Bus Lane Question
Discussion
OK, admittedly this is a somewhat silly question, but I'm nevertheless curious as to the answer.
Say you had a road with one or more normal lanes in one direction, and a contraflow bus lane. Say the contraflow bus lane was a short stretch, starting immediately after a junction on its side of the road, and turning into a normal lane about 20m later. (And yes, there are actually stretches of bus lane like that, designed to stop people "rat running" (i.e. making reasonable progress through non-crowded roads).)
Obviously a car could not legally travel in the contraflow bus lane during its hours of operation. But what if:
- A bus was in the contraflow bus lane.
- A car turned onto the road in the direction of the contraflow bus lane, from the aforementioned junction, and immediately overtook the bus using one of the normal car lanes (obviously when nothing was using it in the other direction).
- The car finished overtaking the bus after the bus lane had become a normal lane, and went in front of the bus as in a normal overtake.
- The car at no point actually entered the bus lane.
What offence if any has actually been committed? The car never went in the bus lane, and carried out what was (except for the bus lane) a normal and legal overtaking manoeuvre. Presumably the "wrong way on a one-way street" offence doesn't apply, since it wasn't a one-way street...or was it legally a one-way street as far as the car was concerned?
Also, if it wasn't an offence, presumably it would become an offence if the bus was not present? But what offence would that be? Overtaking something that wasn't actually there...?
Told you it was a silly question.
But I bet no-one's asked it before at least! 
Say you had a road with one or more normal lanes in one direction, and a contraflow bus lane. Say the contraflow bus lane was a short stretch, starting immediately after a junction on its side of the road, and turning into a normal lane about 20m later. (And yes, there are actually stretches of bus lane like that, designed to stop people "rat running" (i.e. making reasonable progress through non-crowded roads).)
Obviously a car could not legally travel in the contraflow bus lane during its hours of operation. But what if:
- A bus was in the contraflow bus lane.
- A car turned onto the road in the direction of the contraflow bus lane, from the aforementioned junction, and immediately overtook the bus using one of the normal car lanes (obviously when nothing was using it in the other direction).
- The car finished overtaking the bus after the bus lane had become a normal lane, and went in front of the bus as in a normal overtake.
- The car at no point actually entered the bus lane.
What offence if any has actually been committed? The car never went in the bus lane, and carried out what was (except for the bus lane) a normal and legal overtaking manoeuvre. Presumably the "wrong way on a one-way street" offence doesn't apply, since it wasn't a one-way street...or was it legally a one-way street as far as the car was concerned?
Also, if it wasn't an offence, presumably it would become an offence if the bus was not present? But what offence would that be? Overtaking something that wasn't actually there...?
Told you it was a silly question.
But I bet no-one's asked it before at least! Forums | Speed, Plod & the Law | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff