As an aside, I saw some strange "speed humps" yesterday on route somewhere.
Streetview link will wrap.
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.4218187,-0.4284666,3a,75y,41.01h,72.32t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sNKQfdqIJD9JdTrbXLR0VJg!2e0!7i13312!8i6656!6m1!1e1
The whole 30mph stretch of Cadbury Road is marked out with the locations matching speed humps of various sizes and different coloured tarmac. But no humps actually exist, it's all perfectly flat?
Subliminal?
When in Germany in the late 50s the traffic signals were clock like, with a green section and a red one and an arrow rotated, by that it was either green for go or red to stop. Obviously you could see where about in the cycle you were.
Would you not have to rewrite the highway code to do that?
It was certainly a new experience for me - and one that I probably would not have believed had I not seen it with my own eyes.
As a nice aside at the next set of lights to the ones I linked to - about 6 months earlier I picked up a couple of students doing the usual charity hitchhike that they seem to like to do.
I made their day - all I had to do was swap a lamp at Somme Barracks a couple of miles away (about 3 minutes work) and my next job was in Chepstow.
It is routinely rewritten few years, but not everything appears in it anyway. Know Your Traffic Signs is far more comprehensive:
On reflection, all that might be required would be a warning sign to the effect that there may be long red phases when emergency vehicles are approaching. The Secretary of State could authorise that, pending its inclusion in the next revision of the Traffic Signs Regulations and General Directions.
A few days ago, think it was the evening before the referendum, I was on the M40 and slowed down as all the signals said 50. The road itself was very quiet so it felt as if it were a mistake. However I suddenly noticed blue lights behind me. Initially a motor bike, then another, then a collection of Jaguars, Range Rovers, and various others in convoy. Every single one had blue lights flashing - but not one was marked in any conventional way. All going quite fast.
Almost as soon as they had passed, the 50 warnings were switched off.
What does the Highway Code say about misuse of warning signs?
Does Cameron have the same rights as the Zil class in the USSR had?
I remember, not quite that far back, but 1959/60 in Berlin. You could see all the lights down, I think, Bismarckstraße, changing in sync.
That reminds me that I at least only discovered a few weeks ago that the Traffic Signs Regulations and General Directions 2016[1] included changes to:
a. drop the requirement to have signs for the end of a speed limit on both sides of the road;
b. drop the requirement to have at least one "repeater" sign for speed limits; and
c. drop the requirement to have both road markings and signs on posts for things like a ?loading only? restrictions.
Do I detect a pattern here?
[1]
Probably not. Flashing reds already mean stop, as it is used at level crossings.
The Highway code gets updated regularly anyway.
When were the linked lights at all junctions with the side roads on that estate removed? I can remember my parents talking about driving through them, and they lived in Maidenhead only from 1965-1967. And I'm sure when I lived in Bracknell in the 1990s there were still signs referring to the linked status - that if you drove at (I think) 30-35 mph you would get through all the lights. The crucial thing was that it kept traffic *up* to a minimum speed as well as *down* to a maximum speed - if you drove too slowly you would be stopped at every set of lights just as much as if you drove too fast.
Nowadays the apparent aim of traffic lights seems to be to stop traffic at every set of lights if at all possible.
Near where I used to live in Oxfordshire there was a long single-track bridge over the Thames; neither end could see the traffic waiting on the other side because the bridge was on a curve. Consequently it was protected by traffic lights to give single-alternate line traffic. During the day it was luck of the draw as to whether or not you got through as you approached. But late at night, when there was very little traffic around, the lights tended to stay on one phase indefinitely until a car approached from the opposite direction, when they would flip the other way and then stay like that. But very often I could see the lights on green for a long time as I approached, then they would turn red as I got close, then after a few seconds they would turn green again. There was never a car waiting on the opposite side of the bridge which could have triggered the temporary change. It looks very much as if the lights were explicitly programmed to stop all traffic, no matter which direction it approached from, then once it was stopped, to let one direction go again, rather than ever letting it go through unhindered if there was no traffic approaching in the opposite direction - this seemed extremely churlish.
