Safe Speed Forums

If this stretch of road is where I think it is I suspect that the second uphill lane was removed for a good reason. The roundabout at the top of the hill is a problem in the tourist season and regularly gridlocks. Reducing the number of uphill lanes to one displaces the bottleneck to the start, rather than the end, of this stretch of road.

FWIW, the same strategy is implemented in several places in Devon and Cornwall for the tourist season and claims have been made for significant increase in traffic flow.

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Will

Then perhaps they could have made the double lane away from the bottleneck?

[Driving my campervan I crave downhill double lanes because loss of speed due to climbing often prevents me overtaking slower vehicles on uphill sections.]

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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

There's loads of stuff missing from the HC. For instance, something I recently learned over on 'the dark side', that cycleways are only designed for use by cyclists travelling at up to 12mph. (Apparently its in the DfT guidelines).

Could the answer be something along the lines of the M6 chevrons? Give drivers an idea of just how far they actually do need to be able to see before they can safely overtake? Coupled with some simple signage along the lines of 'can you REALLY see far enough' or something like that?

Road markings alone don't hold much regard here I'm affraid. I can think of several places that are marked with double whites where overtaking is easily possible and other places marked with single dashed whites where there's not a chance in hell of a safe overtake.

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Science won over religion when they started installing lightning rods on churches.

This is even more true for motorcycles. Loads of places I could very safely overtake but can't because of the white paint. The line positioning obviously caters for the worst case scenario.

And as you say, broken lines are often suicidally placed. Sometimes I wonder if the positioning is decided by the guys in the yellow lorry holding the paint brushes.

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It's tricky doing nothing - you never know when you're finished

It really wouldn't surprise me!

Overtaking on any decent bike isn't really that much of a challenge though, is it?

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Science won over religion when they started installing lightning rods on churches.

Not entirely sure I agree with that - but I know what you mean.

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It's tricky doing nothing - you never know when you're finished

don't you need a different set of chevrons depending what speed the overtakee is going at ? !

Yeah, I was thinking more along the lines of using markings to aid judgement of visible distance.

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Science won over religion when they started installing lightning rods on churches.

what you really need marked i suppose is time.... which of course depends on speed but say.. you can see 5 chevrons clear you know you've got 10seconds to make the overtake (or similar)

or perhaps the arrows & center lines need more graduation to give you more of a countdown (to disaster )