How to reduce the number of journeys made by motor vehicles on UK roads

Alternatively we could educate motorists in the basic concepts of capacity & demand, variation, and flow and effectively gain 30% more road capacity without laying any more tarmac. See below

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3586474.stm

Allowing more people to work from home (if feasable) wouldn't be a bad idea also. One of the biggest blocks to this is ignorant managers who like to lord it in person over their employees - this is not to be under estimated.

Cheers

Harry

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We all know that Speed Kills, so by removing all speeding motorists we'd keep Death off Our Roads.

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It's my view that the ones who drives fast are better drivers than the ones that drives slow. Why? The ones that drives fast and bad are the ones that gets killed first.

So, I would argue the opposite. Use Stevens method, but take away the slow drivers. Faster drivers are also spending less time on the road while travelling from one point to the other, so the congestion on the roads will in fact be less than with the other way around.

JohanR

Johann, I think you missed the sarcasm in Steven's post.

Harry,
So true. There must be millions of people who do lttle else but work on PCs all day - absolutely no reason any more for them to travel every day.

The technology exists now (physical and managerial) for most people to work at least part of their week at home. Exceptions are of course people who have to be face to face with customers or work with equipment that has to be work place based.

The problem as you say is neanderthal managers who only have the skills to manage work and workers in the traditional factory style.

Steven,

Of course with the massive reduction in traffic it would be safe to lift the speed limits so that the lucky few who survived the cull can enjoy racing round enjoying the empty roads, and also the availability of very cheap second hand high performance cars would be vast as, naturally, these would be the first to get caught out by the whole venture.

Jez,

I do my bit for increasing the motorway capacity by undertaking when it makes sense. And of course the company of large HGV's, with, on the whole, drivers who know what they are doing is preferable to the mayhem in the middle and 'fast' lanes even if I end up taking a few extra minutes. Driving in German is such a pleasent relief form UK motorways, you can actually rely on other drivers driving reasonably well.

Matthew

Re-invent school buses, or just teach kids at home.

The reduction in traffic levels during school holidays is really marked, and this is out in the country. The govt have obviously already realised this by making teachers so poor they cannot afford to drive a car but we need to go the whole hog now.

BTW Sustrans are a charity who actually support schemes to reduce school traffic amongst other things.

Bruce

Ban the overtaking by HGVs or other slow moving traffic when ascending slopes. The battle of two leviathons crawling up a hill, one at 45 and other at 46 miles an hour attempting to overtake is a major contributor to traffic congestion and under utilisation of available road space.

The anger by the "noble" HGV driver at such a restriction will encourage the provision of craawler lanes to handle slow moving traffic.

Derek

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Originally posted by Jez Quigley:
Alternatively we could educate motorists in the basic concepts of capacity & demand, variation, and flow and effectively gain 30% more road capacity without laying any more tarmac.

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I could have written that BBC piece !

I've thought for a long time, that the failure to use UK Motorways correctly is a tragedy. The network and construction of UK M-ways are really excellent, wide, three-lanes with (relatively) good surfacing, shallow bends, good safe visibility etc. But it's wasted. As soon as people start to occupy lane two rather than return to lane one, then you effectively have a two lane road. This mentality also persist into lane three with the result that what should be a highly efficient road starts to clog up and stall.

The majority of Autobahns/Autoroutes are only two lane, yet function far more effectively (until a problem occurs in lane one, at which point they can start to choke).

The difference appears to be the mentality of the respective users, the French & Germans actively working the lanes to make best use of the situation, while in the UK, no-one can be bothered to make the seemingly miniscule effort to co-operate and apply some lane discipline.



WRT to the Teleworking idea, several people in our office work one or two days a week from home. As you say, if you're a pc jockey you could theoretically work from any location with a phone line. If we all did that, then you could cut journies by 20%. Another thing that could, to a degree help, is to replace fixed start times with flexible working hours - this avoids 1000s of people arriving at the same place at exactly the same time.

School run mums(and dads). I don't subscribe to the calls from non-School run mums(and dads), to limited or dissuade parents from driving their kids to school. The time of a non-working parent isn't necessary less valuable or less in demand than that of a non-parent. It's too far for my four-year old to walk, but he does cycle to school as often as possible, but that is more a health/fun choice rather than a benevolent gesture to reduce congestion.

Brian OReilly

YYYYYYYYYAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWNNNNNNNNNN

Complete bollox:
"We all know that Speed Kills, so by removing all speeding motorists we'd keep Death off Our Roads."
Read this:
http://www.onethirdlie.org.uk/frames.htm

IIR governments own figures show "speed" to be 7th out of ten as causes of accidents.
Get yer facts right

It does make me chuckle seeing my neighbours & their children all get in their cars, all at the same time and drive 1 minute up the road to the local school. Why they don't walk is beyond me. Why they don't car share is even further beyond me. We live out in the sticks as well!

I work from home all the time so only use the car for essential trips. Or warm evenings when I can drop the roof and go for a blatt

Steve

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School run mums(and dads). I don't subscribe to the calls from non-School run mums(and dads), to limited or dissuade parents from driving their kids to school. The time of a non-working parent isn't necessary less valuable or less in demand than that of a non-parent. It's too far for my four-year old to walk, but he does cycle to school as often as possible, but that is more a health/fun choice rather than a benevolent gesture to reduce congestion.

Brian OReilly

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The problem that I have with this is, I live in a village where the school is no more than a 10 min walk from nearly all the houses. I myself live about 6 mins away and walk everyday with my daughter whatever the weather, yet I have have a number of neighbours who live a few doors from me continually drive their kids to and from school. There is no excuse for any parent unless they're going on to work straight after to do this, but believe me most of them don't. It boils down to people being just bone idle IMHO, and what message is it sending out to the kids who are driven there, after all they'll be the next generation of drivers who'll be causing congestion on our roads!

Regards
Clive

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Originally posted by cunningplan:
It boils down to people being just bone idle IMHO,Regards
Clive

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Calling people bone idle is harsh and insulting, and I admire that.

I suppose we are continually confronted with choices and naturally we take the easiest option:

1.Get kids ready 10mins earlier, find wet-weather gear, supervise on the walk to school. Arive home 10mins later having missed all of Richard & Judy.

or

2.Frog march kids to car.Drive for 1min.Drive back 1min. Get lucky, Richard & Judy still on ad-break. Miss nothing.

If you want to make rules, then you need to say something like:

Less than 1mile = don't take car

You then include people who drive to the railway station, or pub, or school or shops etc.

Where I live, congestion is self-regulating, ie Take car, get stuck in/add to traffic jam. Walk/cycle, don't get stuck in, or add to congestion. I find it difficult to have any sympathy (where I live) for people who complain about traffic congestion. They are the congestion.

Brian OReilly

And of course ban all cars from lane 3 unless BMWs. Don't think this will help congestion? I say try it for a year then analyse the results. No, better still, pilot it for 10 years - get a decent sample.

Hiden agenda? Me?! No. I'm just a selfish bastard - as you would expect.

Good call on school busses. I'm rural, so there's plenty of them in operation here.

Cheers

Harry

[This message was edited by HTK on Mon 23 August 2004 at 14:17.]

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Originally posted by HTK:
And of course ban all cars from lane 3 unless BMWs.

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I thought the idea was to keep traffic moving along quickly?

Steve

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You then include people who drive to the railway station, or pub, or school or shops etc.

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Surely if you drive to the pub you're going to have to walk back or get a taxi

I do agree with you, people have the right to make choices on how they get their kids to school.
The added danger here is which I forget to mention, is the potential risk to kids who walk to school on their own from all the extra traffic. Correct me if I'm wrong but don't more children get injured or killed by traffic during school start and finish times.

Regards
Clive

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Correct me if I'm wrong but don't more children get injured or killed by traffic during school start and finish times.

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I read a report a little while ago that said parents who drive their kids to school for 'safety' are actually endangering their lives as they're far more likely to be involved in a traffic accident than anything else happening to them.

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Not having to deal with morons in the third lane who insist on tailgating you and flashing their lights despite the fact that you may already be breaking the speed limit *cough*... 90mph obviously isn't quick enough for some.

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Actually, if you've got someone tailgating you or flashing their lights at you then YOU are the moron. GET OUT OF THE FAST LANE!
It's up to you to ensure that you're not impeding other traffic - even if you're doing 90. It all comes down to vision. You should know what's going on around you at all times. If you can't overtake someone without holding up another car then you should delay your move - all it usually requires is a quick tap on the brakes.

you obviously haven't read roadcraft, nor have you read your highway code.

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168. Do not overtake unless you are sure it is safe to do so. BEFORE you start to overtake, make sure that the lane you will be joining is sufficiently clear ahead and behind. USE YOUR MIRRORS. Remember that traffic may be coming up behind you VERY quickly.

