Safe Speed Forums

(my bold)

I know we've discussed this at length before, but I can remember many examples of signalised junctions in NSL areas going back to the mid-60s.

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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

As long as that? Really? I knew that there were some, especially in the Manchester area, but I had no idea they went back that far.

I'm pretty categorical that in London and the south there were none before about 1985 - and there aren't very many now.

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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

I've split this into a new topic.

Obviously it's difficult to have precise recollections of the situation 40 or more years ago, especially given that I was a kid and a non-driver then. But there certainly were NSL signals at the junctions of the A56 with the A557 and A5117 in Cheshire, and indeed both locations are still NSL, although neither is somewhere you would tend to "bomb through".

And certainly there are loads that have been there since the beginning of my driving career in 1976. It does seem they are more common in the the North-West than elsewhere, though, maybe due to the density of major roads in this area.

And weren't there signals in NSL on the A30 London Road east of Staines in the 1980s? Was the Crooked Billet junction NSL then?

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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 just can't remember. Sorry. Two problems for me are:

- I've lived in North Scotland since 1990 and my memory of the London area has faded quite a bit.
- I wasn't asking the question about traffic lights until about 1988 when I first did the amber length / braking calculations.

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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 one here at a skew bridge in the Thames Valley (well, not a junction, but anyway). There have definitely been lights there since the early 80s, and I reckon they must have been there for quite a while before that (there would have been no other way of crossing the bridge, since it wasn't wide enough for two cars, and you couldn't see what was coming). There's been a bridge there for a very long time (a replacement was fitted recently, which is actually two lanes wide, but they kept the lights for safety reasons due to the alignment).

It's in an NSL, but since people have to slow right down for the bridge anyway, you don't get the problems that you normally would.

There are also long-time NSL lights on this bridge a few miles north on the same road. Again, you have to slow down for the bridge anyway (because it's humped), although not by as much. (Incidentally those lights are pretty pointless because you can see exactly what's coming.)

Presumably there are many more examples of NSL lights where the road narrows temporarily for a bridge. So you can't always say that lights in speed limits above 40mph are bad, although I agree that they are where you could (on green) safely go through the junction at the speed limit.

And besides, anyone who's worried about lights on NSL roads should relax: soon there won't be any NSL roads left to put lights on.

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"The freedom provided by the motor vehicle is not universally applauded, however: there are those who resent the loss of state control over individual choice that the car represents. Such people rarely admit their prejudices openly; instead, they make false or exaggerated claims about the adverse effects of road transport in order to justify calls for higher taxation or restrictions on mobility." (Conservative Way Forward: Stop The War Against Drivers)

yep nursling, southamptonnsl windy lane with traffic light controlled bridge

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“It has never been the rule in this country – I hope it never will be - that suspected criminal offences must automatically be the subject of prosecution” He added that there should be a prosecution: “wherever it appears that the offence or the circumstances of its commission is or are of such a character that a prosecution in respect thereof is required in the public interest”
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