Variable Motorway Speed Limits

[Sir Trev]

I now have the joy of six junctions of the M25 on my commute. I frequently find people drifting along at 50 in lane 1 but they're easy to avoid as most of the remaining traffic is in lanes three and four all two feet from each other. Keep to lane 1 yourself and you can undertake hundreds of people at a time.


Quite surprised we don't have middle-lane cams yet to enforce the lane-hogging and tail-gaiting offences, especially as there is a LOT of fines to be made from them.


Coming home the variable limits on the M25 usually kick in for the last few junctions down to the M40 turn. They don't really work as nobody heeds them from what I have seen.

[Matt-EUC]

I think the main problem is that most people ignore them but some take them for gospel and slam on their brakes before each one, causing accidents and several hours of the domino effect.


Sent via the medium of interpretive dance.

[Bluepete]

My experience of Managed Motorways is positive.

I've just come home from Lyme Regis and the sections of the M5 and M6 that have variable speed limits were VERY congested, but flowed constantly at 50mph. In the years prior to the system being put in place, those areas were always massive no-go zones.

The M60 is due an upgrade to managed status from Simister at the M60/M62 junction to around the Trafford Centre in the next year or so. No doubt, I'll gain more experience of the foibles of the system then.

And Matt-EUC, in nearly seventeen years as a Cop in Manchester, I've never arrested anyone for driving at 80mph on a motorway.

Pete

[MisterTommyH]

Wonder if there's something geographical about it then..... Or something about the mentality of the drivers in different areas?

myself, SP1 and bluepete all agree that the ones round here work.... And even scotty agrees that they're better (unfortunately we can't redistribute all the junctions).

What is it that makes the ones in the midlands work but not the others?

Is it that we've had it so bad for years that we see the benefit.... And the benefit elsewhere is less noticeable? Or is there something else?

[Bluepete]

I think you might be onto something there MTH. I always love driving around in Dorset and East Devon. It's sloooooow and relaxing, there seems to be no stress. The Midlands to me are where I grew up, and seem quite chilled too.

The North, around M'cr is so fraught and full of Feck-You attitude that I'm sure the M60 managed system will have trouble.

The M25 circuit is, of course, modelled on the dark sigil Odegra, so can only lead to doom and despair. In reality, all we ever hear about on the radio is "M25 doom" "M25 queue" "M25 end of the world" I suppose it's a matter of pressure and volume of traffic.

Every area has a feeling to it. Each City has an identity. Sometimes it's cooperative, sometimes it isn't.

Pete

Originally Posted by Bluepete

.

The M25 circuit is, of course, modelled on the dark sigil Odegra, so can only lead to doom and despair.

Love it.

Good omens.

"Hail the great beast, devourer of worlds...."

Was on the m42 again on Sunday, quite quiet, after 5 mins of being on there, 60mph speed flashing, it lasted 3 gantries before going back to NSL, wtf? No obstructions, nothing, It's this type of thing that I hate about them.

[MisterTommyH]

I'm not so sure about these now. For the second time this month I passed cars stopped on the 'hard shoulder' while the gantries were still showing it as a live lane. I have no problem with the principle, but surely it's only safe if there is a constant watch to close the lane when someone stops.

[ophic]

Is this where the hard shoulder is used as an extra driving lane?