A question about merging and closed lanes on the motorway
Discussion
Driving home on the M25 late last night I came across some roadworks that necessitated 3 of 4 lanes closed (aside: many thanks to the Highways Agency for informing me of Hindhead Tunnel closure (25 miles away), A2 at Canterbury closure (70 miles away), and A14 in Cambridgeshire closure (100 miles away), but not the M25 roadworks directly ahead )
Anyway, inside lane "move out a lane" indicator comes on on the gantry, next gantry the 2 inside lanes had them, next one the 3 inside lanes had them with an an advisory 40 on the outside lanes. I had got across to the outside lane earlyish aiming to get past a few more heavies, and we ground to a halt. 3rd lane was doing 30 or so, and 2 inside lanes fairly empty but with people flying down at 60 or 70. After about 10 minutes of crawling I pulled into the 3rd lane and cruised down the 4th lane queue at about 30. I could see red crosses over lanes 1,2,3 in the distance and a couple of cars in front of me stopped to indicate right into the queue. I cruised past them up to the red X in my lane and merged into the slow moving 4th lane. Nothing else going past in lanes 1,2,3.
Then a heavy came past in lane 2, and all hell broke loose - 100s of cars in lanes 1,2,3 all passing the red cross, going for another 2 or 300 yards to the cones where they all started to pull across.
It all left me scratching my head to be honest.
I like to think I have a reasonable amount of roadsence (IAM about 10 years ago) but the actions of others really leave me in doubt of what I should be doing sometimes. If I had not nipped down that lane 3 I would have added another 15-30 mins to my half hour delay. If I had bombed straight to the front I would only have been delayed 5 or 10 minutes!!!
Anyway, inside lane "move out a lane" indicator comes on on the gantry, next gantry the 2 inside lanes had them, next one the 3 inside lanes had them with an an advisory 40 on the outside lanes. I had got across to the outside lane earlyish aiming to get past a few more heavies, and we ground to a halt. 3rd lane was doing 30 or so, and 2 inside lanes fairly empty but with people flying down at 60 or 70. After about 10 minutes of crawling I pulled into the 3rd lane and cruised down the 4th lane queue at about 30. I could see red crosses over lanes 1,2,3 in the distance and a couple of cars in front of me stopped to indicate right into the queue. I cruised past them up to the red X in my lane and merged into the slow moving 4th lane. Nothing else going past in lanes 1,2,3.
Then a heavy came past in lane 2, and all hell broke loose - 100s of cars in lanes 1,2,3 all passing the red cross, going for another 2 or 300 yards to the cones where they all started to pull across.
It all left me scratching my head to be honest.
- Pull into lane 4 to soon and you end up with a long 1 lane queue. (what I did initally)
- Use all 4 lanes and merge sensibly as indicated by the arrows BEFORE reaching the red crosses, best using available roadspace (what I subsequently did)
- Just fly down the inside lane past the red crosses and merge at the obstruction (what some people did).
I like to think I have a reasonable amount of roadsence (IAM about 10 years ago) but the actions of others really leave me in doubt of what I should be doing sometimes. If I had not nipped down that lane 3 I would have added another 15-30 mins to my half hour delay. If I had bombed straight to the front I would only have been delayed 5 or 10 minutes!!!
TooMany2cvs said:
NiceCupOfTea said:
Driving home on the M25 late last night I came across some roadworks that necessitated 3 of 4 lanes closed (aside: many thanks to the Highways Agency for informing me of Hindhead Tunnel closure (25 miles away), A2 at Canterbury closure (70 miles away), and A14 in Cambridgeshire closure (100 miles away), but not the M25 roadworks directly ahead )
They warned you of totally closed roads. The M25 was open...TooMany2cvs said:
NiceCupOfTea said:
Red X means "proceed no further in this lane" IIRC, in fact there was an ad on the radio mentioning it as I was queueing - but how many people realise this?
Anybody who vaguely recalls reading the Highway Code back when they sat their driving test.https://www.gov.uk/motorways-253-to-273/motorway-s...
I believe it's not unknown for video evidence from the m'way cameras to be used to send little reminders to those who ignore them.
Gratifying that some may at least receive a warning shot across the bows - presumably not the couple of dozen foreign artics though...
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