Bad (fatal) accident on Thomas Lewis way tonight

[Gwagon111]

An on duty police officer on an undercover police bike was killed in an accident on a notoriously bad piece of road near me tonight. R.I.P. I hope this spurs the authorities on to maybe do something about the lay out of this particular stretch of road this time .

http://www.dailyecho.co.uk/news/10331525.Police_mo...

[Andy Zarse]

It's a straight road with a 40mph limit. I often use it and I can't understand how it's classed as notorious, it seems perfectly ordinary to me.

Terrible accident though, condolences.

[rohrl]

Andy Zarse said:

It's a straight road with a 40mph limit. I often use it and I can't understand how it's classed as notorious, it seems perfectly ordinary to me.

Terrible accident though, condolences.

There are quite a few junctions. Only takes one person to sail through on a red, especially if he'd filtered through the queue on the motorcycle and was first away from the lights.

[Andy Zarse]

rohrl said:

Andy Zarse said:

It's a straight road with a 40mph limit. I often use it and I can't understand how it's classed as notorious, it seems perfectly ordinary to me.

Terrible accident though, condolences.

There are quite a few junctions. Only takes one person to sail through on a red, especially if he'd filtered through the queue on the motorcycle and was first away from the lights.

I think I'm right in saying all T junctions which have traffic lights? The visibility is good too and as I say it's arrow straight and level. It's hard to conceive how they could improve it really. Is it classed as a blackspot?

[normalbloke]

I too struggle to see how this road is 'notorious'.

[Adrian W]

Can't see why it makes any difference because he was a policemen,

[InfoRetrieval]

Years ago when I lived near that road it was closed when a driver flipped his car from the road onto the railway line and turned it into a fireball How he did it on a straight stretch of road I've no idea. I guess some people just go too fast down there and the traffic light phasing expects drivers to be doing no more that 40 mph - if you're going much faster than that then you'll find a car appearing in you path when you jump the red light...

[Gwagon111]

normalbloke said:

I too struggle to see how this road is 'notorious'.

There's hardly a month when there isn't a bad accident on it. A fair few have turned out to be due to people jumping the red signals from the adjoining roads.

[s3fella]

Sad. Angle of the car looks odd, was he turning across toward the petrol station from the ns lane?

[Gwagon111]

s3fella said:

Sad. Angle of the car looks odd, was he turning across toward the petrol station from the ns lane?

It certainly looks that way. It looks as though the car driver was going for an illegal right hand turn which would have taken him into the (clearly signposted) 'exit only' of the petrol station. I see that particular manouver all the time, at that point of the road.

[Magog]

Gwagon111 said:

s3fella said:

Sad. Angle of the car looks odd, was he turning across toward the petrol station from the ns lane?

It certainly looks that way. It looks as though the car driver was going for an illegal right hand turn which would have taken him into the (clearly signposted) 'exit only' of the petrol station. I see that particular manouver all the time, at that point of the road.

Certainly looks like a possibility. There are clear no right hand turn signs but they are almost beyond the exit of the petrol station. If you were approaching from that direction and didn't know the road I can see how you might construe them as possibly only applying to the further entrance, why does the central reservation element not extend further to clearly physically prevent drivers entering. Did this road previously have a higher limit? The straight nature of it and the wide lanes/formation suggest it might have at least been designed for it. I always think roads like this are exceptionally dangerous where they have a significantly lower limit on than they have been engineered for. Looks like a thoroughly bad and dangerous design to me.

[Magog]

Just found this page;

http://pathetic.org.uk/unbuilt/m272/

Clearly the formation/alignment was originally intended for a motorway.

[Alucidnation]

This is coming from the other direction, and it does seem that the BMW was making a right turn after the central reservation.

The CR doesnt seem to be long enough?

https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=thomas+lewis+way&...


But then, at the other end facing the same direction, all it shows is a no u turn..

https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=thomas+lewis+way&...

[Gwagon111]

Magog said:

Just found this page;

http://pathetic.org.uk/unbuilt/m272/

Clearly the formation/alignment was originally intended for a motorway.

That is correct.

[Gwagon111]

Alucidnation said:

This is coming from the other direction, and it does seem that the BMW was making a right turn after the central reservation.

The CR doesnt seem to be long enough?

https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=thomas+lewis+way&...


But then, at the other end facing the same direction, all it shows is a no u turn..

https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=thomas+lewis+way&...

If you don't know the road, it can be very confusing.

[trashbat]

I've attempted to make that turn once (edit: not quite, into the entrance instead of the exit)

I couldn't decide if it was allowed or not, but it turned out to be too difficult, and dangerous whilst sat there, so I abandoned it.

A strange bit of road, all in all, including how it isn't quite two lanes. The M271 is also odd, like a practice motorway, and is of the same era. Perhaps they didn't really know what they were doing.

Edited by trashbat on Thursday 4th April 16:41

[Andy Zarse]

Gwagon111 said:

If you don't know the road, it can be very confusing.

What is never confusing is the fact that the law requires you drive with due care and attention. And that means effective observation before making any manouver, including a right turn. Whilst we will have to
wait the inquest, it is possible the driver probably failed to do so.

I'm not sure I see anything especially confusing about either sign. The first is no right turn. The second is no U-turn which means you may turn right when the road ahead is clear of oncoming traffic.

[anonymous-user]

Andy Zarse said:

It's a straight road with a 40mph limit. I often use it and I can't understand how it's classed as notorious, it seems perfectly ordinary to me.

Terrible accident though, condolences.

It's quite an "Odd" road though, when I lived in Soton I used to drive it a lot. Can't really describe why, it's just... strange.

[Alucidnation]

Gwagon111 said:

Alucidnation said:

This is coming from the other direction, and it does seem that the BMW was making a right turn after the central reservation.

The CR doesnt seem to be long enough?

https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=thomas+lewis+way&...


But then, at the other end facing the same direction, all it shows is a no u turn..

https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=thomas+lewis+way&...

If you don't know the road, it can be very confusing.

Agreed.

[Alucidnation]

Andy Zarse said:

Gwagon111 said:

If you don't know the road, it can be very confusing.

I'm not sure I see anything especially confusing about either sign. The first is no right turn. The second is no U-turn which means you may turn right when the road ahead is clear of oncoming traffic.

The central reservation just about covers the entrance, which if you look at it in the flesh, would mean you would have to make a slight u turn to make the entrance.

All in all, a very badly designed layout.

https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=thomas+lewis+way&...


Also, isnt there something in the driving code that says you should not cross those road markings?