RJMS

iTrader: (2)

This really winds me up - fortunately I don't have to travel much and I can ususlly choose my travel times to avoid the worst traffic. You know the situation - 2 lanes reduces to 1 and most people try to get to the inside lane - and will not budge.

I couldn't believe the new Camborne bypass on the A428 (Cambridgeshire) on a couple of occasions recently - a two mile strectch of dual carriageway with the inside lane packed solid and the outside lane empty. The trouble is if you go down the outside people think you are "jumping the queue" and are sometimes reluctant (to say the least) to let you merge properly. Fortunately the scooby's performance often makes this easier than it would be in other cars

Surely it would improve traffic flow if both lanes were used and people merged properly at the lane reduction - just occasionally at roadworks etc. I do see signs saying "Merge in Turn" or similar, why not everywhere were this situation occurs. The worst of it is the lorry drivers who take the law into their own hands and deliberately block the outside lane to prevent proper merging.

Does this happen everywhere or do drivers in other parts of the country use more common sense?

De Warrenne

Nope you're absolutely right - use the lane, it does make the queue go faster. Why others do not understand i do not know

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

Pain isn't it....The lane is there, why not use it? That's what it's there for.

Just the idiotic mentality we have on the roads where it's all a race and anyone overtaking or making better progress gets treated with contempt - all beacuse they are using their heads and common sense rather than being a sheep and following the heard. And they are prepared to argue over 20ft of space on the road FFS - how petty are people?

If half the people in the left lane used the right one, then the queue would be half as long!

Strange thing is it's a UK thing, I drive on the continent alot and when I encounter these types of situations there is no hassle, people don't purposely prevent you merging or start swearing at you, they just get on with it - why can't that happen in the UK? There really is serious problem with the metality of many UK drivers (too many arseholes in this country full stop).

Kieran_Burns

iTrader: (1)

Funniest thing I ever heard of:

mate of mine when the A38 bypass 'round Burton was being worked on a couple of years back had the merge in turn signs all the way down the approach to the narrowing to one lane bit, had an argument with a lorry driver who refused to let him in (because he 'selfishly' drove down the outside lane) well he managed to just get in front of him just before merge bit... and stopped his car.

While lorry driver started hurling abuse at him he picked up the merge in turn sign and plonked right down in front of the lorry driver and got in his car and drove off!

I think the problem is that people remember the lane divers too much, and now the suggestions are to merge in turn and co-operate a little, people won't because they have long memories - shame really

RJMS

iTrader: (2)

- brilliant !

zoog

I hate those ****ing coach and lorry drivers who do that - who do they think they are?

Iwan

I was just thinking about this tonight coming home from Gloucester on the A419. Approaching a point where the dual carriageway merges to single carriageway, it's quite busy but i carry on down the empty outside lane for about 500m, still easily 250m before the lane actually finishes, and only doing about 30mph.

Suddenly a bloke up ahead decides he doesn't like it and moves out to try and block me off.

He's too slow and i carry on past (in a rental Subaru Forester), so he does it to the next person coming and almost gets rear-ended.

In my mirrors i can see him crawling along straddling both lanes and doing his best to **** the flow of traffic right up.

Idiots.

Diesel

Its a natural reaction to queue jumpers...

Traffic wont flow any quicker if its ultimately shortly down to one lane will it? Although YOU will get to where you are going quicker of you queue jump...

If you are not tucked in by the 400yds sign you aint getting in in front of me 'lane users' . Now if the general rule was 'merge in turn' EVERYWHERE and ALL THE TIME, then that is different. Until then...join the queue or be VERY sharp on the throttle

D

SiDHEaD

i love it when the car behind me is purposely right up behind me to stop people merging - i leave a bigger gap and wave them past and in. Annoys the plonker behind no end. Works really well coming up to roadworks on motorway that one

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

I'll have to remember that one - sometimes I get soooo close to getting the scratch on my rear bumper fixed for free

RJMS

iTrader: (2)

Wouldn't try to jump another scooby - not enough experience!

But why is the general rule "Be a p**t" (not personal) rather than "let's be sensible about this?"

I think that two lanes properly merging would ultimately result in less delays for everyone rather than the stop-start that you inevitably get when the number of lanes is reduced. Certainly not by a factor of 2 but nevertheless I think there would be an improvement.