I like the idea of traffic lights having a blue light that could flash to indicate "lights over-ridden by approaching emergency vehicle".
I wish in England we made more use of the signage innovation that I've seen much more commonly in Scotland: 300, 200, 100 yard countdown signs to a significant speed reduction, especially where there is a bend just before the 30 limit begins, so you can plan your deceleration gradually by lifting off the power and aren't taken by surprise by the limit sign. The Scots obviously think it makes sense so which hasn't the rest of the UK adopted it on 60-limit roads with occasional linear villages which need traffic to slow down through the village.
What's the current rule on speed limits on either side of a hazard, either permanent or for temporary road works? Is there anything which says that both sides of the road must change speed limit at the same place? You very often get a low speed limit which continues for a long way *after* the hazard has ended, because it seems to match the limit that is decelerating traffic in the opposite direction. I wish they'd remove that absurd clause and have asymmetric limits to allow traffic in both directions to return to the normal limit for the road as soon as it has passed the hazard.
Another thing which you don't see is traffic lights where all three lights (red, amber and green) are shaped in an arrow where there are multiple heads for different lanes. At present only the green light is an arrow, which means that if you see a red light it is more difficult to tell that it relates to another stream of traffic than yours - human nature is that one red light trumps all the green lights in your brain, until you have double-checked to make sure that your way has a green light. Three heads with a left arrow, a round red light and a right arrow make it clearer *on the spur of the moment, without thinking and counting lights* which red light relates to the straight ahead traffic.
In a village only 3 miles from here, in Surrey, there are exactly those signs.
and is the only sign that emergency vehicles are not permitted to pass.
Chris
Jeremy Corbyn?
Another explanation is that you came along just after a vehicle had passed in your direction. The lights could have been programmed for a default state of all red, which enables it to give the first arrival their green without delay.
Chris
When I first saw those advance warnings in Scotland, I found them confusing as they have a red circle around the limit, which I took to mean they marked the start of the limit. When I have seen them in England, the outer circle is black.
Current guidelines for England and Wales are that speed limits should not reduce by more than 20mph in one step. Hence, on the approach to a
30mph limit, on a 60mph road, there will be a stretch of 40mph limit first and on a 70mph road, a stretch of 50mph. This only applies to new or amended limits, so is far from universal yet.
The pattern is to try to reduce road sign clutter.
The removal of the requirements to have two speed limit terminal signs and to have at least one repeater sign actually came into force in 2011 with the issue of special directions. The 2016 revision merely includes those as general directions.
Dropping the need to have both road markings and signs is only intended to be used where it is unambiguous, for example where a road marking restriction applies at all times.
Instead, local authorities are expected to rely much more on assessing the need for signs on a site by site basis and on the guidance given in the Traffic Signs Manual.
Problem comes when the single sign is knocked over by a vehicle.
I am all for that in on cases - e.g. the proliferation of black poles on residential streets - but wish the DfT had admitted also the financial benefits.
I'd forgotten that repeaters were dealt with in 2011 but I have checked and the DfT circular on TSRGD 2016 confirms that the change for terminal signs in 2011 did not apply to speed limit signs:
"In 2011 this requirement [one terminal sign on each side] was set aside in England for signs other than speed limits by way of an area-wide special direction issued to every English traffic authority. This allowed the placing of only one terminal sign on either side of the road as appropriate, thereby reducing their environmental impact."
Presumably there's still a requirement for repeaters at a specific minimum spacing?
Usually there'll be a sign on the other side of the road facing the other way, so it's not really much clutter to have e.g. an NSL sign on the reverse of that anyway.
I forgot to mention that one evening I went for a walk around there and had the lights in my sight for a lot longer than the 30 seconds or so when approaching by car. No cars went past me towards the lights in my direction and none came through from the opposite direction for several minutes. The lights in my direction were continuously at green. As I got closer, a car approached the green light which turned red, stayed at red for about 10 seconds and then turned green and remained at green for the further 2 minutes until I'd gone past the lights and could no longer see the aspect.
It was as if the lights were programmed to act like a STOP sign, bringing traffic to rest and then immediately allowing it to set off again. Why?
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