At last - MPs agree all-lane running is dangerous!

[skyrover]

ging84 said:

roads like the A3 and A23 are as busy or busier and as fast or faster than most motorways i have driven on, yet no one is crying out for a hardshoulder to be built on these.

People get upset when you take anything away from them

Do you have any idea what the difference between an A road and Motorway is?

There's a hell of a lot more to it than simply adding a shoulder.

[bobski1]

nickfrog said:

They're only over crowded as lot of the capacity (50%?) is wasted through total lack of understanding of lane discipline and comfort braking.

Educate people (not gonna happen I know) and then see how large the residual problem is (pretty small IMO).

This is the solution, so many milles of inside lane go unused because people don't know how to drive. There needs to be better education & more enforcement on middle lane tools.

[Terminator X]

PositronicRay said:

Hitch said:

Lorries should only be allowed to operate between 7pm and 7am. This would be unfortunate for lorry drivers, but that role will be phased out due to automation anyway. It would free up the outside lane for cars (hardly any use it at present) and stop snail racing taking up two lanes and creating barriers which slow people down every mile or two.

That and these ridiculously expensive automated motorways should be designed to enforce speed, tailgating and keeping left unless overtaking. That can't be that hard can it?

This is ridiculous. Lorry drives overnight waits for a business to open, tips his partial load. Then stuck during daylight hours, drives to next drop, waits until until open, then stuck again.

Perhaps off the roads in the rush hour(s)? The number of slow moving vehicles I encounter using MY rat runs in the rush hour is staggering.

The worry for me with ALR is the average speed camera aspect, 100's of miles of roads all policed by computers ... can't end well.

TX.

[iphonedyou]

Hitch said:

Or maybe the other parts of the system could adapt also. Lorry drives at night, night store person accepts stock, lorry leaves. There are feck all lorries on the road over night so I don't buy that it requires a 24 hour operation in most circumstances.

With respect, your not buying it doesn't make your idea any less st.

[wst]

At the moment roads are vastly under capacity for a hell of a lot of the time, and above capacity for a hell of a lot of the time. Measures that move some of that traffic from the over-capacity times, over to the under-capacity times... makes a lot of sense. It's just moving which traffic, and when...

[skyrover]

Unless you stagger trading hours that's just not going to happen.

Ideally the roads should be under capacity ALL of the time.

[nickfrog]

bobski1 said:

There needs to be better education & more enforcement on middle lane tools.

Yep, call it middle lanes though as when there is a (totally pointless) road widening programme, a good proportion of the MLMs migrate to lane 3 of 4. They must be so confused though : two middle lanes!!!

[skyrover]

nickfrog said:

Yep, call it middle lanes though as when there is a (totally pointless) road widening programme, a good proportion of the MLMs migrate to lane 3 of 4. They must be so confused though : two middle lanes!!!

If it was pointless, the government would not have wasted millions trying to widen roads on the cheap.

Widening is vital for capacity, the UK has one of the most underdeveloped motorway networks in the Western world per capita.

[wst]

Lorries are big and relatively important. There are lots of jobs that don't need people to physically be there, that is where the real gains are to be had.

[Cliftonite]

ging84 said:

roads like the A3 and A23 are as busy or busier and as fast or faster than most motorways i have driven on, yet no one is crying out for a hardshoulder to be built on these.

People get upset when you take anything away from them

But bus stops, where there is no lay-by, along the dual carriageway A24 where I live have been suspended, pending possible removal, as people are deemed unable to see a stationary bus and therefore crash into it.

http://www.shorehamherald.co.uk/news/video-a24-clo...

[mp3manager]

Hitch said:

Lorries should only be allowed to operate between 7pm and 7am. This would be unfortunate for lorry drivers, but that role will be phased out due to automation anyway. It would free up the outside lane for cars (hardly any use it at present) and stop snail racing taking up two lanes and creating barriers which slow people down every mile or two.

That and these ridiculously expensive automated motorways should be designed to enforce speed, tailgating and keeping left unless overtaking. That can't be that hard can it?

Cars cause congestion, not lorries.







So what's your next bright idea??

