Shared Middle Lanes

[GC8]

INWB said:

Burn

Anyway back on topic - It seems that in the UK we're obsessed with instructions. What happened to common sense? For example I am always staggered when I return home after driving elsewhere like Europe at just how much clutter we have. They call it street furniture and it is a blight. We are in such a nanny knows best controlling country. In most other countries cameras are the exception rather than the rule and white lines are often "missing". Even barriors down proper mountains aren't up to the "standard" we have for some hills.

It really is pathetic.

I campaigned for naked streets on an estate and they compromised in the end - it is now half naked.

Down with this sort of thing !!!!!!

Careful now!

[vonhosen]

rxe said:

vonhosen said:

No I'm not, there isn't a solid line against the downhill.
I'm saying in the absence of the solid line it's an overtaking lane available to both directions of travel & each direction of travel has a duty of care before & whilst using it.

OK - two apparently intelligent people have to agree to differ on their interpretation of a road. In this case, failure to agree leads to people getting killed. See the problem with the design?

The design is to try & aid people in both directions to pass slower vehicles where there are limited opportunities often in the run up to that opportunity. It's safety is reliant on all parties showing & respecting their duty of care. Where statistically they fail to do so, the design is often changed making overtaking opportunities less limited.

[GC8]

It is a cause of great concern to me that people on a car enthusiasts site cannot see with whom priority lies.

This is rather like the 'merge in turn' BS, with the bleeding obvious being dismissed in favour of their me-centric point of view / excuse.

It is bleeding obvious who has priority from the road markings, even if it wasnt going up a fking hill! If you cant work it out then you should send you licence back and catch bus in future.

Edited by GC8 on Thursday 28th April 17:06

[LeoSayer]

CrutyRammers said:

Well, this thread is quite an eye-opener isn't it. And not in a good way. I'd suggest everyone listens to Von.

[rxe]

OK, this has pissed me off so much I've bothered look up the definitions of the lines.

Firstly a "lane line". Lane line found on single or dual carriageway roads separating traffic travelling in the same direction . Definitely in the near part of the photo, what we have is a lane line. There is nothing to indicate it changes, so it must be a lane line all the way.

Secondly. "Double white lines where the line nearest to you is broken" This means you may cross the lines to overtake if it is safe, provided you can complete the manoeuvre before reaching a solid white line on your side. White direction arrows on the road indicate that you need to get back onto your side of the road.

See the difference in duty of care?

[vonhosen]

rxe said:

OK, this has pissed me off so much I've bothered look up the definitions of the lines.

Firstly a "lane line". Lane line found on single or dual carriageway roads separating traffic travelling in the same direction . Definitely in the near part of the photo, what we have is a lane line. There is nothing to indicate it changes, so it must be a lane line all the way.

Secondly. "Double white lines where the line nearest to you is broken" This means you may cross the lines to overtake if it is safe, provided you can complete the manoeuvre before reaching a solid white line on your side. White direction arrows on the road indicate that you need to get back onto your side of the road.

See the difference in duty of care?

Nobody is saying there isn't a duty of care on traffic coming downhill, only that there is also a duty of care on traffic going uphill too & the duty of care expected from those coming downhill doesn't remove the burden of a duty of care from those going up it.
The road markings do not remove the duty of care on traffic going uphill, part of that duty being to consider other road users that may already be using the road ahead.
There aren't two separate duties of care, there is one common one that involves looking out for others that it may be reasonable for you to expect to encounter on your journey.

[speedking31]

48k said:

speedking31 said:

For all those arguing "equal rights" over lane 2, why waste paint on the solid line? What does it add if not to emphasise a difference in priorities?

The solid line is nothing to do with priorities, it shows vehicles going up the hill that they may use only two of the three lanes on the carriageway, whereas vehicles coming down the hill may use all three. All said with the caveat of "keep left unless overtaking", "duty of care to other road users", etc.

I get that, but what practical difference does the additional paint make? It must be very rare that anyone would decide to use lane 3 in the uphill direction.

[rxe]

Obviously everyone has a duty to not smack into other road users.

But those definitions make it pretty clear to me that I could cheerfully be in L2 in the upward direction safely assuming that anyone coming in the opposite direction was bearing the responsibility of an overtaking manoeuvre that they chose to make. Just as in the same way, I will be in L2 or L3 of a motorway safely assuming that no one is coming towards me.

I may be faced with an oncoming driver who gets it wrong, but I take that risk everytime I get into the car.

[vonhosen]

rxe said:

Obviously everyone has a duty to not smack into other road users.

