Isn't that where that (in)famous roundabout is ?.
Must be hilarious when you cannot see any white lines too.
Hardly any snow in Sussex. What we had overnight (about an inch) went fairly quickly and now it is pissing with rain.
If you mean "The magic roundabout" (it's even called that on the road signs) that's in Swindon.
No, Hemel Hempstead.
No, Swindon .
While people call the roundabouts in both places the magic roundabout on the signs to the Hemel Hempstead one it carries its proper name The Plough roundabout.
GH
Both.
I thought it was in Hemel Hemstead
Yes I thought jacknifing of trucks had been banished years ago. The problem late last night was by the time they cleared the several trucks and their cargos and opened the roads, most of the cars further back had either been abandoned or the occupants had gone to sleep, making the job harder. Can you blame them, some had been trapped from 6pm till nearly midnight.
Really they do need some kind of escape routes between junctions on the M3 and similar roads so they can free motorists faster. on the other direction they had a tree across the road for many hours. It was not windy so one wonders how this could happen?
Brian
Lots of trees have come down in the area - weight of snow.
I think trucks have automatic anti-jacknifing systems but they rely on (the trailer?) having enough grip with the road surface. Most trailer tyres just have grooves around them. No blocks or sips so plonk a bit of wet snow between it and the road and they have bugger all grip.
Then the donkey probably only has one driven axle. Even if there are two under the fith wheel one is just there to take some of the weight. The driven axle might have double wheels but still with crappy tyres. Show a laden 44 tonner more than the slightest incline and a bit of wet snow and there just isn't enough grip to pull it up the hill.
Sleeping drivers can be roused by walking back down the stationary traffic banging on windows... Abandoned ones, fixed penalty for causing an obstruction and/or stopping on a motorway, unless the driver has left a note with contact number and can get back to it within 15 minutes.
Personally given a choice between staying in relatively warm car or going out into the cold and wind the car wins every time. But then a proper shovel goes into the back of the car from late October on, if the weather is likely to be bad wellies, waterproof leggings, extra clothing, food and drink will join it. Stuck for that length of time, I'd probably go for a short walk a couple of times to relief the stiffness (and myself...)
Free them faster to where? Trapped traffic on motorways is sometimes realeased by allowing the stuff at the back to turn around and drive "the wrong way" back to a junction. For that to work there has to be an viable alternative route available which in the case of snow there probably isn't.
Weak tree, weight of snow. Council workers not willing to walk with chainsaws from where ever they can get to close to it. Or more likely the "Health and Safety" proceedures saying they can't cut the tree up with out a barriered exclusion zone.
Basingstoke is known for the number of roundabouts rather than any particular one.
I thought it was the M25
"The Basingstoke Roundabout" was immortalised in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
As you say there are actually many, which were designed in the '70s and no longer cope with the town's growth, so all now have (or soon will have) traffic lights too. That's the planners' solution to handle many thousands of greenfield-site new houses.
Well , Basingstoke itself has been that since it was designated a London Overspill Town ,the old Basingstoke was subsumed in the 60?s and the only thing that is green onwards towards London are the golf courses of Surrey.
GH
Bracknell is also roundabout city. I used to live there in the 1980s/90s, and I was told by someone that it was used as a test bed for new designs of roundabouts, given that the Transport and Road Research Laboratory at Crowthorne was so close. They had a few "quartic" roundabouts (a rounded square, like an Allegro steering wheel) as opposed to circular ones, and they were a pain because you had to keep winding on more steering or slacken off the steering as you went past each exit, in order to stay in lane.
I believe it's not "The Basingstoke Roundabout" but "Basingstoke roundabout".
"I can take you as far as the Basingstoke roundabout?"
See
Basinsgtoke is sometimes called "doughnut city" but when I drove around there, I didn't think it had that many roundabouts at all but that's the name it has picked up.
The roads of some of those London new towns are so unusual they look like they've come from another country.
You go around the one in the middle the "wrong" way.
In message snipped-for-privacy@news.individual.net>, Dave Liquorice snipped-for-privacy@howhill.com writes
I've really lived - and have been around BOTH the Swindon and Hemel Hempstead magic roundabouts.
These are (of course) simply a series of mini-roundabouts around the circumference of a larger roundabout.
If anyone has a problem with them, the only thing I can think of is that they don't understand how mini-roundabouts work.
One advantage of the multiple mini-roundabouts is that the traffic coming from your right (which has priority) is naturally kept to a reasonable speed - and this which makes it easier for you to enter the mini-roundabout. Another advantage is that you can go around the centre in EITHER direction - so you can choose the way where the congestion is least.
It's also useful when you only want to go one exit to your right - I have done that on a number of occasions on the Hemel Hempstead one. It's a long way round the other way...
Good to know it has something going for it.
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