[speedking31]

wst said:

At the moment roads are vastly under capacity for a hell of a lot of the time, and above capacity for a hell of a lot of the time. Measures that move some of that traffic from the over-capacity times, over to the under-capacity times... makes a lot of sense. It's just moving which traffic, and when...

Welcome to road pricing where every road's a toll road

[speedking31]

Oh, and raise the limit to 100 mph. It always struck me as strange that you could ignore the danger inherent in removing hard shoulders (both direct danger of collision, and indirect danger of delayed emergency response to an incident) to increase vehicle speeds, but use it as an argument against increased speed limits.

[Conscript]

nickfrog said:

2Btoo said:

All-lane running was a small sticking plaster on the problem of our badly overcrowded roads.

They're only over crowded as lot of the capacity (50%?) is wasted through total lack of understanding of lane discipline and comfort braking.

Educate people (not gonna happen I know) and then see how large the residual problem is (pretty small IMO).

Fully agreed. There's no point adding extra lanes if some twit decides to sit in the middle one for no reason, so the only way to pass safely is to use the one remaining lane on their right.

Start drumming "keep left unless overtaking" into people's heads - make all the unused matrix signs remind people to do so (rather than telling you to "Check your fuel" or "Don't drive tired") and as well as funding TV ad campaigns targeting speeding and mobile phone use, run a campaign with a series of 30 second adverts aimed at educating people on the effect of lane hogging on traffic flow and reminding them to keep left. Compliment this with regular short Public Service Announcements to the same effect on all drive-time radio.

[Hackney]

Hitch said:

There are feck all lorries on the road over night

Have you considered why that might be?

[nickfrog]

skyrover said:

If it was pointless, the government would not have wasted millions trying to widen roads on the cheap.

Widening is vital for capacity, the UK has one of the most underdeveloped motorway networks in the Western world per capita.

Widening would be great AFTER education. As it is, and as I am sure you have experienced, we have loads of spare existing cheap capacity that could be unleashed with just a bit of continental style lane discipline and telling people to stop braking for no reason.

[Elroy Blue]

mp3manager said:

Cars cause congestion, not lorries.







So what's your next bright idea??

As someone who Polices the m/way, a couple of HGVs snail racing can cause significant congestion, especially at busy periods. Many heavy drivers also seem to have a total inability to drive off their limiter. There's good ones, but there's an awful lot of bad ones.

As for four lane running. One of the main topics of conversation is how do we get to an incident. After a number of years of discussion, we have yet to get an answer

[skyrover]

Elroy Blue said:

As for four lane running. One of the main topics of conversation is how do we get to an incident. After a number of years of discussion, we have yet to get an answer

The answer is incredibly clear. It's called hard shoulder.

If your going to widen a road... do it properly, and leave room for future expansion.

[tarnished]

mp3manager said:

Cars cause congestion, not lorries.







So what's your next bright idea??

I'm not sure how cars sitting in congestion means they caused it.

[The Surveyor]

Riley Blue said:

chasingracecars said:

I hate all lane running on B roads!! Driving that close to the edge scares me!!!

This is being done because half (I recon) drivers on British roads can't drive and wouldn't pass a test. I think these systems work. They are only dangerous because of the idiots that can't drive.

How many severe accidents have there been on managed motorways vs the three lanes with congestion?

Oh yes I get it now, empty hard shoulders can run police down to escort the PM's to tea and cakes at Parliament!

Hard shoulders are where vehicles seek refuge if they breakdown. There have been well reported incidents where drivers have not obeyed 'lane closed' signs and run into stationary vehicles on stretches of all-lane running, most notably the one in which three men were killed by a coach near Toddington services on the M1.

And there have been many cases where vehicles parked on a hard shoulder have been hit by other vehicles. That's why the advice is always to leave your vehicle and stand up the embankment or behind the Armco. It's not just a 'smart' motorway hazard.

Also, there are plenty of duel carriageways throughout the country with the same speed limit as motorways but nobody is demanding that they are widened to include a hard-shoulder. The key is that drivers need to respond accordingly and keep their eyes open and almost expect that there may be a broken down car on the inside.

Ideally roads should be widened of course but sometimes that's not possible for either physical or fiscal reasons.