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I'm not condoning tailgating, I'm saying nobody would be able to tailgate you if you weren't in their way in the first place. Obviously if someone is coming up behind you quickly then you should be thinking "can I pass the car in front of me before the person behind catches me" rather than saying "there's an x car gap behind me and the f*cker coming up at warp 10 can just wait because I'm going past Doris regardless". That's just bad driving.

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YYYYYYYYYAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWNNNNNNNNNN

Complete bollox:
"We all know that Speed Kills, so by removing all speeding motorists we'd keep Death off Our Roads."
Read this:
http://www.onethirdlie.org.uk/frames.htm

IIR governments own figures show "speed" to be 7th out of ten as causes of accidents.
Get yer facts right

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Martin,

I know, I know, totally agree. Excessive speed above posted speed limits probably accounts for about 3% of all road accidents. Excessive speed within posted limits, say on a sharp bend, accounts for a further 7% or so.

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Johann, I think you missed the sarcasm in Steven's post.

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Quite.

Regarding lorries and elephant racing, overtaking should be forbidden where the difference in speed between two vehicles is less than 6mph (10km/h.) Alternatively there should be a maximum distance in which to perform the overtaking manoevre.

Who's really good at maths here? If one lorry is travelling at 50 mph (80km/h) and the one overtaking it is doing 56 (90km/h) for what distance must the faster lorry occupy lane 2? I know it would depend on the length of the truck so lets say 10m for both trucks.

Lane 2 hoggers are a nuisance too. The early hours of Sunday morning I was taking a fare to Liverpool up the M6, traffic was light but the motorway was not exactly empty. I was able to occupy lane one for most of the time even at 90mph but on three occasions I came across someone hogging the middle lane at 70. Rather than overtake them in the inside lane or pull right out to lane three, I moved to the middle lane and allowed myself to close upon them from behind (I didn't get too close) with my main beam headlights on. Fortunately on all three occasions they woke up and moved into the inside lane. Once, about a year ago when I did exactly the same, the driver in front (of a 4 x 4) refused to budge, braked, and waited for me to overtake him in lane three before trying to chase me along the motorway. Scary!

Lane hogging and tailgating should be made specific offences - then there would be no need for a speed limit.



Regards,

Steve.

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Once, about a year ago when I did exactly the same, the driver in front (of a 4 x 4) refused to budge, braked, and waited for me to overtake him in lane three before trying to chase me along the motorway. Scary!

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I think I met that driver yesterday - except he's moved into lane 3 now. Very light traffic (he should have been in lane 1). I came up behind him with a polite wake-up flash about 200m back. Did he move left? No, he waited till I'd closed to about 5 car lengths and slammed his brakes on while managing to find the time to put his hazard lights on as well. Strangely both he and his partner were making wanker signs at ME as I opted for the middle lane.

How about banning all taxi Drivers, that should make all roads a lot safer
oldie.

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I think I met that driver yesterday - except he's moved into lane 3 now. Very light traffic (he should have been in lane 1). I came up behind him with a polite wake-up flash about 200m back. Did he move left? No, he waited till I'd closed to about 5 car lengths and slammed his brakes on while managing to find the time to put his hazard lights on as well. Strangely both he and his partner were making wanker signs at ME as I opted for the middle lane.

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So he didn't move across in front of you as you moved into the middle lane?

So he's not a complete wanker then.

These are the kind of guys who stand in your way in the pub when you are trying to get to the bar/go to the toilet. You make eye contact with them before saying "excuse me!" but they still don't move, then they ask if you're trying to get past!



Regards,

Steve.

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then they ask if you're trying to get past!

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or they just biff you for getting in their way.

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Originally posted by Menilmontant1948:
Your suggestion that "slow" drivers in the third lane should simply get out of the way is at best simplistic (since it depends on a number of other factors being safe), assumes that the tailgater is in the right (which is obviously not the case since he is a clear danger to the driver in front), and in the worst cases is just plain wrong.

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Completly agree with everything you said about tail gaters but this paragraph kinda spoils it.

It's not a question of who's in the right. Accidents are also caused caused by the faction who believe they're in the right and obeying the letter of the law and everyone else should follow their exapmple. That's just as stupid as tail gating. They should be LOOKING at the conditions and RESPONDING accordingly, not waving the Highway Code at other drivers. They don't really care about other road users (just like tail gaters). They should concentrate their efforts on keeping the traffic moving and avoiding near misses, confrontations and unecessary behaviour - not making a stand against it. No one is in the right, even if one of them technically is - and the rest of us don't care anyway.

That ain't directed at anyone in here, just general comments.

Cheers

Harry