This sticky plaster approach than tackle say 'how do you get drivers to keep more to the left and help traffic flow' seems to not even enter into their understanding.
Rather the preference to control for our better experiences and make drivers go slowly and control the roads beyond required, or what is ever possibly necessary.
It is sadly typical of this Governments solution to everything - control and charge, there answer to everything. They are a salesman's dream client. "Look we have these all singing all dancing solution to speed." "Oh and over here we have the answer to traffic flow" and "yes you can charge, while they drive, so you will reap many benefits and it will pay for itself" ...
You can just 'hear' the sales patter can't you.
Talk about take a sledge hammer, and hit the nut, after all, that will solve it won't it!! (not). It hasn't occurred to them, that it just might squish and kill the very things that are already giving them plenty of money.
Could it be that the sad truth is that, the true financial figures are in such dire straights, that they actually need this money to help solve the mess that they are in. or that they want to keep to promises of drivers that they must get off the roads by 'X' date and they need more and more draconian measures to achieve this, to save their face/s !!
Are they dressing this road charging policy up
and from
here (
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/07/17 ... page2.html)
"However, much of the schemes' effectiveness actually comes from temporarily lowered speed limits. Forcing the vehicles to travel slowly reduces the amount of sudden braking which takes place, preventing a strengthening ripple effect moving back along a lane of traffic and bringing it to a halt. If nobody is able to drive faster than, say 50 or 40 mph in dense traffic, the stream of vehicles seldom halts and many more will get past a given point in a given time than if drivers were allowed to go faster."
Simply widening the road or making a new one is far to expensive, so lets squish them all up together, never mind th actual driver issues and problems that this can cause !
What about widening roads, around the main route network too, so that people exit earlier ? At least a temp possibility to help while the main routes are totally over-alled and widened.
I do agree that by not improving the whole road network, has left them with a huge problem. Perhaps like with on the trains they believe that surrounding drivers, will buffer other drivers, and so less injuries all around !!!
(A report suggested that crowded trains result in less injuries !!!)
The persistence to monitor and observe and call it choice (!!) is outrageous ! I wonder if they would ever consider letting people travel at 70 in long queues that way we all travel more quickly and not go in 'groups' but all spread out.
Failing to understand that people naturally move away from congestion and solve what they can and accept what they can't.