Safe Speed Forums

I've become very aware recently of what seems to be very bad road engineering, not too sure if it's just my perception as I've been out with my learner son, but particularly at roundabouts, signage, lane control etc seem to me to be verging on dangerous at times.

Where I really notice it is driving through Coventry:

The lanes at the Ricoh roundabout are almost impossible to stick to, they're so "un-natural" that the only way to get safely round it is to watch other drivers. Following the lanes (I think!) creates a huge danger of driving into other cars not following them.

Again on the A444, the BellGreen roundabout (recently re-opened after 6 months of roadworks) has had the traffic light timings changed. Doing a right turn from the main road very often means a stop halfway round at lights. Those going straight on often get quarter way round to be faced with stationary traffic stopped at these light, completely unexpected on a roundabout. It was fine before, so I'm sure they've changed the timings.

In general, whist teaching my son, I've noticed how hard it is to tell which lane he should approach a roundabout at. Some are left lane = left or straight on, whilst others are left lane = left only. Very often impossible to tell before you're committed.

On the same subject, I also think the M42 (hardshoulder) is VERY badly engineered, when it's open it's hardly used at all - part of the reason I think is that to use it, you have to deliberately cross solid white lines, and it's always "left-only" at the next junction.

Anyone else notice the same?

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yup..... you just have to hold your nerve and keep a close eye on those about you.



only ever gone straight over recently.... as with the ricoh one there is a tendency to force the left most straight ahead lane straight to the outside of the roundabout.. which yes seems unnatural (but avoids the stationary traffic if everyone gets in the right lane, which they don't) and also leaves you eyeballing people waiting to join the roundabout (from sainsburys) as you hug the wide line hoping they correctly anticipate you coming round.



just over a year ago i was coaching my wife with L plates on, she hated roundabouts so i made her do the 444 quite a bit. fortunately i knew it well enough to say 'and this one despite what you'd think we're going to go straight over in the left lane'.



i just treat it as an extended on & off slip... take my time merging into the traffic.... and often end up cautiously undertaking from the 1mile marker approaching the junction i want.

Ive long been critical of the current trend by local highways departments to make our roads so much more unfriendly and downright dangerous than they ever needed to be.

In addition to the previous examples by posters, heres some ive noticed.

Traffic islands with no lane markings.

This results in drivers going round the outside of other vehicles going straight on, and has resulted in several near misses on one of these islands in my locality.
The amount of hornblowing that goes on is unreal and indicates a massive accident waiting to happen.
It further reinforces such bad behaviour as drivers have no indications as to who is going where until its almost too late.

Another favourite cock up created by our pc "new thinking" councillors is to make previous two laners with a right hand filter into a two laner with only a left hand filter. Unfortunately for these giants of intelligence, that system works better when you drive on the OTHER side of the road as in the US, not over here.
This stupidty causes traffic congestion of a nature that those who would havet us all walking would be proud of.
The morons in my local council actually did this to a section of road that previously had been pretty free flowing and predictably created absolute chaos with it.
Weeks later they admitted defeat by quietly reversing the markings to what they had been( at what cost? ) and then crowed about how well theyd designed the new markings to relieve the congestion these idiots had themselves inflicted!

Yet another design that makes things dangerous is the trend to mark the approach (left lane) left turn only with the right hand lane being straight over. Fine, force people into an undesirable situation with undertakers using the island correctly, as it had always been and those forced into the centre not knowing how they should proceed......god give me strength with these fools.

Even more idiocy is displayed with layers of red tarmac and superfluous markings producing a boundary on a corner, making the lane sit out further from the kerb so that instead of traffic flowing evenly and naturally, its forced in tight with directional changes being needed, right on a junction.

Another favourite has got to be the closing off of a lane so that all the traffic that previously went down two nice wide lanes has to go down one constricted lane.

Havent the dipsticks in authority ever heard of !the venturi effect" then?
Obviously not judging by the numbers of prangs their efforts have generated.

Do the absolute idiots that keep doing this actually understand at all the destruction theyre participating in?
I think they do. I think its deliberate and wilful, its part of a plan, it has to be cos no one could actually be that bloody stupid (substitute your own insult) and do what theyre doing to our road network and continue to be employable!

Shootings too good for em i say. Bung em in the stocks and let us throw rotten fruit at them all day. Ill deffo put that in the manifesto!

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"Safety" Scamera Partnerships;
Profitting from death and misery since 1993.

Believe nothing- Question everything.

I wouldn't critisise them for trying new/different things as it's often the only way to find out.

For example anyone's who's been round Nuneaton station can view some radical road planning, and then there's the M42 hardshoulder running. I think both have been total failures, but a good try. What they need to have the guts to do is admit that an idea didn't work and change it.

Anyway, back on topic, what worries me is that I feel a lot of current "engineering" is causing dangers that weren't there before.

To be fair, I used to be very impressed with engineering, and complex light timings etc, but not now.

Is it a case of trying to micro-manage traffic flow far too much? Trying to implement total control means they have to get it 100% right all the time.

Or ... is it just incompetent planners..

The other thought I had was when "we" come across a badly engineered solution, what can we do about it? Take the Ricoh roundabout - it was obviously bad from the day it opened - so what can I do about it? There's no mechanisim to call or email anyone with "have a look here, it's dangerous".

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Wake me up when the revolution starts
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originally the lights weren't running and it was even worse.
the signs on approach didn't match the markings either... but i think they do now.

they've done similar on the sky blue way / ring road slip roundabout... it used to be mostly unmarked but worked..... now they've changed it with rigorous lane markings that confuse the hack out of people (and even then they had to go back and tweak one of the approaches)

sadly the google maps images are the old layouts
maybe we need a regional section for such ranting

(whatever happened to the a5 redgate thread?)

aha... local.live has lots more

(bored? moi?)

ricoh roundabout looks pretty innocent

sky blue way roundabout.. that green truck, where's it come from? where's it going ? how many white lines is it going to have to carve uyp to get there? !



(also m42 gripe... i drive j6 to j4 and back several times a week. both slips are on a gentle left hander, both have VSL gantries over the left hand slip llane.... on both you can't see the left hand of the next gantry early enough to see if the hard shoulder is open for use or not... leaving you with a very late decision to merge or not... )

there is a circle of hell, beneath lawyers, advertising executives and "Reality" TV producers, reserved for people who think putting lights on roundabouts is a good idea.

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COAST Not just somewhere to keep a beach.

A young loner on a crusade to champion the cause of the innocent, the helpless, the powerless, in a world of criminals who operate above the law.

What is clearly wrong with this layout, and quite common in and around Coventry, is the approach from the north. The left hand lane splits into FOUR separate directions, one lane to the left, and three straight ahead. The right hand lane is for right turning traffic only. At busy times, traffic in the right lane should be able to continue sraigt ahead into the right hand of the three straight ahead exits, but this can only be achieved by changing lanes. - Moving a few yards of white paint would greatly improve flow and remove conflicts.


Graeme wrote


Managing traffic in Nuneaton is difficult, as all traffic is funnelled over a single bridge crossing the railway. I do think it could have been foreseen that the changes near the station would not work though. Long vehicles are not able to safely get through without risking cyclists, pedestrians and street furniture. Most car drivers seem incapable of remaining in lane round corners. A radical solution is needed, but this is not it.



I did manage to get a response to an email I sent to the roads department of Coventry council, but they didn't seem to acknowledge that there is a problem.

And god only knows what they're doing at Binley Rd/Gulson Rd. I think they have an absolute determination to control every inch of road space.



I've never seen a problem at the bridge. The worst part is ASDA, 2 pelicans, traffic lights and a roundabout within 200 yds doesn't help. Get rid of the lot & put in one set of lights instead of the roundabout with a crossing cycle would help.. And remove the one-way bit, cutting out the station completley. No doubt they'll do the opposite & put a bus lane in next though.



There should be one national number & email for road engineering issues that then gets routed to the right place.

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Wake me up when the revolution starts
STOP the Toll Tax http://www.traveltax.org.uk

There was a story in today's Express explaining how la's are being encouraged to create traffic schemes that cause congestion to help the argument for road pricing as a way of beating congestion, such ideas included:

Traffic Lights on roundabouts.

Closing a lane of a three lane 'A' road and converting it into an extended hard shoulder or bus lane.

Extended red phases on lights.

In Chelmsford, there have been compaints over a pedestrian crossing and the poor sighting of the pedestrians Go/No Go lights. Over the last four years there have been 16 serious accidents and two fatalities, the most recent a few weeks ago.

The local traders association has complained from day one these were dangerous but as they 'haven't changed thier attitude' to roughly qoute a local councillor nothing has been done.

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Gordon Brown saying I got the country into it's current economic mess so I'll get us out of it is the same as Bomber Harris nipping over to Dresden and offering to repair a few windows.

Chaos, panic and disorder - my work here is done.

http://www.wildcrafts.co.uk

If only that could be proved, put it together with the petition & I think we'd see a general election pretty quickly

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Wake me up when the revolution starts
STOP the Toll Tax http://www.traveltax.org.uk

Yeah. Government is crumbling before our eyes.

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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

Well, with regards the local crossing that has had a recent fatality. I managed to get a response from the Essex Chronicle, I pointed out that one of the potentially dangerous layouts I was going to show them was indeed this crossing. Th eyoung lady I spoke too said that Essex County Council were aware and addressing this. My reply was if that is the case wghy have they just opened three other crossings identical in thier safety failings?

The newsdesk editor is going to be calling me monday (I hope) to discusthis further, hopefully I can be a thorn in thier side at least on a local level.

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Gordon Brown saying I got the country into it's current economic mess so I'll get us out of it is the same as Bomber Harris nipping over to Dresden and offering to repair a few windows.

Chaos, panic and disorder - my work here is done.

http://www.wildcrafts.co.uk

The lanes at the Ricoh roundabout are almost impossible to stick to, they're so "un-natural" that the only way to get safely round it is to watch other drivers. Following the lanes (I think!) creates a huge danger of driving into other cars not following them. "

And this is after several attempts at solving the problem from my observations.
From M6 side we have 3 lanes, which are signed straight on (till you get about 50 ft from said island) and then if in outside (normally straight/turn right ) becomes dedicated right turn . By then you will find that typical COV motorist has decided that you must turn right, and NO CONCESSIONS will be given.
BTW Graeme, another COV delicacy ---enter roundabout in left lane , then move to mid lane ,then back to outer lane ---helps them speed through , and nearly gets you car in boot as you have to brake sharpish to avoid front ends meeting.

Suspect some refugee from some institution designed and painted the Ricoh island.

Just beyond the lane control section going northbound is the split between the M6 Toll, M42 and the A466. Acres of tarmac with endless white lines. The cynic in me thinks its been done like that to ensure the confused get to go on the toll road (kerching) - a lot of the new signs in the area seem to encourage using the toll road when there's no real need (east bound A38 especially).

Generally speaking most of the newer motorways are now done on the cheap with no flying junctions where the join, so dumping slow moving vehicles into the 3rd lane at the junction.

But the prize for worst engineering must go to the M60 extension in Manchester. Less than 10 years old it needs major reworking as it never drained properly! One spot of rain and the matrix signs light up as the carriageway is soon covered in water draining across it and on several occasions it has had to be shut through standing water - in 2005 it was 2ft deep under one bridge! Yet not a dozen miles away the M62 crosses the Pennines and was built properly so has only closed a handful of times since it opened in 1970 and then only due to snow and ice.

We can do thing properly but it costs, so instead we get three half-ar$ed attempts in place of one proper one. Great.

Barkstar

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The difference between intelligence and stupidity is that intelligence has limits.

I know all about that. Southampton City Council self inflict congestion and are considering congestion charging. It's not only the daytime that you can tell either. Try driving across south Hampshire after midnight, and in most places you won't need to stop, but as soon as you get into Southampton you will end up stopping a dozen times or more at red traffic lights.

oniznorb wrote -

Managing traffic in Nuneaton is difficult, as all traffic is funnelled over a single bridge crossing the railway. I do think it could have been foreseen that the changes near the station would not work though. Long vehicles are not able to safely get through without risking cyclists, pedestrians and street furniture. Most car drivers seem incapable of remaining in lane round corners. A radical solution is needed, but this is not it.

A one way ring road was suggested and rejected.
But the problem is that this is the ring road ,when it should be the inner ring road.
The new design did erradicate one problem ---the mini island at the end of Back street, which was a major problem in the rush hour.
Then again lane disipline is not a strong suite in Nuneaton - the road past the fire station used to be two lanes but it looks like WCC gave up on it as most people treat it as one lane, till Asda island.