Safe Speed Forums

PeterE posted this thread which contains the following picture of a scheme clearly intended to prevent overtaking:



Now I think we all know that the scheme is daft, but let's wind the imaginary clock back and imagine the following scenario from the point of view of the highways authority:

- A single carriageway A road like the one above, total carriageway width 35ft. It's marked with a centre hazard line due to the slight curve.

- In a half mile section, there have been five serious smashes in the last year, all involving overtaking.

- We're under very considerable pressure to 'do something'.

And this is the brainstorming question: What are we going to do?

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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

From the picture, there doesn't seem to be allot of work needed to have made the road a dual carriage way, bearing in mind that traffic will grow.

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Useless laws weaken necessary laws.

Is this a Safespeed addition or did the original road have all these crashes?

In any event, alternate third (centre) lane markings should allow overtaking in safety.

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Malcolm W.
The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not represent the views of Safespeed.

I’m not sure if that’s enough for two lanes, however, it could be argued that if emergency vehicles are expected to pass trucks and the like on the narrowed single carriageway then surely the whole width could have been used as a proper dual carriageway in both directions?
Even if not, what’s wrong with having the single shared overtaking lane available to one carriageway at a time - like we used to have! (oh, I see that Malcolmw beat me to it).
We should demand a return to this kind of carriageway where the width of the road allows.

The bollards could still have been utilised to ‘ensure’ separation of traffic (they do no such thing of course …)

Is the road wide enough to allow three lanes? It looks to me as if it may be. If so, my suggestion would be to put two lanes on one side and one on the other. It looks as if there is a hill, in which case I'd be inclined to put the two lanes on the uphill side.

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Peter Humphries (and a green V8S)

One would assume they first tried double solid white lines!?!

What they have ended up with is painted markings which specifically tell the motorist not to enter unless it's safe to do so - and then they stick up the bollards which patently make it unsafe at any time. Bit of a contradiction?

And what's with all this red paint that's appearing everywhere?

Where, in my Highway Code or Know Your Road Signs, is that a legitimate road marking except at "Gateways into Villages"?

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

It's imaginary. (It does say so slightly above the part you quoted.) I'll go back and embolden it to be on the safe side.

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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

The three lane option was one used on the heads of valleys road in South Wales, the third lane being priortised in direction by using various solid and broken lines. In theory this is a good idea, especially as the two lane section was made available to up-hill sections, allowing people to pass slower traffic.

I don't know why but this proved fatal too many times and nearly the whole road has been dualled since with a significant reduction in collsions as a result. This could be due to frustrated drivers attempting the overtake at hill brows as priority changes or something else, I don't know.

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It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it.

Upton Sinclair

A proportion of single carriageway crashes are crossover crashes that aren't due to overtaking. They might include such high level (low level? - near to the root cause I mean) causes as:

- falling asleep
- tyre failure
- loss of control
- suicide
- avoiding animals or other peoples' crashes
- illness at the wheel
- severe cases of inattention

None of these can usually be improved with road marking, save perhaps spacing traffic lanes apart may add some useful 'recovery space' improving the margin for error.

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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

Trying to be rational - what makes this stretch of road look so potentially dangerous? (assuming we removed the idiotic bollards).

Simply working from the photograph alone, it's the awkward width. (possibly it used to be a 3 laner?). There is also the high banks which can limit the view.

How can you make it look safer? Well my offering would be to get rid of all that lethal rubbish in the middle, and then paint the double solids. I think the planners were right to make the lanes narrower to prevent the opportunist overtaking, but I think they've gone the wrong way. I'd paint the hatched areas on the edges of both carriageways.

And then I'd get hold of the person responsible for engangering motorists (especially bikers - of course) with the bollards, and give him a public flogging. (Sorry - went a bit irrational there).

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

We recently had a fatal on the A339 near Kingsclere, The section of road is on a hill and the uphill section has two lanes the down hill one they are seperated by double white lines.

Lorry going up the hill is being passed (slowly) by a Corsa driven by a young driver, a Merc following the corsa decided to overtake the corsa using the third lane and crosses the double whites. On seeing a fast approaching Scooby the Merc swerves back in clipping the rear of the corsa, spinning it and sending it into the path of the scooby. The occupants (both 21 males) were killed.

The tragedy of this accident is that the overtaking lane was shortened a few months ago in a manner similar to the photograph, this has meant that whereas before there was sufficient disctance for several vehicles to pass a truck now there is only enough distance for one to make it unless all the overtaking cars are going very fast.

The reason for the reduction of the overtaking zone was that there was a fatal last year where a car lost control as it tried to pass one more car and two children in it were killed. I think we see it far too often where in the bid to deal with a particular accident the situation is worsened and another accident blackspot is created.

I fully expect that they will now do away with the overtaking lane altogether, given this is the one safe overtaking place in about 10 miles of roads I predict a dramitic rise in overtaking fatalities on the A339 over the next few years

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Former Military Police Officer and accident investigator

I can see some systematic problems with applying a double white line.

On that road, travelling away from the picture in a decent vehilce I would be 'overtaking at will' when oncoming traffic permitted. I say 'travelling away', because on a left hand curve vision extends very usefully when you pull out.

If a road is safe and suitable for overtaking in normal speed traffic, then adding a double white line tends to diminish double white lines everywhere.

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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

Yeah that's right, but obviously that road must have had a bad safety record.

I can only make assumptions here, but maybe they went straight from a 3rd lane to what they have now, without trying a hazard line first.

My theory for the solids was that the picture must be very deceiving as to how safe overtaking might be.

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

After what I have learned about speed cameras, I must say I'm seriously concerned that many of these 'treatments' might be uselessly chasing after random clusters of crashs. (Someone said, "it's like swatting the place on the wall where you last saw the fly".)

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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

Can't they have the hashed area without the bullards?

This would allow emergency vehicles to pass, give room for cars to overtake cycilsts, and act as a safety space if an overtaking on the other side is going wrong.

Ideally there would be a solid line one side, alternating at bends to avoid the "suicide lane" problem.

I just love that quote

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

Me too. I've forgotten who originated it, but I did get permission to use it.

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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

If you really were hell-bent on deterring overtaking, you would install the lining scheme (which I understand is sanctioned by TSRGD) with a pair of solid lines a metre apart, and a hatched red surface in between. AIUI if the lines are a metre or less apart, they count as a double-line system, and not simply lines bordering a hatched area.

Overtaking would not be physically prevented, but only someone really dead set on crossing double-whites would give it a go.

The road in the picture used to be an S2+1 and I see no reason why it shouldn't be restored to that layout.

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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

I tend to agree - and there appears to be sufficient total carriageway width to install 2+1 AND a metre-wide double white line red shaded section.

Say 1ft, 10ft, 10ft, 3ft, 10ft, 1ft = 35ft

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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

Hang on a minute - this sounds a bit interesting!

Are you saying that there are legally inforceable road markings which are not in the public domain, ie not in the Highway Code?

Or am I missing something here?

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