OT - Rant about Councils

[John Rumm]

Hey, there's room for a whole new quango there, the Council Standards board with a range of CS docs to rival the BS ones! ;-)

[Chris J Dixon]

I was intrigued to note, when road works started on the eastbound A50, approaching M1 J24, and a 40 mph limit was imposed, that at the end of the works there were a pair of 60 mph signs, considering that the normal limit is 50 mph. Perhaps they were misled by the fact that the normal limit westbound for this stretch is 60 mph.

I sent an email to the Highways Agency. They did not reply, but the signs were changed.

Chris

[Chris J Dixon]

Near me there is a stretch of gently curving road where there are usually parked cars, and only enough width for a single passing vehicle. Having realised that this hazard deserved a road sign, the installation of one was duly instigated.

However, the guys doing the work clearly knew better than their work sheet. 'Oncoming Vehicles In Middle Of Road' is clearly associated in their experience with low arched bridges. As luck would have it, there is a low (but not arched) bridge a couple of hundred yards in the opposite direction, at the site of the long-closed East Leake station.

So, they put the post in the right place, but fastened the sign to the wrong side of it, to be read on the offside by traffic passing. They also painted "Slow" on the wrong side of the road.

I made a mental note to ring the appropriate department to tell them about it, but never got round to it until the evening when I discovered that it had been dug up and replanted, still facing the same way, on the nearside verge.

"Ah", said the guy "you're going to tell me about that sign." Yes, I replied, I bet you told them it was on the wrong side, didn't you? When I explained what had happened, he and his colleagues fell about for a while, and bemoaned their labour force, expecting that it would take another few months to put right, which it did.

Even then, they never removed the extra "Slow" from the tarmac, which was duly renewed when the road was resurfaced the following summer.

Chris

[Roger Chapman]

snip

We will just have to disagree on that. ISTM that visually the situation is exactly the same. You are aiming are both aiming for a space that is not wide enough for two cars and the speed and position of the oncoming traffic should be enough to trigger an emergency response in an alert driver.

There is not much you can do in such a case unless you see the approaching car in time but just move the goalposts a trifle to the more typical situation where a doddery old fool with delayed action reactions decides to pull out very close in front of you and then accelerates at a snail's pace. In such circumstances all you need to do is brake hard. Exercising your priority by ramming him instead of slowing down is frowned upon.

[Tim Streater]

No, they're different. In the narrow road case you *know* you're gonna have to slow down to negotiate passing each other. In the wrong-signage situation, deducing that the other guy has wrong signage or misunderstood correct signage comes rather later, and when neither has slowed down (or not by enough, perhaps).

Well indeed. This could otherwise be viewed as cutting off your nose to spite your face, although a friend of mine did just that near Geneva Airport in order to make a point. In fact, he accelerated as he rammed the Swiss Post Office vehicle that had ignored the give-way sign. The cops dinged the PO driver, not him.

[John MacLeod]

Unless, of course, the vehicle was being operated by or on behalf of the local authority. Wife was parked, facing the correct way, on a one-way street just before Christmas last year. Gritter on contract to Council came up the street the wrong way and hit her. An open-and- shut case with regard to liability, you'd have thought. Plenty of photos. Police there to take statements. But would the guilty party admit liability?

So working for, or on contract to, the Council is apparently a licence to drive into anyone else who impedes your progress, even though you are going the "wrong" way up a one-way street.

[Roger Chapman]

snip

I did say we would just have to disagree. ;-)

However it is my opinion that what would happen in such circumstances would be a simple reflex action. No conscious thought required.

snip

But would they have treated him the same had they known he deliberately caused, or at least exacerbated a RTA?

[The Medway Handyman]

A few years ago SWMBO had an RTC on a quiet back road in Rochester. She was on a long straight road with a junction on the right. Turned out tha road on the right had priority.

was on Old Pattens Lane travelling north, but Boundary Rd has priority. She carried on & a car from Bondary Road hit her.

No Give Way sign at the junction, road markings almost completely obscured by tarmac repairs. I complained to the Council about the lack of signs & markings & got nowhere. Three weeks later a brand new Give Way sign & fresh road markings appeared as if by magic.

I should have pursued it at the time, to my mind the Councils lack of maintenance & failure to put up a proper sign made then partly responsible.

[Tim Streater]

Prolly slung him in the chokey, something to be avoided in Switzerland, I expect.

[Dave Liquorice]

The rectangular ones rather than round?

I should think amongst most drivers as well. I know I have trouble with 'em they are just too similar to each other. The give way road markings help as they only appear next to the "Oncoming vehicles have priority" sign. Not sure how they could be improved with a pictogram like most other signs.

Maybe for "Oncoming vehicles have priority" a red tail view of a car on the left and green head on view of a car on the right. And for "You have priority over oncoming vehicles" a green tail view on the left and red head on view on the right. Or are those to similar again? And does the red/green infer a "right of way" rather that just "priority"?

[Andrew May]

It has always looked to me like a sign designed by committee. One group wanting to indicate using large and small arrows and the other with red and black arrows. Finally agreeing to disagree and settling on using both. One OR the other would be a lot easier to remember/understand.

However I had to look at the highway code to find which was which and I hadn't previously realised that give way to oncoming vehicles is a round sign and priority over oncoming vehicles is rectangular. That's probably a better way of remembering them.

Andrew

[Chris J Dixon]

As I said originally:

Chris

[Roger Chapman]

I am inclined to think that that message has been lost on some councils too. The sign that as ways puzzles me is the small round ones with a stick figure inside sometimes seen on verges on A roads. I presume it is a warning of pedestrians aimed at motorists but on the face of it it means walkers prohibited which shouldn't apply outside of motorways. Needless to say the sign does not appear in my (latest) copy of the Highway Code.

[Dave Liquorice]

No the rectangular ones come in pairs, not sure about the round one but anyway that is an order to "Give Way", the other traffic has right of way. The rectangular ones are information only and just indicates priority not right of way. IANAL BTW...

[Chris J Dixon]

I have seen some of these, on pairs of posts only a few metres apart, facing each other. The only way I could make sense of them is that they were intended to convey to pedestrians that they could cross the busy dual carriageway only at that point, and should not proceed along the road.

Chris

[Roger Chapman]

I had reason to consult the Highway Code (2007 edition) on another matter earlier today and the "signs giving orders" page states "Signs with red circles are mostly prohibitive". The page also lists some (all?) of the common orders including those that don't have red circles. Give Way - red bordered triangle with flat top - "Give way to traffic on major road" and the 8 sided stop sign - "Stop and give way".

[Chris J Dixon]

Sorry Dave but you are mistaken. "Oncoming vehicles have priority" is circular, "You have priority over oncoming vehicles" is rectangular. When used correctly, there should be one of each.

Chris

[Andrew May]

That's what I thought but the Highway Code seems to disagree.

[geraldthehamster]

There is a standard motorcycling trick, which works best on roadworks with traffic lights, preferably where one end of the roadworks is out of sight of the other. One filters to the front of the row of cars at a red light, to be first away when the lights change. One then "experiences a breakdown" while half way around the road works, unfirtunately bringing the cars following to a halt. Meanwhile the lights have changed, and a queue of traffic approaches, coming the other way, until it can go no farther. One then restarts one's motorcycle, filters past the stationary oncoming traffic and continues on one's way.

cheers Richard

[Clive George]

The ones I normally see are in triangles. Streetview should be able to help us here - anybody got examples of round ones?