Using all available road space

Using all available road space

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Discussion

NuddyRap

218 posts

102 months

Wednesday 27th July 2016
quotequote all
InitialDave said:
So is it ok for "normal" drivers to apply all the other aspects of that training on the road also?
Of course not. That's also the same level of sensationalist extrapolation as the "If everyone did it" argument.

Do I believe it is safe for "normal" drivers to dodge through red lights, drive at 120mph on narrow country roads, dripping wet from sweating with stress, having to have breaks and change drivers every 45 minutes because of the mental fatigue, whilst giving a commentary, chasing a car in front driven by an even faster driver (The instructor)? Of course not. Some common sense please.


CABC said:
7db said:
CPS has this to say on S3 inconsiderate driving:-

"This offence is appropriate when the driving amounts to a clear act of incompetence, selfishness, impatience or aggressiveness in addition to some other inconvenience to road users. The following examples are typical of actions likely to be regarded as inconsiderate driving:

-- ...
-- misuse of any lane (including cycling lanes) to avoid queuing or gain some other advantage over other drivers;
-- ..."
who said the law is an ass!

all those defending 540deg turns at busy roundabouts, remember you (typically) pass 4 entrances on your circuit preventing flow of traffic in other directions.
"I didn't know where I was going officer" / "I changed my mind on the route I was taking"

You can even argue that you're not misusing a lane. You're going in the allowed and indicated direction, in a lane appropriate to and designated for your vehicle, on the correct side of the road, on the right (So you have priority) in line with other traffic approaching the island behind you, at below the speed limit, at an appropriate distance away from the other cars for the speed that you're passing them at, with consideration to road users already on the island, with only a hint of a smug grin (Which would be imperceptible to everybody else waiting in the queue).

The level of inconvenience to other road users is also negligible as you're only making them wait for one more car before they go. There is a greater variance than that in the cumulative probabilities of the directions picked by drivers approaching the island on the right of the person waiting. If one driver ducks left instead of going straight, by my car occupying the now vacant position which they could have occupied to go straight on, given that the driver waiting had no idea of the outcome, they are no worse off than the expected worst case scenario for awaiting the direction of that single car.

If you'd gone all of the way around and proceeded to make it impossible for the cars in the queue you've just skipped to cross the island, because you're waiting on it, I agree that you would be guilty of the offence above, but in clear circumstances I very much disagree.

alock

4,224 posts

210 months

Wednesday 27th July 2016
quotequote all
CABC said:
all those defending 540deg turns at busy roundabouts, remember you (typically) pass 4 entrances on your circuit preventing flow of traffic in other directions.
That's a whole other argument.

If I tell someone I'm doing a 180 at a roundabout then everyone knows I want to come back on the road I'm already on. Straight ahead is therefore 0°, left is -90° and right is 90°.

Or maybe left is 90°, straight on is 180°, right is 270° and back the way I came is 360°.

?

CABC

5,536 posts

100 months

Wednesday 27th July 2016
quotequote all
alock said:
That's a whole other argument.

If I tell someone I'm doing a 180 at a roundabout then everyone knows I want to come back on the road I'm already on. Straight ahead is therefore 0°, left is -90° and right is 90°.

Or maybe left is 90°, straight on is 180°, right is 270° and back the way I came is 360°.

?
oops. 270°

_Neal_

2,658 posts

218 months

Wednesday 27th July 2016
quotequote all
NuddyRap said:
InitialDave said:
So is it ok for "normal" drivers to apply all the other aspects of that training on the road also?
Of course not. That's also the same level of sensationalist extrapolation as the "If everyone did it" argument.

Do I believe it is safe for "normal" drivers to dodge through red lights, drive at 120mph on narrow country roads, dripping wet from sweating with stress, having to have breaks and change drivers every 45 minutes because of the mental fatigue, whilst giving a commentary, chasing a car in front driven by an even faster driver (The instructor)? Of course not. Some common sense please.