But those definitions make it pretty clear to me that I could cheerfully be in L2 in the upward direction safely assuming that anyone coming in the opposite direction was bearing the responsibility of an overtaking manoeuvre that they chose to make. Just as in the same way, I will be in L2 or L3 of a motorway safely assuming that no one is coming towards me.

I may be faced with an oncoming driver who gets it wrong, but I take that risk everytime I get into the car.

It's clearly nothing like a motorway.
As such you can't 'safely' assume anything of the sort.
Assumption being the mother of all................
You have a duty of care to make sure it's safe to go into lane 2 prior to doing so.
When overtaking you have a duty of care to make sure it's safe to do so.
Nobody is expecting anything unreasonable from drivers going uphill.
Nobody is seeking to absolve those coming downhill from their duty of care & responsibilities.

[MiggyA]

Bluedot said:

The unbroken white line is a bit of a red herring isn't it ? There seems to be an opinion that it means drivers going uphill can 'only' use the two left hand lanes, are we seriously suggesting that that means anyone coming down can use all three lanes ?

That is the implication, yes. It's really no different to moving to the RHS to overtake on a normal single carriageway, except in this case the circumstances for such a manoeuvre to be both safe and necessary would be extremely rare. E.G. you're on a nice straight road 3 lane road with great visibility a long way ahead so you can see there are no cars coming the other way, and you want to overtake a caravan who is elephant racing a lorry.

Remember, can =/= should..

[Pete317]

There's one not far from me, which I use on most days.
It's been there since before my time, but nobody can recall any accidents along it.

[krarkol]

ukaskew said:

Either way, say a car pulls out from the 'single lane' side to overtake very shortly before a car pulls out from the other side, who's at fault if they have a head-on?

Edited by ukaskew on Thursday 28th April 10:53

The guy who pulled out last in my opinion, as it's his responsibility to check if it's clear before performing an overtake. The person who was in the shared lane first gets the priority.

INWB said:

Burn

Anyway back on topic - It seems that in the UK we're obsessed with instructions. What happened to common sense? For example I am always staggered when I return home after driving elsewhere like Europe at just how much clutter we have. They call it street furniture and it is a blight. We are in such a nanny knows best controlling country. In most other countries cameras are the exception rather than the rule and white lines are often "missing". Even barriors down proper mountains aren't up to the "standard" we have for some hills.

It really is pathetic.

I campaigned for naked streets on an estate and they compromised in the end - it is now half naked.

Down with this sort of thing !!!!!!

I gemuinely think it causes more accidents. Because we are told what to do and to take it as gospel, people get an overwhelming sense of priority.

Get rid of it all though and let people figure it out for themselves, they'll likely drive slower as they are concentrating on not hitting anything or being caught out by sudden suprises.

Will likely help get rid of mobile phone users aswell. As they'll be concentrating on navigating a busy junction, rather than having a coloured light tell them when they can go, causing their brain to essentially go into autopilot mode as they merely respond to a timed object rather than actually reacting to what others are doing around them.

Edited by krarkol on Thursday 28th April 18:39

Edited by krarkol on Thursday 28th April 18:40

[rxe]

vonhosen said:

It's clearly nothing like a motorway.
As such you can't 'safely' assume anything of the sort.
Assumption being the mother of all................
You have a duty of care to make sure it's safe to go into lane 2 prior to doing so.
When overtaking you have a duty of care to make sure it's safe to do so.
Nobody is expecting anything unreasonable from drivers going uphill.
Nobody is seeking to absolve those coming downhill from their duty of care & responsibilities.

We'll have to agree to disagree on this.

Let's hope we don't meet head on.

A quick straw poll of co-workers suggests that there are a lot of people who think in the same way that I do.

[vonhosen]

rxe said:

vonhosen said:

It's clearly nothing like a motorway.
As such you can't 'safely' assume anything of the sort.
Assumption being the mother of all................
You have a duty of care to make sure it's safe to go into lane 2 prior to doing so.
When overtaking you have a duty of care to make sure it's safe to do so.
Nobody is expecting anything unreasonable from drivers going uphill.
Nobody is seeking to absolve those coming downhill from their duty of care & responsibilities.

We'll have to agree to disagree on this.

Let's hope we don't meet head on.

A quick straw poll of co-workers suggests that there are a lot of people who think in the same way that I do.

