The Stupidest Picture Yet from the HA?
Discussion
In order to explain to the general public what Smart Motorways are all about, this picture was on Twitter tonight.
To anyone less than savvy with Smart/Managed/Controlled Motorways (or whatever today's euphemism is...), it would appear that this could be a representation of an overhead gantry where the Hard Shoulder is closed, L1 has a 50 limit, L2 has a 60 limit and L3 is derestricted.
Are they completely stupid? Who writes and reviews these things before they go out?
To anyone less than savvy with Smart/Managed/Controlled Motorways (or whatever today's euphemism is...), it would appear that this could be a representation of an overhead gantry where the Hard Shoulder is closed, L1 has a 50 limit, L2 has a 60 limit and L3 is derestricted.
Are they completely stupid? Who writes and reviews these things before they go out?
Ex-HA highway engineer here. Looks fine to me. Doesn't simulate an overhead gantry at all. It's clearly showing the signing options you might see. If it was representing a gantry, I'd expect to see another box, probably grey, around all of the different legends. That's how I'd have done it if I wanted to represent a working example of what you might see, or even a photo of a real world gantry in action. The picture won't have been produced by an engineer but a/the comms dept. I think "stupidest picture yet" is a bit strong, but they might agree on mumsnet.
littleredrooster said:
In order to explain to the general public what Smart Motorways are all about, this picture was on Twitter tonight.
To anyone less than savvy with Smart/Managed/Controlled Motorways (or whatever today's euphemism is...), it would appear that this could be a representation of an overhead gantry where the Hard Shoulder is closed, L1 has a 50 limit, L2 has a 60 limit and L3 is derestricted.
Are they completely stupid? Who writes and reviews these things before they go out?
I think you have missed the point.To anyone less than savvy with Smart/Managed/Controlled Motorways (or whatever today's euphemism is...), it would appear that this could be a representation of an overhead gantry where the Hard Shoulder is closed, L1 has a 50 limit, L2 has a 60 limit and L3 is derestricted.
Are they completely stupid? Who writes and reviews these things before they go out?
This is some of the signage you can expect to see, but not necessarily all at the same time.
I agree the image is not supposed to represent what you would see on a gantry, however, why shouldn't a gantry display different speeds for different lanes ?
I have seen dual carraigways in another country where the lanes had different limits and I can envisage a scenario where it could be used.
An incident/broken down vehicle closing the hard shoulder and a low limit in lane one close to where people are working to clear the lane, and higher limits in lanes two and three.
I have never seen this in UK but why not ?
I have seen dual carraigways in another country where the lanes had different limits and I can envisage a scenario where it could be used.
An incident/broken down vehicle closing the hard shoulder and a low limit in lane one close to where people are working to clear the lane, and higher limits in lanes two and three.
I have never seen this in UK but why not ?
OpulentBob said:
Ex-HA highway engineer here. Looks fine to me. Doesn't simulate an overhead gantry at all. It's clearly showing the signing options you might see. If it was representing a gantry, I'd expect to see another box, probably grey, around all of the different legends. That's how I'd have done it if I wanted to represent a working example of what you might see, or even a photo of a real world gantry in action. The picture won't have been produced by an engineer but a/the comms dept. I think "stupidest picture yet" is a bit strong, but they might agree on mumsnet.
I agree. I can't see the issue, it looks bloody obvious to me!littleredrooster said:
In order to explain to the general public what Smart Motorways are all about, this picture was on Twitter tonight.
To anyone less than savvy with Smart/Managed/Controlled Motorways (or whatever today's euphemism is...), it would appear that this could be a representation of an overhead gantry where the Hard Shoulder is closed, L1 has a 50 limit, L2 has a 60 limit and L3 is derestricted.
Are they completely stupid? Who writes and reviews these things before they go out?
If you were "less than savvy" about Smart Motorways then how would you regard the images of the illuminated signs as a representation of a motorway gantry? You are not making sense.To anyone less than savvy with Smart/Managed/Controlled Motorways (or whatever today's euphemism is...), it would appear that this could be a representation of an overhead gantry where the Hard Shoulder is closed, L1 has a 50 limit, L2 has a 60 limit and L3 is derestricted.