CABC said:
7db said:
CPS has this to say on S3 inconsiderate driving:-

"This offence is appropriate when the driving amounts to a clear act of incompetence, selfishness, impatience or aggressiveness in addition to some other inconvenience to road users. The following examples are typical of actions likely to be regarded as inconsiderate driving:

-- ...
-- misuse of any lane (including cycling lanes) to avoid queuing or gain some other advantage over other drivers;
-- ..."
who said the law is an ass!

all those defending 540deg turns at busy roundabouts, remember you (typically) pass 4 entrances on your circuit preventing flow of traffic in other directions.
"I didn't know where I was going officer" / "I changed my mind on the route I was taking"

You can even argue that you're not misusing a lane. You're going in the allowed and indicated direction, in a lane appropriate to and designated for your vehicle, on the correct side of the road, on the right (So you have priority) in line with other traffic approaching the island behind you, at below the speed limit, at an appropriate distance away from the other cars for the speed that you're passing them at, with consideration to road users already on the island, with only a hint of a smug grin (Which would be imperceptible to everybody else waiting in the queue).

The level of inconvenience to other road users is also negligible as you're only making them wait for one more car before they go. There is a greater variance than that in the cumulative probabilities of the directions picked by drivers approaching the island on the right of the person waiting. If one driver ducks left instead of going straight, by my car occupying the now vacant position which they could have occupied to go straight on, given that the driver waiting had no idea of the outcome, they are no worse off than the expected worst case scenario for awaiting the direction of that single car.

If you'd gone all of the way around and proceeded to make it impossible for the cars in the queue you've just skipped to cross the island, because you're waiting on it, I agree that you would be guilty of the offence above, but in clear circumstances I very much disagree.
Of course you can make an number of excuses and most likely avoid being "done" for it in the unlikely event you get picked up by the Police for it, but that doesn't make it right or laudable, or any less selfish or impatient. As said above, many many people know these tricks, but they don't use them because they behave in a more sociable manner when they get behind the wheel, so I'm not sure any smugness is very well-placed.

InitialDave

11,856 posts

118 months

Wednesday 27th July 2016
quotequote all
NuddyRap said:
Of course not. That's also the same level of sensationalist extrapolation as the "If everyone did it" argument.

Do I believe it is safe for "normal" drivers to dodge through red lights, drive at 120mph on narrow country roads, dripping wet from sweating with stress, having to have breaks and change drivers every 45 minutes because of the mental fatigue, whilst giving a commentary, chasing a car in front driven by an even faster driver (The instructor)? Of course not. Some common sense please.
Exactly my point. The fact police drivers are taught to do it is no indicator of it being good practice for general road use.

anonymous-user

53 months

Wednesday 27th July 2016
quotequote all
Do it all the time. It effectively doubles the available space to queue and enter the roundabout for a given exit.

7db

6,058 posts

229 months

Saturday 30th July 2016
quotequote all
The space to queue is unconstrained -- join the back of the queue -- so it doesn't double the space, just inconvenience genuine right-turners.

The constraint is the flow on the roundabout, not the space to queue in, in any case. We want faster queues, not smaller ones.

The method described in the OP is inconsiderate driving, IMHO.

Conscript

1,378 posts

120 months

Thursday 4th August 2016
quotequote all
otolith said:
Typically, a queue builds up on a roundabout because there is a steady stream of traffic from the right and not many cars coming from the left and turning right to interrupt it. Drivers doing what the OP described are actually doing a favour to those queuing in the left hand lane at the expense of those approaching from the right because they will force traffic from the right to stop and give way, thus allowing more people out of the road they came from.
No they don't. What happens to the car doing what the OP describes? It's now circled the roundabout and is approaching from the right, and the cars on the left have to give way.

otolith

55,899 posts

203 months

Thursday 4th August 2016
quotequote all
Conscript said:
otolith said:
Typically, a queue builds up on a roundabout because there is a steady stream of traffic from the right and not many cars coming from the left and turning right to interrupt it. Drivers doing what the OP described are actually doing a favour to those queuing in the left hand lane at the expense of those approaching from the right because they will force traffic from the right to stop and give way, thus allowing more people out of the road they came from.
No they don't. What happens to the car doing what the OP describes? It's now circled the roundabout and is approaching from the right, and the cars on the left have to give way.
Indeed, but in the meantime it has created an opportunity for some of them to get out which would not otherwise have occurred.