'We' aren't likely to meet head on as I'm adopting a policy of not overtaking where I have insufficient vision to see if you are already overtaking & also not overtaking if I can see you are already overtaking & conflict may ensue from me then attempting to do an overtake myself.
You are more likely to have a problem meeting somebody who assumes what they perceive to be a priority (whilst you prioritise what you see as your priority) over holding to the values I expressed.

[jaf01uk]

Despite the rest of the UK doing away with the majority of these 3 lane roads Scotland seemed hell bent on reintroducing carnage by building many new ones round here, initially they were marked as the OP but after several serious and multiple fatal RTC's they relented and marked them all as below, ie. downhill double white, uphill overtaking priority, got to be the safest way, we had one going into a 40 limit village where it was perfectly legal to overtake down the hill towards the limit but despite this people leaving the village would shoot straight into the middle lane despite the fact there was established traffic because as far as they were concerned it was a "climbing lane" and they had priority!! Think they expected someone already there to teleport?
Gary

A96

[mfmman]

Not to far from the OPs example is this one

https://goo.gl/maps/imP3YYZXy1v

Overtakers coming down the hill (may have been held behind slower traffic for some miles, the A37 is very hilly in this area) sure don't 'give way' to those coming up who wish to overtake. Since the bottom part has double while lines coming up tend to get first dibs if you like but I have never seen an expectation of priority

[SBDJ]

rxe said:

But those definitions make it pretty clear to me that I could cheerfully be in L2 in the upward direction safely assuming that anyone coming in the opposite direction was bearing the responsibility of an overtaking manoeuvre that they chose to make.

If you're in L2 in the upward direction, then you should only be doing so because you are overtaking traffic in L1. If you chose to perform that overtake without being able to see if L2 is clear for the duration of that overtake then you are putting yourself at risk and bear equal responsibility for the outcome. That solid white line to the right infers you no magical protection. If someone coming the other way has made the same decision as you - ie started an overtake they cannot complete in the distance they can see to be clear - then there is the likelihood of an accident and both parties are (IMHO) equally to blame.

If someone is already coming down the hill and overtaking and you pull out because you think you have priority then (again IMHO) the ensuing accident is entirely your fault and you should be prosecuted.

rxe said:

Just as in the same way, I will be in L2 or L3 of a motorway safely assuming that no one is coming towards me.

I was once travelling down a major A-road dual carriageway (with a proper metal central reservation barrier) and was about to move into the right hand lane to pass a lorry ahead. Just before I could a vehicle came up the dual carriageway the wrong way at speed (followed by multiple police vehicles going the correct way on the other side). I don't think it's ever safe to make assumptions!

[rxe]

Of course you're only in L2 if you're passing traffic going in your direction. This isn't Mumsnet.

And of course, as with any road, you are ready to take avoiding action when faced with an unexpected event.

However, given the markings on that road, I would expect to be able to be level with the RAV, and have an oncoming driver be absolutely clear that he would be crossing into opposing traffic if he chose to overtake. No different to a single lane road. I drive corners on the basis that I can stop in the distance I can see, I don't drive on the basis that someone is going to come round the corner on the wrong side of the road. Nor does anyone else, because any blind bend is literally undrivable if you worrk on that basis.

[vonhosen]

rxe said:

Of course you're only in L2 if you're passing traffic going in your direction. This isn't Mumsnet.

And of course, as with any road, you are ready to take avoiding action when faced with an unexpected event.

However, given the markings on that road, I would expect to be able to be level with the RAV, and have an oncoming driver be absolutely clear that he would be crossing into opposing traffic if he chose to overtake. No different to a single lane road. I drive corners on the basis that I can stop in the distance I can see, I don't drive on the basis that someone is going to come round the corner on the wrong side of the road. Nor does anyone else, because any blind bend is literally undrivable if you worrk on that basis.

Do you overtake through corners where you don't have sufficient vision to see if somebody is doing the same towards you?

[rxe]

Of course not.

I do drive through corners with an assumption that I am not going to meet someone doing 60 coming the other way who has crossed over the broken + solid line onto my side of the road. Just as I drive on any road with oncoming traffic - I assume that people will see a broken and solid line and realise that when they cross it, they are going into oncoming traffic. I am not saying that paint is some force field protecting me, we all know it isn't.

Note that I am arguing the definition of fault here, I entirely agree that being in the right, yet dead, is a nugatory position to take. If I chose to overtake the RAV in that picture, and then someone came hooning round the blue car down hill, my view is that the down hill driver would be 100% at fault. They chose to cross into the opposing carriageway (as they are entitled to do, over a broken + solid line) without being clear that the road was clear. I would have simply crossed a lane divider to use an additional carriage way in my direction.