Blocking lane two instead of zip merging
Discussion
On approach to a roundabout at the end of a dual carriageway, a private hire coach driver matches crawl speed with an artic in order to block Lane 2. He does this for approx 100m, causing traffic in lane 2 to build up, and despite an empty lane in front of him, leading up to the roundabout.
There are no merge arrows on the road, no special signage, and the "normal" behaviour on this road is to use both lanes all the way to the roundabout, and merge when exiting the roundabout.
It's not a one-off and the coach seems to do it same time same place. For those that know it, it's the A417 before it drops down into Nettleton Bottom.
It's annoying for the drivers being held up by the coach, but that aside... is the coach driver actually doing anything wrong?
beeej said:
It's annoying for the drivers being held up by the coach, but that aside... is the coach driver actually doing anything wrong?
Isn't he essentially "resetting" the zip? So everyone behind him is using the full capacity of the road, and hopefully everyone at the merge takes turns because no one feels people are pushing in?beeej said:
It's annoying for the drivers being held up by the coach, but that aside... is the coach driver actually doing anything wrong?
If there's roadworks up ahead as mentioned, it's also annoying when you've been waiting in a queue for ages, then someone comes up beside you and tries to force their way in.The problem I encounter with these lane closures is everyone does the zip thing in plenty of time then you get a group of half wits who smash down the outside at 3/4/5x the speed of everyone else right up to the point where they will almost smash wing mirrors with the cars that are at the 'pinch point' of the cones. This causes everyone to brake, stop/start where as before the outside lane guys arrived it was all chugging along nicely. The bloke in the coach is attempting to stop this I guess.
I had this over Christmas, on the road from the M4 into Chippenham. Some old boy sat his Golf in the overtaking lane, matching speed with the people queueing in the inside lane half a mile before the two lanes merged.
Half a mile of empty carriageway stretching out in front of him, and a huge bottleneck behind.
There were even temporary signs at the side of the road that said "use both lanes at busy periods" or something similar.
Traffic (in the left lane) was heavy and kept stopping - so, of course, we did too. I was directly behind him, and on one of these stopped periods I got out and asked the chap if he would mind pulling over, drawing his attention to the signs at the side of the road. I was told "Look at all the people queueing in that lane. You can't just drive past them, it's very rude."
Cock.
Half a mile of empty carriageway stretching out in front of him, and a huge bottleneck behind.
There were even temporary signs at the side of the road that said "use both lanes at busy periods" or something similar.
Traffic (in the left lane) was heavy and kept stopping - so, of course, we did too. I was directly behind him, and on one of these stopped periods I got out and asked the chap if he would mind pulling over, drawing his attention to the signs at the side of the road. I was told "Look at all the people queueing in that lane. You can't just drive past them, it's very rude."
Cock.
Big Bad Ben said:
Traffic (in the left lane) was heavy and kept stopping - so, of course, we did too. I was directly behind him, and on one of these stopped periods I got out and asked the chap if he would mind pulling over, drawing his attention to the signs at the side of the road. I was told "Look at all the people queueing in that lane. You can't just drive past them, it's very rude."
I guess people need to make the distinction between using the available road space and queue jumping.Using a perfectly serviceable lane that happens to be next to another lane where the traffic is moving slower would not constitute queue jumping. If people exit this lane earlier than they need to in order to join the slower moving traffic in lane 1 then that's their choice.....but it is a choice, not a requirement.
IMO queue jumping would be using part of the road not intended to be used in order to gain an advantage (e.g. mounting the kerb, or illegally using the hard shoulder) - or upon reaching the "merge in turn" point - trying to merge in twos or threes.
Moonhawk said:
I guess people need to make the distinction between using the available road space and queue jumping.
This x1000.I'm English so I choose to merge relatively early. What can I say, I see a queue, I join in, I just can't help it.
But I don't mind others heading all the way to the merge point - good on them.
Magic919 said:
I'd cone off a little island in lane 1 from just before the merge point, throwing them over into lane 2, then back to lane 1.
There's a road near me where the left lane disappears - traffic just queues in a solid snake from lane 1 to 2. They try and block you out if you arrive in lane 2.Here you go. This is one of the most recent threads on the subject:
http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...
http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...
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