Conscript

1,378 posts

120 months

Thursday 4th August 2016
quotequote all
otolith said:
Conscript said:
otolith said:
Typically, a queue builds up on a roundabout because there is a steady stream of traffic from the right and not many cars coming from the left and turning right to interrupt it. Drivers doing what the OP described are actually doing a favour to those queuing in the left hand lane at the expense of those approaching from the right because they will force traffic from the right to stop and give way, thus allowing more people out of by the road they came from.
No they don't. What happens to the car doing what the OP describes? It's now circled the roundabout and is approaching from the right, and the cars on the left have to give way.
Indeed, but in the meantime it has created an opportunity for some of them to get out which would not otherwise have occurred.
How? The result is still traffic coming from the right from the perspective of the original queue..it's just that one of those cars they are giving way to has circled the roundabout. Unless they decide to slow to a crawl as they come back around, then the net result is still a line of traffic that the left hand queue has to wait for. Perhaps the roundabouts I'm used to are busier, but at peak times, there's generally very little opportunities to open up as you describe frown

Edited by Conscript on Friday 5th August 00:00

otolith

55,899 posts

203 months

Friday 5th August 2016
quotequote all
In this example, the road you are looking out of and the road opposite are relatively quiet. The road they join is very busy with through traffic, little of it turning. With continuous fast moving through traffic from the right, a queue of left turning traffic often builds up here. Were you to lap the roundabout, you would break the stream from the right as they'd have to slow down and give way. At that point, before you completed your lap, there would be a chance for the people waiting to turn left. If you really wanted to be generous, you'd do a few laps of it!

I don't do this, by the way, but if someone did they'd not be disadvantaging the queue, they'd be disadvantaging the people on the main road.

https://flic.kr/p/KF9qZh

CABC

5,536 posts

100 months

Friday 5th August 2016
quotequote all
^
This could well be true in some circumstances. It's not unusual either, but far from all cases, there are several scenarios.
Maybe instead of lights we need 'roundabout autonomous patrol cars' to occasionally do a lap according to your scenario?

otolith

55,899 posts

203 months

Friday 5th August 2016
quotequote all
CABC said:
^
This could well be true in some circumstances. It's not unusual either, but far from all cases, there are several scenarios.
Maybe instead of lights we need 'roundabout autonomous patrol cars' to occasionally do a lap according to your scenario?
That would be a more efficient way of balancing flow through roundabouts than lights are, I think maybe you should patent that idea quickly!

NuddyRap

218 posts

102 months

Tuesday 9th August 2016
quotequote all
InitialDave said:
Exactly my point. The fact police drivers are taught to do it is no indicator of it being good practice for general road use.
But they're not taught this as a part of pursuit behaviour or response driving. They're taught this as a part of general (advanced) driving.



_Neal_

2,658 posts

218 months

Tuesday 9th August 2016
quotequote all
NuddyRap said:
InitialDave said:
Exactly my point. The fact police drivers are taught to do it is no indicator of it being good practice for general road use.
But they're not taught this as a part of pursuit behaviour or response driving. They're taught this as a part of general (advanced) driving.
Are you saying it's included as part of Roadcraft (the handbook for Police driver training which, as I understand it, all police forces use)? I don't believe it is and I'd be very surprised if any advanced driver training included or encouraged misuse or potential misuse of lanes/roundabouts.