Are they completely stupid? Who writes and reviews these things before they go out?
If you are "savvy", I assume you think you are, then you may have several views about the combination shown, it could be manually set or simply not possible for an automatic setting, the most likely is it isn't a combination of signs on a gantry at all but simply an example of what indications the signs could show and that they are not representing a gantry at all.
Someone may well be "completely stupid" but that person isn't anything to do with the production of the leaflet you show.
The subject isn't going the way you thought is it?
Corpulent Tosser said:
I agree the image is not supposed to represent what you would see on a gantry, however, why shouldn't a gantry display different speeds for different lanes ?
I have seen dual carraigways in another country where the lanes had different limits and I can envisage a scenario where it could be used.
An incident/broken down vehicle closing the hard shoulder and a low limit in lane one close to where people are working to clear the lane, and higher limits in lanes two and three.
I have never seen this in UK but why not ?
Good idea in theory, but in practice it will just encourage people into the faster lanes, causing more congestion. Bit like what happens at the moment with 90% of cars in lane 3, regardless of whether they are overtaking anyone.I have seen dual carraigways in another country where the lanes had different limits and I can envisage a scenario where it could be used.
An incident/broken down vehicle closing the hard shoulder and a low limit in lane one close to where people are working to clear the lane, and higher limits in lanes two and three.
I have never seen this in UK but why not ?
STW2010 said:
Corpulent Tosser said:
I agree the image is not supposed to represent what you would see on a gantry, however, why shouldn't a gantry display different speeds for different lanes ?
I have seen dual carraigways in another country where the lanes had different limits and I can envisage a scenario where it could be used.
An incident/broken down vehicle closing the hard shoulder and a low limit in lane one close to where people are working to clear the lane, and higher limits in lanes two and three.
I have never seen this in UK but why not ?
Good idea in theory, but in practice it will just encourage people into the faster lanes, causing more congestion. Bit like what happens at the moment with 90% of cars in lane 3, regardless of whether they are overtaking anyone.I have seen dual carraigways in another country where the lanes had different limits and I can envisage a scenario where it could be used.
An incident/broken down vehicle closing the hard shoulder and a low limit in lane one close to where people are working to clear the lane, and higher limits in lanes two and three.
I have never seen this in UK but why not ?
As most motorway drivers ignore the advice on the signs it isn't very effective, hence the enforcement of them to try to encourage compliance in the future.
The red-X seems to mean "that is my free passage" to some drivers.
covboy in the thread ''Red 'X's over lanes'' said:
Again the HA don’t help themselves
There was obviously a problem on the M6 this morning J6- J5 with traffic backing from J7
Through J6 the limits were 40mph then opening up to 60 on the “managed” section (with hard shoulder 4 lane running)
However a couple of miles up the road we were confronted with O/head gantries showing 20 mph on the Hard shoulder lane and 50 mph on the other 3 !
The next gantry along however had a red cross on the H/S lane i.e no advanced warning of the lane closure. – Immediately after was the safety refuge where the vehicles involved in the “incident” along with a HA Motor had gathered.
I had a bit of sympathy for the drivers H/S in this instance as it looked very difficult to get into Lane 1 before the Red cross due to the traffic slowing ahead to rubberneck what was going on.
There was obviously a problem on the M6 this morning J6- J5 with traffic backing from J7
Through J6 the limits were 40mph then opening up to 60 on the “managed” section (with hard shoulder 4 lane running)
However a couple of miles up the road we were confronted with O/head gantries showing 20 mph on the Hard shoulder lane and 50 mph on the other 3 !
The next gantry along however had a red cross on the H/S lane i.e no advanced warning of the lane closure. – Immediately after was the safety refuge where the vehicles involved in the “incident” along with a HA Motor had gathered.
I had a bit of sympathy for the drivers H/S in this instance as it looked very difficult to get into Lane 1 before the Red cross due to the traffic slowing ahead to rubberneck what was going on.
If that's difficult for the OP, then take a look at this from the Highway Code
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploa...
I mean who's ever seen all these signs all clustered together like this?
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploa...
I mean who's ever seen all these signs all clustered together like this?
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