Safe Speed Forums

As a user of Dutch motorways who makes frequent use of some of these "spitsstroken" (rush-hour lanes) I'm actually a fan of them. Having said that, I have done no real research into their actual safety (or lack of it) so I don't know any figures.
But as a "consumer" the advantages are:
- relatively quick to modify road infrastructure (compared to building extra lane)
- dramatic improvement in traffic flow when they are activated (busy periods)

Also, I have not experienced any problems involving access for emergency vehicles. According to the publicity these roads are closely monitored by cameras and the "spitsstroken" are deactivated when necessary. Everyone just moves over and makes room to allow emergency vehicles to get through. There is rarely no room at all to manoeuver (never in my experience).
I suppose that an emergency vehicle may be slightly delayed while drivers who are "caught out" have to make room, but the "spitsstroken" that I have used are usually only a kilometer or two in length.

HOWEVER, I found this snippet in an official looking document discussing the proposed creation of another "spitsstrook":

2.2.17. Niet in geschil is dat de aanleg van de spitsstroken op zichzelf leidt tot een afname van de
verkeersveiligheid. De vraag is echter of de in het bestreden besluit voorgestelde compenserende
maatregelen voldoende zijn om het huidige veiligheidsniveau op het desbetreffende weggedeelte te
handhaven na ingebruikname van de spitsstroken.

Rough translation: That the implementation of the "spitsstroken" alone reduces the road safety is not disputed. The question to be answered is whether the proposed compensatory measures* are sufficient to maintain current safety levels when the "spitsstroken" are in use.

* previous paragraphs refer to (among other measures):
- reducing speed limit from 120kph to 100kph when "spitsstrook" is in use
- monitoring by cameras
- improving/upgrading road marking & signs appropriately

link (Dutch ): http://www.europadecentraal.nl/file.asp ... ook_a2.pdf

What kind of roads do these lanes appear on?

Many of the motorways with the worst congestion in the UK are already 4 lanes.


If traffic is flowing at 100kph (60mph) I can't see much need for an extra lane really.

Lunatic idea.

The hard shoulder is absolutely essential to keep clear - except for emergencies only (as I explained yesterday to the guy I ticketed for stopping on the hard shoulder to use the phone....). Main reasons are -

Emergency vehicles responding...
In most situations, I tend to use the "moses" lane - i.e. between 2 and 3 and go for a parting of the waves effect if the traffic is stationary, usuallyu because most accidents are l3 / central reservation. However, in a car this is OK...but my colleagues in fire service / ambulance have much wider vehicles and therefore do not have this option readily available.

Breakdowns....
It is quite frequent to get a breakdown where the vehicles hazard lights can't be shown (electrical failure, small fire, etc). At least if the vehicle is on the hard shoulder the chance of a rear end RTC is reduced, if the hard shoulder were merely another lane the consequences could be horrendous.

Overall safety....
Someone mentioned dual carriageways not having hard shoulders. Remember motorways are THE safest type of road - some of this is attributable to seperated directional flows, but a lot is to do with the breakdowns, awaiting recoveries, tyre changes, etc being able to be done out of the traffic flow.

Don't forget, too many police have been lost because of vehicles driving into them on the hard shoulder already - if the HS just becomes another lane, I for one would hate to think of the consequences.

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Association of Chief Police Officers

Agree - lunatic idea. Most urban duakl carriageways and ring roads are used for short distances. On a long journey - no matter how well maintained the vehicle - something can fail. Hence the requirement for the hard shoulder since it caters for long distance journeys.

We use the hard shoulder to raeach accidents, and sundry emergencies and lorries which get into trouble for "truck loads" of reasons

If car has electical failure - hazard lights may not work. Also = debris accumulates on hard shoulders and this can also cause a serious hazard.

If there are temporary road works - different matter. But accidents can occur even in slow moving traffic jams - and hard shoulders are needed to access. I believe the emergency services made full use of the hard shoulder to attend to my cousin that day.