And wouldn't everyone be a lot less stressed at the end of their journey

Lum

The reason they dont have the merge in turn signs everywhere is that it is already the rule that you should merge in turn everywhere.

I think the roadworks designers could help out a bit by instead of just narrowing down one lane until it's non-existant, narrow from both sides until it's one lane wide, then use the cones to direct the traffic into one lane.

k.b

blonde moment here but would someone please explain this 'merge in turn' business

vindaloo

Normal queueing = join the end of the queue
Merge in turn = like a zip fastener, one from the left, then one from the right.

IMO if the road is reduced like in m'way roadworks, it would be better to merge in turn. Problem is getting peoples' mindset sorted when most of the merging they do is to enter/leave motorways and dual carriageways.

J.

andypugh2000

Jersey have an excellent road discipline system, even roundabouts are merge in turn, no traffic problems there but I guess its something to do with a 40mph limit

andy

Diesel

You cant argue with that common sense! Now if those that police and legislate could make some money out of applying or briefing the public on that rule we'd all be laughing (and further away from the bumper in front after that 400yd sign). I guess the interest will be as high as it is in disuading the middle lane hoggers who also cause conflict and stress...

RJMS

iTrader: (2)

Video cameras at likely spots - is there not already an offence of "inconsiderate driving" - presumably this could also be used for middle lane hoggers. The trouble is it would not be a great money spinner - because I don't think it would take long for people to get the message - but the invisible benefits in reducing conflict, stress and (a bit of) congestion would surely be a small fortune to the economy as a whole!

_Meridian_

iTrader: (1)

I come back that way every other Friday, and there's a 50:50 chance some idiot will try to kill me as I go along the outside. Last week it was some stupid witch in a (new-style) mini changing lanes to overtake without bothering to look - when I was twenty feet away and 20mph faster. The time before it was some bloke ahead of me in the right-hand lane jamming his brakes on 'cos the hatched bit was in sight - a hundred yards ahead or more - even though it was easy for him to merge if he just kept up his original speed.


M

k.b

righto i thought it would have been as simple as that.

Abdabz

Yip summed up perfectly... If we're losing a lane then the same volume of traffic still has to pass through so no-one gets anywhere any quicker than if we all queued properly instead of passing the "merge" card as cover for I'm an impatient b@st@d who queue jumps...
I frequently block lanes, force onto hatchings those lucky enough to get alongside who arent politely indicating their intention to join the lane I am in etc and thats in a scooby - no truck...
If this kind of "merging" thing happened on foot - say in a chip shop you wouldnt try it on then - you know you'd get battered ( berbum I thankyou )...
If there's a sign saying "merge in turn" you're in luck, I might let you in. If there isnt your fooked and powerless to stop me spoiling your queue jumping antics - ahahahahahahaha

RJMS

iTrader: (2)

I agree that you are inevitably going to get reduced speed where you're losing a lane but think about it. If say you have two lanes going down to one and the traffic in the one lane is doing say 40 mph, then in theory you should be able to have two lanes of traffic coming up to it at 20 mph and make 2 go into 1 quite happily.

You must admit that these situations normally result in the "queueing" lane travelling at not much more than walking pace because everyone is concerned about "queue jumpers".

Someone has already said that "Merge In Turn" is the general rule for these situations - must admit that I'm not too sure about this - but it bloody well should be! - have a look at Diesel's later post.

StickyMicky

yup i agree, people see other people pulling in to the left lane so they automaticaly do the same, ive actualy travelled more then a mile down the outside lane with nobody there before i got to the cones

Abdabz

Its not a general rule - its a rule to suit those that choose to make it "work" for them.

The queueing lane lane is going slowly because of two possible reasons 1) at the end of that lane it meets with the cause of its slowness (eg traffic lights, roundabout, joining another road etc). 2) If there isnt an ultimate obstacle ahead slowing the traffic down then the only cause of traffic backlog is sheer weight of traffic (brakeing / ripple effects et al) - queue jumping/pushing in is slipping nicely into "et al".
Stay with me...
Like with inexplicable traffic jams on motorways where no lanes are lost but you crawl along for no reason at 2mph for half an hour and when you get going again you cant understand what that was all about??? It works in the same principle, the queue jumper causes someone with a soft touch in the patient lane to brake to let you in - knocking on all the way back!!

