Safe Speed Forums

Know there is a post on this, or somat similar ,and have spent lots of time looking , so if i'm right, can the Admin push into the right place .

http://www.express.co.uk/story.html?sto ... 7418517499

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/tm ... _page.html

CAR POOL LANES

The first car pool lanes will be be used on the M1 at St Albans, Herts, and at Luton, Beds, by 2008. The Highways Agency is also looking at using them on the M61 and M62.

No doubt there will be a debate on whether ministerial cars are carrying a passenger or a dummy

Not they don't work in the US...I know I have used them in Southern California.

I have posted about this before.
In the US they are used on 5+ lane interstates
They have dedicated on-off ramps in most cases (you won't get that here)
They have additional lane seperation (you won't get that here either)
They alow undertaking
Motorcycles can use them

Apart form that its just the same...

On of the biggest down sides is getting accross lanes of conjested traffic from the car pool lane to the off-ramp where there is no dedicated exit.
Also there are limited access points to the lane to prevent lane hopping.
There is a pool lane in sections between LA and San Diego a very conjested route. I couldn't be bothered to use car pool lanes in the end. Not worth the hassle. No doubt ours will be a half-assed atempt to copy something which does not work in the first place....priceless.

As far as I can tell it has not effected car sharing at all. Hardly anybody used them. Mostly vans. On some sections they had blocked off the lane. It looked like they were installing experimental tolls to charge for use instead of being a car pool lane.

They didn't mention that in the UK you may have to be "registered" and if so will be enforced by number plate recognition. They can also charge for lane use if they want to..

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Speed camera policy Kills

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I see no difference between the two!

Gizmo - knew someone had, just couldn't find it. Just looks like the idiots are trying it on again - in the belief that if you suggest somat often enough, people(if you can call the greenies that) will like it.
Looks like the bit about the US will be the point pushed -
CJG - definately if going to either of the north east parts .

i share lifts to work when its convenient for both of us, even if the pickup is a little bit out of my way.

i do it as it makes financial sense for me. i.e. the financial benefits outweigh the inconvenience.

for the people they are targetting these lanes at, the financial benefit is already their as an incentive but obviously not enough of one... so i'm not convinced adding the incentive of saving a couple of minutes of the journey will be enough either.

if your a business man/or woman(?) on a way to some big deal clinching meeting it might be worth hiring a couple of persons on the minimum wage to sit in the car and make the numbers up to use the high occupancy lanes. They wouldn't be helping reducing congestion by sharing a lift but they would mean you could tick the appropiate box to get a move on.

if you are a really successful businessman you probably have a chaffeur...and now a lane to yourself as well!

I believe the evolution of these lanes in the cat-and-mouse at work went approximately as follows:

1. Multiple lanes introduced by the state
2. Blow-up dolls introdued by entrepeneurial motorists
3. Police start to observe passengers carefully for signs of blow-up dollness
4. Lifelikeness of blow-up dolls as used by entrepeneurial motorists improved dramatically
5. Camera systems installed that detect both visual and heat signatures of car occupancy
6. Entrepeneurial motorists fill up the blow-=up dolls with hot air and leave the heated passenger seat on full blast.

I wonder if we will rerun all of this? Cloud cuckoo land.

Roger - we've already got about 600 in westminster, trouble those in upper house might need warming up a bit

There is no point.

The HOV lane doesn't move any faster, you just sort traffic by occupancy.

I posted a link to research done on the Leeds HOV lane. Journey times were reduced but then they would since traffic levels fell by 20%. That wasn't due to car sharing it was because 20% of motorists decided to use a different route.