Traffic Management

[SteveW]

I'm no expert (on anything!) but has there been a shift in traffic management planning in towns?
I'd guess that in recent times town/road planners have moved from improving the flow of traffic to disrupting the flow of traffic.
These days you never see coppers on point duty, dealing with occasional or unexpected obstructions or congestion. Drivers are just left to stew in their own fumes.
Road "furniture" humps and carriageway width restrictions are the norm.
Ridiculous siting of seemingly unessessary temporary traffic lights, causing long tailbacks with poor sequencing, which don't seem to take into account predicted directional traffic flow.
It's all designed to make us use the bus I tell ya'
Thank God I ride a motorcycle and I can still beat the system......most of the time.

[garyboy]

Government are the bad cholesterol of our vital flow.

[garyboy]

Gov't allows the sales of fast powerful cars for the tax. then sets up speed traps and cameras for the revenue.

[garyboy]

Low investment in roads and infrastructure is mitigated by slowing down traffic .

[garyboy]

Mr Hammond wants to invest in driverless cars.. and increased spending on roads. This will make things even slower and we will think our roads are fab.

[P4ulie]

[Rant mode] Slow it down, wind you up, kill your speed is certainly part of it.

The norm is now a dirty great big power steered 4x4 churning up the roads like a muddy byway, add that to crappy surfacing repairs & were where we are.

Health & Safety doesn't help either, a decade ago Traffic Management meant a couple of cones & a fella each end with a lollipop. Now it's about £1200 a day worth of traffic lights, advance warning signs, dancing bears & all the other rubbish necessary plus the in triplicate paperwork that goes with it.

My personal favourite are roadworks without any actual works occurring, sometimes for weeks. [/Rant mode]

[Jak*]

Partly it is more and larger cars but quite often it is the cuts to local authorities. Far from forcing people onto buses this has driven up the cost of fairs in most areas and a huge number of bus services have been cut or reduced. Local council have usually got rid of their highways departments so employ private contractors who have a vested interest in making sure road works last longer as they get more money. Many local authorities will now have to do something drastic to reduce the pollution in our cities but they do not have the money, so I suspect there will be more low emission zones as this is the cheapest option for them.
Years ago when I was student in London Red Ken introduced the Fares Fair scheme which massively subsidised London transport. The fares were reduced and simplified, as a result more people used the buses and underground. There was a significant reduction in traffic on the roads. It was a blinding success. So Thatcher abolished the GLC and privatised public transport.
Cheers Jak

[hotbulb]

Years ago when I was student in London Red Ken introduced the Fares Fair scheme which massively subsidised London transport. The fares were reduced and simplified, as a result more people used the buses and underground. There was a significant reduction in traffic on the roads. It was a blinding success. So Thatcher abolished the GLC and privatised public transport.

Both local and national Governments now appear to only see anything as a source of revenue. So everything they own, such as public transport, is a cash cow and milked for maximum profit. They look on motorists, 2 or 4-wheeled, in the same way, taxing the tax on fuel, introducing insurance premium taxes etc, and try their hardest to catch us out with slyly hidden scameras and similar scams. All so that they've money to waste on aircraftless aircraft carriers, tarting up the Palace of Westminster etc!
Rant over!

[Far canal]

What bugs me most about so called 'traffic management' is the complete lack of it when there's an accident on a major roadway. Just last night (coming back from Motorcycle Live) I got caught up in the shambles caused by an accident in the Blackwall Tunnel (to the east of that London, for the more rural amongst you).

Obviously, being a major artery in and out of our capital city at rush hour, this was going to have serious effects on all the surrounding areas. What really boils my p*ss is the total lack of interaction, control, interest or whatever you want to call it from the police and local authorities. It was, and not to exaggerate the situation too much, anarchy. Red lights jumped with impunity, cars travelling the wrong way and ignoring No entry signs, a fight, a standoff between two irate motorists, lane and queue jumping and the like. The police? Nowhere to be seen (other than a group of them standing around at the tunnel closure chatting).

Apart from the risk of further accidents and harm due to this anarchy, how are emergency vehicles supposed to get to other shouts when the roads are so gridlocked?

This is, unfortunately, not a rare occurrence. My office is just off the A13 - a very busy road which has at least one serious accident a week (most of them involving motorbikes unfortunately). The police reaction? Close the road for several ( and I mean up to 12) hours and sod the rest of humanity.

I flew back into London City Airport a couple of weeks back and noticed, as I flew over the Dartford Crossing, that the bridge was devoid of al traffic and the two tunnels were now two-way. The chaos in the surrounding area, and all the way up to East London, was horrendous. The accident on the bridge (admittedly fatal) happened at 04.00am, and the road remained closed until late afternoon. 12 hours to do what? The cost to motorists, the environment, property (caused by illegal and aggressive driving) and delays to emergency vehicles is incalculable but the police and local authorities - and Government - seem to have no plan to deal with it other than to let chaos reign.

Sorry - rant over.

[simonw]

The accident on the bridge (admittedly fatal) happened at 04.00am, and the road remained closed until late afternoon. 12 hours to do what? The cost to motorists, the environment, property (caused by illegal and aggressive driving) and delays to emergency vehicles is incalculable but the police and local authorities - and Government - seem to have no plan to deal with it other than to let chaos reign.

I think the bridge was closed because a truck ran into the back of a car, killing the 21 year old female occupant. The following comment appears under the story about the accident, published on Kent Online. I don't know the poster, nor whether what they've written is correct, but it appears they have at least some intimate knowledge of what happens in an investigation, and seems plausible. I offer it here in case it helps answer the question about why roads are often closed for hours.

Incredibly, investigators don't actually want to be standing there with the road shut. The problems caused and frustrating felt is only too well known by the officers.

But a collision scene is a dangerous and complicated place to work.

The primary object is the care and treatment of casualties. That in itself can last several hours. I've watched and admired paramedics and doctors carry out life saving surgery at the roadside in atrocious conditions, with fire and police doing all we can to help.

Evidence capture rarely even begins until casualty care is complete; nothing is done that might interrupt that, and we can hardly ask the paramedics to move over whilst looking for evidence.

Once casualties are removed, evidence capture gets into full swing. Now think how far a car travels at 70mph in a few seconds. That scene will be spread over several hundred metres. In that scene will be marks and scars from other older incidents, all of which have to be considered and included or excluded as relevant. Debris scattered across the road has to be assessed as you whether it's relevant, and which vehicle it's from.

Each vehicle has to be examined at the scene; once moved, legal teams will be quick to allege that any problems with it were caused by it being recovered.

The scene must be recorded in minute detail; even the smallest detail can be the difference between a guilty driver going free, or more importantly proving that a driver had done nothing wrong.

Once evidence is gathered, vehicles must be recovered. They can't just be dragged away; defence legal teams may want to examine them in the months ahead, so they must be preserved for evidence. Careful recovery is essential.

Finally the road must be examined by Highways officers to ensure it is safe to be driven on again.

This all takes time, but is only done for the most serious of incidents. So yes, it is frustrating and causes significant delays. But there are no second chances, no opportunity to go back once the road is open to check again. Once vehicles drive over that scene, any forensic evidence is lost completely.

So bear in mind when your first thought is to complain about the road closures. The chances are that doctors are fighting to save someone's life, and investigators are looking for evidence to prove that a driver was, or was not, responsible for causing someone's serious injury or death.