Huh!

ajm

I was just about to say this too! My family lives in Guernsey where the same applies. They have 3,4,5-way stops where the roads just meet on yellow hatchings and everyone takes turns in the order they arrive. Its like looking around to see who's infront of you in the barber shop. All very civilised!

mart360

and when your punted 40ft further on by the 40tonner who is going past
who will be laughing then,,, his lorry will probably be fine, your scooby will be F**ked

ever heard of making progress???

why leave a lane empty cos you wanna be sheep


?????

M

Henrik

iTrader: (5)

Death to all queue-jumpers, I bloody hate your guts!

Just one of many (although the worst so far) real life example of queue jumpers:

After you go through the Dartford crossing toll booths going south on the M25, you can turn off towards Central London (or whatever the sign says). Anyway, it's a two lane road that leads down to a round-about.

Now, once I was stuck in this little stretch of road for more than an hour and a half (I timed it), and the only reason was that the right lane was filled up with people patiently queueing to turn right on the roundabout, but inconsiderate arseholes hurtling up the left lane queue-jumping always took whatever little space was in the front of the queue once the traffic lights changed to let some traffic through.

The result was that those unfortunate drivers at the end of the queue never got to move anywhere.

The arseholes even blocked up the left lane (which goes straight or left on the round-about) because they would stop at the front of the queue, all trying to merge (this resulted in the empty slip road going left (not on the main round-about) not being accessible for traffic going left until the inconsiderate *******s had joined the right queue.

Now, I expect all you queue jumping ******* to explain to me how queue jumping made my journey better that day.

RJMS

iTrader: (2)

Let's get this straight - the situation you have described is appalling and I would have been queuing along with you and probably getting just as frustrated as you obviously were.

Incidentally are you talking about the A2 junction about 1-1.5 miles after the crossing - I once took a similar amount of time to get off the A2 onto the roundabout because the traffic lights were out of phase or something like that. Once on the roundabaout the the traffic just disappeared. It had been like that all day.

Anyway that's besides the point - I'm talking about when the number of lanes reduces and just about everyone mioves straight accross to the inside lane to form a nice orderly queue - why - there is still another lane to use and a bit of common sense in using both lanes would speed up the traffic flow and improve tempers immeasurably.

There's a few in this thread who appear to agree with me.

Henrik

iTrader: (5)

Ok, maybe my message was a bit harsch, sorry for that

However, I don't necessarily agree with you guys when it comes to 'queue-jumping' (for lack of a better word, I don't mean it in a negative way) increasing the flow of traffic.

I think that there is only one situation where it improves the 'throughput' of the merging point, and that is when there is a row of cars approaching the merging point and they are interspersed enough for another car to come down the outside lane and merge in *without* the car behind the newly merged car feeling the need to brake because the car in front is now closer than what is comfortable *AND* the queue is still moving after the merging point at the same or higher speed than the cars are approaching the point.

If the queue is not moving as fast after the merging point (e.g. the situation in my previous posting), the cars at the back of the queue will be penalised because of the car that 'pushed in' taking up the space it needs from space that all the cars behind it would have been able to move forward.

The above situation also occurs if the car that had someone merge in front of it has to increase the gap (effectively, the queue will be slowed down).


Based on the above reasoning, queue-jumping is good for the individual car that 'jumps', but bad for everyone else behind it (if the single lane after the merging point is not 'fast' enough to cope with increased traffic (but then there wouldn't be a queue in the first place).

I think it is the epitomy of rudeness

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

And that's the problem, too many people on the road with a chip on their shoulder getting streesed and wound up by it.

Let it drop, don't get wound up by it, it's not a race, its not a personal attack. The lane is there - use it! This country is full of aresholes be it in the left lane or the right. If this got any worse, any dual carriageway that merges into a single road at some point may as well be a single lane from start to end as everyone will be forming an orderly queue as at some point 2 miles down futher the road before the two lanes merge out of fear for getting aggro from somebody . Defeating the whole point of a more than one lane.

Do everyone a favour use the right lane more, and if your in the left lane - let one person in....feel free to tell drivers to eff off that try to merge even though you've already let one car infront of you already as generally they are taking the pi55

RJMS

iTrader: (2)

So if we have two queues with reasonable spacing allowing everyone to merge safely - just as we all (probably) do when joining a dual carriageway then things would run a lot smoother.

Believe it or not I agree that "queue jumping" as you describe it almost certainly does slow down the traffic to an extent, but the way that the "queues" form and work in the first place are far more to blame.