Nope - am against and agree with all comments so far.

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Another argument I've heard is that currently most motorways are fairly straightforward to drive on when compared to most urban streets or rural roads - there is a 'uniformity of decision making' which makes them safer.

Hard shoulder running can further reduce this uniformity as it is necessary for drivers to pay closer attention to variable message signs (which we're not that used to in the UK), as well as the road and vehicles around. This may have the effect of increasing driver stress and reducing safety. Any thoughts?

Agreed.

Furthermore, matrix/variable signs are sensibly restricted in this country to out of the ordinary comments - "Accident between 18 and 19" before 17, giving people the option of getting off the motorway early, "fog", "emergency roadworks ahead".

Once these start being used for routine stuff, their impact will be less.

I think matrix signs are already seen as a bit of a joke in places, though, as they are left on far too long - for example saw one warning of 'fog' in the middle of a bright sunny day just the other week.

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-mike[F]
Caught in the rush of the crowd, lost in a wall of sound..

Perhaps a worry is that if many people think of matrix signs as a joke, then they won't respond to them quickly in the case of hard shoulder running. This could have safety implications.

We've got matrix signs around here (North Scotland) on the A9 single carriageway. It's very rare for them to show anything useful. I've recentlly seen:

Visit www.nadics.org
check your fuel
check your speed

I believe they cost £250,000 each.

Have they saved a single crash? I doubt it.

Why do they buy them? Because they can I reckon.

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

Do you think this could be a problem for the message signs to be used with hard shoulder running - people will just go on past experience of signs being useless and may ignore them?

Well, clearly some will. And some won't see them at all. And some will see them but not understand what they mean.

I wouldn't rate any of these three groups as large, but sometimes it only takes one.

Do you know what for the signs will be like? Like the A38 Aston Expressway? 'O' for open and 'X' for closed above each lane?

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

I'm not disagreeing that hard shoulder use is a very worrying idea, but playing devil's advocate I'm not sure that the debris that tends to collect there is a valid argument. Surely it tends to end up there because it doesn't get used. Where drivers are having to use the hard shoulder for some time because of roadworks it seems to end up with far less crap in it than usual. Or is someone just cleaning it up a bit beforehand?

Still, IMO unarguably a bad idea. Sitting in the hard shoulder is a experience, and the idea of maybe being stuck there knowing that traffic is coming up behind you in the same lane you're broken down in... . Also, if it's busy and the hard shoulder is in use it's going to be that much more difficult to get the car onto it in the first place. And if it's quiet enough that you can slide over there and stop the car without any trouble, it also means it's quiet enough that there's likely to be fast moving traffic coming up behind, some of which may be on the hard shoulder itself. If someone back there missed the warning signs the results aren't likely to be good.

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Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler - Einstein

the signs are already there SS ... take a drive
(although none over the hard shoulders yet)

I've seen inactive variable speed limit signs on the M42 a couple of weeks back. I haven't seen lane control signs.

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

There are plenty of long-distance dual carriageway trunk roads in the UK without hard shoulders, e.g. A34, A14, A38, A55, A90 etc. Some of these in places are also busy commuter routes.

While motorways with hard shoulders are undoubtedly preferable and safer, these roads are not particularly unsafe.

Bear in mind this scheme is definitely going ahead on the M42, with the planned implementation of hard shoulder running in Autumn 2006.

http://www.highways.gov.uk/knowledge/tcc/atm/index.htm

Presumably the Highways Agency have given careful consideration to the safety implications - indeed not too long ago a House of Commons committee were accusing them of being over-cautious about experimental traffic management schemes.

Clearly a proper widening of the motorway - or building a new parallel motorway to take some of the strain away - would be a better option. But, if that is not a realistic possibility due to funding or environmental constraints, then there is a strong argument that this scheme is better than just doing nothing and accepting chronic gridlock in the area.

