absurd new road feature on A580 (east lancs road) - Andrew-T
>Some paddles have been erected, about 2 feet tall

Are these the things designed to prevent dazzle from oncoming cars? There are lots of those between Edinburgh and the Forth Bridge.
Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Tue 27 Jan 2009 18:06
absurd new road feature on A580 (east lancs road) - Mr X
I thought the entrances to r'bouts where to be treated as Give Way, not Stop ?
Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Tue 27 Jan 2009 18:13
absurd new road feature on A580 (east lancs road) - FocusDriver
It's daft because the same pen-pushers which enacted this stupid measure are probably trying to get emissions down as well. This increases them. Daft blighters.
Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Tue 27 Jan 2009 18:37
absurd new road feature on A580 (east lancs road) - b308
They've been aropund for ages on different guises and as stated they are to stop people diving into the smallest of gaps by ensuring that you have to slow right down before you get to the roundabout.

You shouldn't have to stop, though, unless the roundabout is busy, but it does prevent those of us who correctly anticipate gaps from joining smoothly...

Its another one of those "pander to the lowest common denominator" bits of road furniture as its aimed at those idiots who insist on joining a roundabout at speed and with no regard for vehicles already on it... so blame it on them, not your local council...

Makes you realise that if only people would abide by the rules of the road most of the things we hate so much... humps, cameras, etc... wouldn't be needed...

Edited by b308 on 27/01/2009 at 18:37

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Tue 27 Jan 2009 18:48
absurd new road feature on A580 (east lancs road) - FocusDriver
so blame it on them, not your local council...

Nope. I don't agree with pandering to the LCD myself so I have to strongly but respectfully disgree.

Makes you realise that if only people would abide by the rules of the road most of the things we hate so much... humps, cameras, etc... wouldn't be needed...

If only the councils stopped peppering every spare space with signs, posts, poles, read-outs, cameras then motorists wouldn't get so frustrated.
Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Tue 27 Jan 2009 19:01
absurd new road feature on A580 (east lancs road) - b308
so I have to strongly
but respectfully disgree.


Fine no probs!

If only the councils stopped peppering every spare space with signs posts poles read-outs cameras
then motorists wouldn't get so frustrated.


And if motorists had more regard for road signs/rules and respect for other motorists then there would be no need for them in the first place... We could go round in circles all day if you wish, FD!


As far as I'm concerned we have brought much of the present position on ourselves either by selfishness, ignorance or stupidity... and the massive increase of the number of vehicles hasn't helped, but hey, thats just my opinion!
Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Tue 27 Jan 2009 18:56
absurd new road feature on A580 (east lancs road) - Alby Back
Speaking of absurdities. Prompted by this and other recent threads, I decided today to re-count the number of blasted speed humps I have to cross just to get to a main road from my house. The idiots have been putting even more of the wretched things in recently.

I /we and my neighbours now have no option but to cross 14 of accursed things just to get to or from our houses. So, in other words, if you need to use your car just once a day, every last one of us has to negotiate 28 of them a day or 196 a week or over 10,000 a year. Just on the offchance that some oik might one day speed.

The ludicrous part of all this is that some of our roads are not adopted and have no humps, the ones which are council maintained and owned are covered in them. I have never been aware of any difference in speed on either type. They are narrow residential lanes and common sense would tell anyone that excessive speed would be foolish.

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Tue 27 Jan 2009 23:24
absurd new road feature on A580 (east lancs road) - OldSock

>> ... some paddles have been erected about 2 feet tall.....

Kindly donated by the Government now that the creek has been entered..... :-)

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Wed 28 Jan 2009 00:00
absurd new road feature on A580 (east lancs road) - madux
They tried this at Junction 15 on the M4 a few years ago - except they were 6' high fence panels. Weren't there for long. Don't know why.
Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Wed 28 Jan 2009 17:05
absurd new road feature on A580 (east lancs road) - 1400ted
they were 6' high fence panels. Weren't there for long. Don't know why.

Look very nice round some scrotes back yard.
Ted
Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Wed 28 Jan 2009 19:31
absurd new road feature on A580 (east lancs road) - Lud
I thought this would be about a new road feature, not a road feature that was just new to E Lancashire.

This rubbishy, obstructive and potentially dangerous feature is fairly commonplace in Surrey and elsewhere in the South East. Because it is essentially obstructive, it must appeal to those hostile to the automobile and non-drivers or bad drivers. No proper driver can find it anything but infuriating.

I am too old to go about torching these disgusting bits of matchwood fencing, but I will applaud and support anyone who does it. I would regard it as the sporting and life-enhancing end of vandalism which is a pretty broad church. Let me explain what I mean by that.

My dirty white Escort Estate has sat outside the house for six weeks looking increasingly innercity. At some time fairly recently it has acquired a short, fat, squiggly coach-line in gold spray paint over the filth on the two nearside doors. To my surprise I didn't feel annoyed when I saw it. In fact I quite like it. Louche but upbeat.
Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Wed 28 Jan 2009 20:34
absurd new road feature on A580 (east lancs road) - David Horn
What Lud said. One near me makes it more difficult to join since you have a shorter distance to get speed up. Made of wood, imagine it would burn quite nicely.
Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Wed 28 Jan 2009 21:08
absurd new road feature on A580 (east lancs road) - cockle {P}
Around our neck of the woods they use a prettier, but equally as daft, approach in that the central reservations have all sprouted shrubberies as you approach the roundabouts so that you can't see. Further to that the roundabouts themselves have taken on the appearance of small thickets so that you can't see anything on them.

However, they've now taken this to the limit with a road 'improvement' scheme in my local area. I live in a side road, one of several, off of a long straight one way road. For many years there has been a problem caused by vehicles parking right up to the junctions in the one way street and obscuring the view of drivers pulling out of the side roads, something which has resulted in many collisions; a scenario of which you are all familiar, I'm sure. The planners have finally decided that 'something must done' and have come up with a scheme to provide build-outs at the junctions to prevent parking too close to the side roads and giving us a fighting chance of seeing traffic approaching.

When I went along to the 'consultation exercise', where they listen to what we locals have to say and then they tell us that they're going to do what they were going to do in the first place anyway, the planner in attendance couldn't understand why I was gobsmacked to see what they proposed, and, of course, what we're going to get. On the build outs to the side from which traffic approaches they are going to put raised flower beds about 3' high planted with shrubs or rose bushes, on the other side, nothing. He really couldn't get his head around the fact that I thought the whole thing would be more dangerous than what we have already in that we would have an obstructed view 24/7 and that I would prefer it left as it is in that the Transit parked at the junction in every ones way does at least move six days a week!

The planner was absolutely insistent that the obstruction would make traffic pull out of the side road slower because they would have difficulty seeing clearly and that traffic turning into the junction from the main road would do so slower because they wouldn't be able to see if there is a vehicle obstructing the junction waiting to pull out. When I made the point that the reason there have been so many collisions has been that people already can't see each other he stated that 'the real reason is that people think they can see, now they'll know that they can't and act accordingly.' Personally I don't know too many people who aren't too sure whether they can see through a Transit or not!

Of course, he then went on to trot out the mantra that if this doesn't work then 'further traffic calming measures will be required' which is local Councilspeak for 20mph limits and speed humps. No they won't, we just want to be able to see down the road!!!!!!
Reply | Report as offensive | Link

From which small car to buy at which price point to the best UK-built cars, our Top 10s have the lot. Click now for your shortlist.

Unsure of what to buy? Our Top 10s are here to help you....