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Driving up the A9 today there is signle direction traffic (on a single carriageway road) controlled by traffic lights. You know: "When red light shows wait here."

Traffic in this case was mixed cars and HGVs. Having spent about 8 or 10 miles following a couple of HGVs, I thought, wouldn't it be nice if I could nip past the HGVs at about the same time the lights went green. Then I realised that because of the interrupted traffic flow there was a few miles of clear road ahead.

But the lights went green and I followed the HGVs through the road works and for a few miles more because overtaking opportunities were limited.

I imagined a second set of lights enabling (say) 15 seconds of overtaking for light vehicles before the HGVs moved off. Don't forget there's nothing coming the other way, and the road ahead is clear both because of the lights. You could nip past a good 6 stationary HGVs in 15 seconds.

Is there any way at all that this idea could be developed into something that improved traffic flow while only causing an insignificant delay to the HGVs? Would safety be improved because of better traffic spacing and less frustrated overtaking after the road works?

I know there are problems, that's why it's in brainstorming...

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

the first problem that springs to mind is that the 40mph plonkers will also drive past the HGVs and you'll be no better off.

The system would need to permit the holding of HGVs whilst light vehicles overtook and then warn the latter that the HGV light was about to change and their advantage was about to be lost.
If there were only one or two light vehicles waiting to pass then it might work, but what if there was a whole stream of them? I'd envisage the car drivers following one another nose to tail past the HGVs in much the same way as they do to file past an obstruction on their side of the road in busy towns thereby ensuring they get through regardless of their lack of right of way. Or worse still, someone about to make the pass on the cusp of the HGV light changing making a mad lunge for it and coming to grief.

My fears are that it could create(entrench?) the "us and them" divide between HGV's and cars, but that's not to say the idea doesn't have merit.

In theory it could work, providing a system can me made whereby a long queue of cars does not block the passage for the HGV's and therefore stop the HGV's trying to force their way back into the traffic flow.

On a similar note, I drive a lot on single track lanes.

When following someone much slower than me who has to pull in to a passing place to let someone come the other way, I often think, "Now given that you have already pulled over and are stationary, wouldn't this be an ideal time to wave me past?"

I can't recall a single time when it has actually happened.

I have certainly experienced this on single track roads in Scotland with marked passing places, where I think the etiquette is better developed. I don't think people perceive small rural lanes in England in the same way.

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

I agree that it would reinforce the "us and them" thing. On balance it's probably best left "as is", ie to the judgement of drivers as to when it is safe to "nip past", as it were.

Coincidentally, I had a similar situation yesterday on the A65. I was behind one single HGV when some single carriageway road works hove into view about 1/4 mile away.

So we're doing about 40, there's nothing ahead except the traffic lights which are red, and a dead straight road - I can even see the traffic queued up at the other end. So as the trucker lifts off to coast up to the lights I drop it a gear and scoot past, then back off very carefully, making sure I come to rest tight up to the "when red light shows" sign, so's I'm barely affecting his braking.

Result was the eruption of a bank of spotlights in my rear view mirror, and a load of mouthed abuse and obscene gesticulations from the driver of the HGV, who made a point of pulling up a full 6" from my bumper!

I still can't for the life of me think what his problem was. I overtook him without causing him any inconvenience or hazard, yet still he has a chip on the shoulder about it. Ho hum...

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CSCP Latin for beginners...
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Bloody BM drivers!




But like Capri I see HGV drivers venting their spleens.



But maybe a layout like this may help in the absence of an opportunity to have small dual carriageways, where +7.5 tonners have to enter the lay by to allow smaller vehicles to pass.

The big problem as usual with this sort of thing is enforcement.

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Fixed ideas are like cramp, for instance in the foot, yet the best remedy is to step on them.

Ian

Yes, I'd say it was a pretty common behaviour on the single track routes around here (North Scotland). I've done it for others and benefitted from it.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

But the best time to nip past is when the lights change to green, and we really can't do that without instructions or signals.



Perhaps he was worried that you would be holding him up after the roadworks?

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

during our holidays in cornwall earlier in the year we got stuck behind tractors / farm traffic on a couple of occassions, with all due respect to the drivers by looking behind on a regular basis the first chance they had they would pull into a layby and let the traffic go on

Slight reworking of IanH's idea.



Would let a small number of cars through then give priority to traffic on the main carriageway.

This is not too dissimilar to what they already do in Cyprus. Without the traffic lights. On single carriagway roads there are "crawler lanes" at regular intervals of perhaps 2 or 3 miles, rather like a section of hard shoulder which the HGVs can pull into and drive through without losing speed, allowing the cars to overtake. It works very well and I often wonder why we can't do it here.

apart from the name, how is that any different to an overtaking lane?

Perhaps it's because you don't have to use it unless someone wants to overtake you i.e. if your the only car at that particular part then you would not use the crawler lane, but use the original carriageway.

which makes a lot less sense than guiding traffic into the 'slow' lane by default and only using the overtaking lane if you want to overtake. Especially given how people currently drive on motorways.

In Cyprus the quality of the road surface on the crawler lane is generally less good than on the main carriageway. Might not bother a lorry, but it would certainly slow down a car in many cases.

This reminds me of an incident in Portugal many years ago, where there is a certain badly surfaced potholed road that lorries were beling along at 70mph plus. My wife felt obliged to try to keep up with them in our hired Fiat Punto. It wasn't long before she hit a pothole, resuling in a badly damaged front wheel rim, a V shaped dent a couple of inches deep, and deflated tyre. That will need a newe wheel, I thought.

She pulled off the road and I changed the wheel, the spare being a spacesaver of course. I drove gingerly to the next town, much to the annoyance of the lorries I was holding up, where we found a back street garage. Although we had no common language, I showed the mechanic the damaged wheel, which he took into the workshop at the back, from which came the sound of heavy hammering. A few minutes later he emerged from the workshop with the wheel looking as good as new, fitted to the car, and off we went. No more problem for the rest of the week. I think he charged us three quid!!