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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

Ah - yes . - A14 - from M1 until it runs into M11. When it goes to Newmarket - becomes a normal urban,

A6/A5/A50/A66/A67/A65/A56/A57/A34 all do similar - long dual NSL stretches with no hard shoulder and then urban stretches.... I think the difference lies in the more frequent? exits and more frequent services and so on.

Still think we are creating an unecessary danger by suggesting use of hard shoulder. We rely on hard shoulder to get to incidents quickly as well and we have to be careful because nails, tyres and sundry debris are present.

OK my mate Gatosbait has a point over lack of use contributing to debris - but if someone is using hard shoulder because of a breakdown - speak from personal experience - you close in on such vehicles astonishingly quickly and this is where I think danger lies I do not wish to pull the "training" card - and I know all the regulars will be more than able to deal with these hazards - but I am also more than painfully aware that we have a huge contingent in the "numpty" and "occcasionally numpty" class.

_________________
Take with a chuckle or a grain of salt
Drive without COAST and it's all your own fault!

A SMILE is a curve that sets everything straight (P Diller).

A Smiley Per post
FINES USfor our COAST!

Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon - but driving with a smile and a COAST calm mind.

Re: various-

Here is a link that provides more information about these "spitsstroken" (singular:spitsstrook / plural:spitsstroken), including a "Flash animation"-driven multiple choice test dealing with the signage and use of them. It's all in Dutch, but it gives some idea of how it works (like I said in a previous post, I have made frequent use of them, one of them for several YEARS, and they do work).
http://www.rws.nl/rws/hkw/spitsstroken/

To try to answer some of the questions raised in previous posts:

- signage -
This is by overhead gantry signs (yes, over the hard-shoulder too, don't forget that this is the "spitsstrook"), matrix signs on the side of the road (which show the new road configuration when activated), and regular "painted" signs (like the one in the film informing of the approach of a "pechhaven", which is like an extra lay-by provided every 500 or 1000meters whuch drivers are encouraged to try to get to if the vehicle is about to break down).

- types of road -
They are implemented on motorways, usually between junctions that clog up at busy times. I notice now on the website above that there are some much longer ones being trialled/planned than the ones I have used (follow the "Locaties" link).

- debris etc. -
Traffic density is measured by loops in the road. When it gets "too busy", the human camera operator(s) CHECK THE SPITSSTROOK for obstacles, broken-down vehicles and debris before activating the spitsstrook.

- risk of high speed impact -
While the spitsstrook is open, traffic density will be very high so everyone will be moving relatively slowly in all lanes, ESPECIALLY THE SPITSSTROOK where the lorries tend to end up. Take it from me, rush hour in the Netherlands is not a pretty sight and high speeds are rarely even possible.

- access for emergency vehicles -
Vehicles move over as much as they can, or change lanes if they can to make room. I've never heard the expression "Moses lane" before, but I have seen a large breakdown truck accompanied by a police car use this technique, admittedly not on a spitsstrook, but on a clogged up dual carriageway. Slower than using an empty hard shoulder, of course - I am also curious about what the Dutch emergency services have to say about their experiences in this matter, there are some long spitsstroken being implemented and I presume that this aspect was investigated.

Motorway can mean many things. Many of the European motorways I have travelled on have been two lanes, most UK ones, the ones where this kind of scheme is likely to be implemented are 3 or more lanes. I notice the site you link to shows a two lane "motorway".


Can't see that happening in the UK. Humans are far too expensive. Better to put up a matrix sign saying "DONT CRASH - IT HURTS"

It seems hard shoulder running works in Netherlands - I wonder whether there are any key differences with driving / drivers in the UK that may have a negative impact on its success here?

- Perhaps driver behaviour is different?
- Perhaps we in the UK are not used to highly controlled motorway lanes; most of our motorways are free from lane control systems (except M25 variable speed limit section).

Any comments on this would be welcome!

Sorry,

not for me!

it can only degrade the quality of the road. If additional lanes are required then lets be honest and widen the road (or build a new one)