The Lexus Lane

Originally Posted by mr.anderson

Bike approach:



Solved.

Nice, and then you get done for driving without due care and attention by undertaking the cars in the picture...

Originally Posted by El Saxo

... but surely if they spent more money on putting more Police on the motorways to enforce correct lane discipline we wouldnt need the extra lanes in the first place?...

I've been saying that all along!

Originally Posted by rigor

But to say it makes people car share is false, people will use it when the happen to have 2 people in the car anyway, but for most journeys will just stick it out in the normal lanes (or chance that they can get away with joining th car pool lane)

I was over in the States a few years back (around Washington DC) and we used to use the HOV (High Occupancy Vehicle) lane even when there was only 2 of us in the car (HOV lane was for MORE THAN 2 people sharing a car). Thing is ... it takes a lot of state troopers to patrol the exits to ensure that HOV lane regulations were being adhered to ... but me and my friend used them because she knew the lane exits and knew that some of the exits simply aren't "policeable" for safety reasons - my friend knew this and used it to our advantage

Originally Posted by El Saxo

Going over old ground here I'm sure, but surely if they spent more money on putting more Police on the motorways to enforce correct lane discipline we wouldnt need the extra lanes in the first place? On my morning commute lanes 2 & 3 are always chock full of cars whereas lane 1 is virtually empty.

Absolutely! But ... sadly the government won't put more traffic officers on the roads because of the on-going costs ... installing an automated toll-based traffic system probably works out cheaper in the long-run, and it can constantly MAKE THEM MONEY rather than constantly cost them money (putting police traffic officers on the motorways).

I'm getting sick to death of being sat behind some idiot in the outside lane because their attitude is "well i'm travelling faster than THAT car in the middle lane, so I'll overtake it ... and although THAT car is half a mile away, I won't pull over to the middle lane because then I'll never get back out into the outside lane to overtake THAT car so I'm gonna sit here until I've passed THAT car".

Thing is ... THAT car in the middle lane is sat there thinking EXACTLY the same about THAT wagon on the inside lane

Plus, no sooner has "mr/mrs outside lane hogger" (eventually) passed "mr/mrs middle lane hogger" than they see that they are actually travelling ever-so-slightly faster than another car in the middle lane that is ANOTHER HALF MILE AWAY!!

FFS ... if you exhibited PROPER lane discipline in the first place I FOR ONE would be a damn site more willing to let you out again to overtake IF/WHEN the opportunity arose!

Ok ... and breathe

I have a bike and I can filter

But anyway, to be more on the point of the thread...its a good idea, but then its not a great idea because of the lack of dedicated hard shoulder. What if tehres an accident? the emergency services are going to have to wait for all the cars to move aside and make a little gap through the traffic. moving at about...5mph? on the hard shoulder, movign at 30 mph. I know what would be better for saving a life...

Matt

There is actually a hard shoulder if you look. There's the lexus lane, two normal lanes and one hard shoulder. During peak times the hard shoulder 'opens' when signs above the road change. If there's an accident what happens is most of the time people can roll in to one of the bays - there's one pretty often . If someone can't get to the bays they change the signage on the roads so that the hard shoulder becomes that- a hard shoulder again and traffic merges in to the normal lanes. I've seen it happen on the M42 and it works

I think it's a stupid idea, it will induce envy in other drivers, they are bad enough about bikes. Protestors will soon block it up travelling at the same speed as the rest of the traffic.

And as usual it will only encourage drivers of unregistered unisured cars, or cloned plates. I thought ANPR was a good idea, I don't know why it isn't enforced

And God help the person who comes on at the slip road - crawls across 3 lanes of stationary traffic then tries to join a lane where people could be going at any speed.

Nope sorry - fast lane for the rich paid out of taxes? And how much would it cost to police it? Would reconsider for car sharers as at least that has some climate related benefit.

No hard shoulder?

Obviously the halfwit who gave the explanitory sketch doesn't realise trucks over 7.5t or fitted with speed limiters are not allowed in the "fastlane"

Well thought out if they are changing the law to enable vehicles limited to 56mph to use the fast lane

Who employs these halfwits?

A toll would be introduced to ensure that the extra capacity did not simply fill up with extra traffic.

Perhaps I'm being dense, but surely filling up with traffic's the whole point of inreasing capacity?

Senior managers at the Highways Agency have discussed the idea, which they believe would help the Government to introduce road pricing on the strategic road network without alienating motorists.

"Senior managers at the Highways Agency have discussed the idea, which they believe would help the Government to introduce road pricing by the back door without alienating motorists."

I'm sure that's what that statement really means

But the agency’s toll-lane idea could be more acceptable because charges would be introduced only where extra capacity had been added. Drivers could choose either to remain on the existing lanes or to pay a toll for a faster journey. A senior source at the agency told The Times: “The technology for turning the hard shoulder into a running lane could have other applications, such as collecting and enforcing tolls. Drivers would have a choice; no one would be forced to pay to use the toll lane.”

... and to achieve the ultimate dream of tracking every vehicle too, it would seem.

Don't know about anyone else, but the irony of a Labour government that keeps coming up with schemes that only the rich can benefit from sure makes me laugh.

[northwind]

I'm not sure about the hard shoulder thing, though I think it's been tested in principle with less complete "open shoulder" ideas, but using the fees to pay for a road expansion is something I'd agree with- sort of like private health insurance, it takes strain off the rest of the service so everybody benefits.

Originally Posted by Ceri JC

Who here goes riding the motorway for fun over a single lane A-road? The idea that an appreciable number of people would choose to make more journeys if there were more lanes is just so ludicrous that I cannot grasp how even the most ardent ecomentalist would really believe it. They're jumbling up cause and effect, bless.

You're misunderstanding- the idea isn't that if you add a new lane it instantly fills, that's just daft; it's that over time the use of the road changes. If you're willing to commute for 30 minutes, and the roads are busy so you can only travel 15 miles in 30 minutes, you live 15 miles away. If the roads are less busy and you can cover 30 miles, you'll live up to 30 miles away. You don't avoid making the journey on a day by day basis, you plan your life more to avoid the journey.

Example- since they've improved the forth road bridge link, more people are living in fife and commuting to Edinburgh, and house prices in dunfermline are rising. More traffic on the roads. Eventually it'll probably strike the same equilibrium, the increased capacity will be used up by the additional journeys. The same thing happened about 15 years ago last time this happened, but over time the roads filled up so people stopped moving to dunfermline (also, because it's horrible there)