Right turn from straight ahead lane
Discussion
There's this crossroads where two approach lanes are clearly painted with a straight ahead and left arrow in the left lane, and a right turn only arrow in the right and traffic lights.
After you turn right, there's only one lane, though it's wide enough for two cars briefly
Queueing up at the lights, the right turn only queue is usually much longer than the other.
During busy periods, people go down the left lane to turn right barging into traffic and causing a load of braking and bunching and almost touching wing mirrors.
Now I'm a great fan of the zip together in equal priority like in roadworks, end of dual carriageways etc because that just seems like the civilised and most efficient way of doing things, but I get really ticked off by these people deliberately disobeying a clear sign and causing this bunching/aggrovation. The lanes are marked that way because the traffic light phase is designed to let through x cars but it actually lets through quite a number of rogue cars which overloads the junction.
Are these guys committing an offence? Before I realised what was happening once in the van I nearly drove someone off the road as I turned right and kept to the left, thinking (unsurprisingly) they'd gone straight on. Who's fault would this be? Now I have to look out for these people plus oncoming traffic because I can't move tightly left right away, and indeed sometimes a blind-spot lurker makes me brake hard to avoid being pushed into the face of oncoming traffic!
SM
After you turn right, there's only one lane, though it's wide enough for two cars briefly
Queueing up at the lights, the right turn only queue is usually much longer than the other.
During busy periods, people go down the left lane to turn right barging into traffic and causing a load of braking and bunching and almost touching wing mirrors.
Now I'm a great fan of the zip together in equal priority like in roadworks, end of dual carriageways etc because that just seems like the civilised and most efficient way of doing things, but I get really ticked off by these people deliberately disobeying a clear sign and causing this bunching/aggrovation. The lanes are marked that way because the traffic light phase is designed to let through x cars but it actually lets through quite a number of rogue cars which overloads the junction.
Are these guys committing an offence? Before I realised what was happening once in the van I nearly drove someone off the road as I turned right and kept to the left, thinking (unsurprisingly) they'd gone straight on. Who's fault would this be? Now I have to look out for these people plus oncoming traffic because I can't move tightly left right away, and indeed sometimes a blind-spot lurker makes me brake hard to avoid being pushed into the face of oncoming traffic!
SM
The arrows per se don't consitute a road sign to be obeyed under S36 unless they also have the words "TURN RIGHT" and "AHEAD ONLY" with them, and some blue uprights. In this case, we'd be looking at a variety of careless driving definitions.
In the event of an accident, blame would get tossed around like a bag in the wind - but the fact that someone turned right out of the ahead/left lane would carry weight. Unless it looked like you deliberately rammed them to punish them for this... (in which case, welcome to S2). Best to have an independent witness... CPS have the option to prosecute both drivers, of course.
Alternatively CPS might go for driving without due consideration (also S3) where the charging standard gives:-
"misuse of any lane to avoid queuing or gain some other advantage over other drivers"
as an example.
In the event of an accident, blame would get tossed around like a bag in the wind - but the fact that someone turned right out of the ahead/left lane would carry weight. Unless it looked like you deliberately rammed them to punish them for this... (in which case, welcome to S2). Best to have an independent witness... CPS have the option to prosecute both drivers, of course.
Alternatively CPS might go for driving without due consideration (also S3) where the charging standard gives:-
"misuse of any lane to avoid queuing or gain some other advantage over other drivers"
as an example.
Forums | Speed, Plod & the Law | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff