Safe Speed Forums

Hi,

As a (considerate!) van driver I do a lot of miles, and get to see some very well and very poorly designed junctions. By far the worst, IMO, is the turnoff from the A40 eastbound to the M40 westbound, by Oxford.

The road you are coming off is a fast NSL dual carriageway. The slip road starts off as two lanes, before merging to one with no warning signage or road markings around a blind tight corner. The road then merges with traffic from the westbound carriageway, however, this merge is around another blind corner and at a 60 degree angle, with plants obscuring visibility. There is a short slip to let you look but for some reason this has been marked off and is full of broken glass! The road is also difficult to merge onto, as it's a straight, fast SC so traffic is often going 60mph.

Basically, you have loads of decisions to make in the 15 seconds it takes to navigate - and at the merge, you can either stop and get shunted or take your chance by looking at the last minute and slamming on the anchors if there's traffic coming. Sheer lunacy - and at such a busy junction too!

Picture is here:

http://maps.live.com/default.aspx?v=2&c ... &encType=1

junction is going from right to left, however, the merge has been made shorter and tighter since that pic was taken.

Was wondering what other examples there are throughout the UK and who the hell designs such poor junctions? (Oxfordshire's Highway Agency seem particularily inept in this respect)

Welcome!

One of the worst junctions I know of in your area are the slip roads on/off the A34 at Speen. They are so short that is almost no margin for safety when trying to join the A34 and when leaving you are faced with a sudden very sharp bend.

One I don't like is the Northbound on slip road of the M6 Junction 34.

From traffic lights at the junction where the slip road starts, its uphill to the motorway with 1 lane. It then meets the motorway, and almost as soon as the white dashes start to let you filter onto the motorway, the sliproad bit starts to narrow to less that the width of a car. As the motorway then goes over a bridge there is no hard shoulder on the slip road or the M6.

Google Satellite Photo

I frequently see people having to come to a dead stop at the end of the slip road as there is a lorry blocking the entry onto the motorway (the lorry can't get out to lane 2 because of overtaking traffic). They then have to do a standing start onto the motorway!!!

That does look bad Chrisred, I can't recall it although I must have passed by there many times. I take it that the "white" bit that I can see on the left of the narrowing bit is the bridge wall?...

I once had to stand on my brakes at the A49 at Wigan joining the M6 Southbound because the Granada in front stopped dead just as I looked right to check for traffic.........

No reason why he couldn't have run down the hard shoulder and waited for a gap!.....missed him by about 6 inches.


The one thing I notice on the Continent is that the acceleration lane is much longer than here.....it would seem to be a good idea here for the people who seem to think that they have to stop before the reddish hard shoulder starts!

Yes - that white is part of the start of the bridge wall, so there is no space to drive anywhere except on the actual lane.

I did notice last time I was driving on the Continent (mainly Germany and Austria), that the lanes weren't much longer, but they did use the hard shoulder more for filtering in.

This is true of all the slip roads along the length of the Newbury bypass - what were they thinking of?

I heard from my mother's new partner that in Portugal the lanes are really short and dangerous to use, but i'll report back when i go there in july.

IIRC the original autobahn in Germany had short lanes which were later lengthened but we started off long.

What is the legal standpoint of using the hard shoulder as an extended acceleration lane?

Even though it may be the safer option, in this age of ticket first safety later can you expect a call from plod later?

Using the hard shoulder as an extended acceleration lane is encouraged by the police.

That was my understanding. I think it's much safer, (providing there're no stopped vehicles on it!), to use the shoulder as an extention of the slip road. Only for as long as is necessary mind you!!

I've used this approach a few times to good effect. It beats the cr4p out of stopping on the slip if you can't merge!! How many Micras have you seen do that?

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If I have to explain you won't understand.

but NOT as an extended "join the stationary traffic" lane.

Particularly after you've been stopped...

That wasn't my wife's experience a few years ago. Use of the hard shoulder when she ran out of slip road was met with a fixed penalty. Oh if only I knew then.......

I've always been fond of the slip road onto the A57M -Mancunian Way from the northbound A34. It's steep, short, the view of the approaching traffic is obscured by the substantial retaining wall and to top it all off lane one becomes an off slip in about 150yds. The only saving grace is it very busy so often as not the traffic isn't doing anywhere near the 50 limit.

I also rather like the kamikaze M6 northbound on slip at Jct15 (A500), though it looks like they have lengthened the slip road in the last few years.

Barkstar

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

I think that on this one you have to take the view (rightly) of the Police.

If say: You "Charged" onto the Motorway along the hard shoulder in order to gain ground because your need was greater than the: "lower orders"alongside. You'll get "Done".

And you'll deserve everything you get!

However, if you slow, and proceed with caution along the hard shoulder (without stopping) but indicating your need to enter the slow lane..........

that's quite different...........it's times like this that we need the: ZIPPER!