Motorway hold ups

HOOVER29 · 20 Mar 2019

Having just spent the last 2 hrs doing 70 miles from Oxfordshire to Leicestershire using the relatively free flowing A34 & M40 & the carpark more commonly known as the M42 I noticed that the traffic jams only really occurred when the variable speed signs changed from say 60 to 50mph & 50 to 40 mph. It only took one or two cars to brake 200-300 yards from the overhead sign gantry & it started a chain reaction of brake lights everywhere. Why don’t they do away with the switching between 40, 50 & 60 limits & just stick one limit up?
Between the M40 junction & the NEC it must’ve change 4 times.
With the amount of traffic that uses the M42 around Birmingham it must cause more traffic hold ups than it prevents.
I work at a massive warehouse in Tamworth just by the A5 & just off the M42. A lot of the staff commute from the Birmingham area. In my department there are around 60 of us. We regularly start the shift with less than half that all because of the M42.
It’s not just in rush hour either. I’ve seen the speed signs lit up at 7am on a Sunday morning when driving down to London to see the family.
I know it’s all because of road safety blah blah before someone says it but there’s a part of me that thinks it’s also a speeding fine collecting exercise on behalf of Warwickshire highways agency.

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bramling · 20 Mar 2019

HOOVER29 said:
Having just spent the last 2 hrs doing 70 miles from Oxfordshire to Leicestershire using the relatively free flowing A34 & M40 & the carpark more commonly known as the M42 I noticed that the traffic jams only really occurred when the variable speed signs changed from say 60 to 50mph & 50 to 40 mph. It only took one or two cars to brake 200-300 yards from the overhead sign gantry & it started a chain reaction of brake lights everywhere. Why don’t they do away with the switching between 40, 50 & 60 limits & just stick one limit up?
Between the M40 junction & the NEC it must’ve change 4 times.
With the amount of traffic that uses the M42 around Birmingham it must cause more traffic hold ups than it prevents.
I work at a massive warehouse in Tamworth just by the A5 & just off the M42. A lot of the staff commute from the Birmingham area. In my department there are around 60 of us. We regularly start the shift with less than half that all because of the M42.
It’s not just in rush hour either. I’ve seen the speed signs lit up at 7am on a Sunday morning when driving down to London to see the family.
I know it’s all because of road safety blah blah before someone says it but there’s a part of me that thinks it’s also a speeding fine collecting exercise on behalf of Warwickshire highways agency.

If people left adequate gaps, read their surroundings, and used lifting their foot off the accelerator as the means of reducing speed then the effect described wouldn't happen.

Bald Rick · 20 Mar 2019

You are looking at symptom, not cause.

The speeds on smart motorways are usually deployed automatically, which is why, occasionally, you will get a speed limit shown when there’s nothing around. The reduction in speed displayed is because of the congestion immediately ahead, and not caused by it.

The M42 between junctions 3A and 7 was the pilot project, and it showed journey times reduced by up to a quarter, fuel use fell by 4% and emissions by 10%. I cant find the actual HA report, but this article covers the whole project.

https://www.roadtraffic-technology.com/projects/m42/

Ianno87 · 20 Mar 2019

bramling said:
If people left adequate gaps, read their surroundings, and used lifting their foot off the accelerator as the means of reducing speed then the effect described wouldn't happen.

Agreed. So many motorists still can't cope with appropriate driving on Smart Motorways in the 'get there quickest' mentality.

edwin_m · 20 Mar 2019

On part of that stretch I find the "6" and the "5" used very similar so it's quite easy to get up to what you think is a 60 only to find it's a 50. If anyone else has the same problem that might explain some of the sudden braking (along with the speed camera sign on every gantry). The rest of the M42, and every other active motorway sign I recall, uses a different font where the 6 is a bit mor curly and easier to dintinguish.

kevconnor · 20 Mar 2019

edwin_m said:
On part of that stretch I find the "6" and the "5" used very similar so it's quite easy to get up to what you think is a 60 only to find it's a 50. If anyone else has the same problem that might explain some of the sudden braking (along with the speed camera sign on every gantry). The rest of the M42, and every other active motorway sign I recall, uses a different font where the 6 is a bit mor curly and easier to dintinguish.

It's possible the reason I prefer average speed camera to a static one in a higher speed (more the 40 mph) road. As it is averaged out I am not looking at a static target of being at xx mph in 200/300 meters and need to adjust more sharply by breaking when there is a sudden drop. Rather I able to make a more gradual deacceleration and use my own discretion to allow for any short period when I may have been marginally over the limit be using an inside lane and compensate for it.

HOOVER29 · 20 Mar 2019

I’m no way an expert in car systems what with all the sensors under the bonnet nowadays. Give me the old days of changing a ford escort clutch or dropping the prop & whipping off the gearbox of a mk 1 cav or Opel manta/ascona. Do cars have such a thing as satalite cruise control?
Basically from what I can gather it latches onto the back of the car in front & when that brakes the car behind automatically brakes with no input from the driver? Maybe I was seeing that as it was mainly the usual high end Audi/vw BMW Volvo ie cars you’d expect this sort of equipment to be on. The second this BMW braked the Audi behind braked a split second later like in the blink of an eye. The problems arise when Mr big standard Vauxhall driver behind the Audi can’t or doesn’t brake as hard & gets involved.

On a lighter note I almost wet myself on the M40 passing an 18 plate Range Rover that had been vinyled. It was grubby (maybe deliberately) but it looked like it was based on the colour scheme of a zebra ie black & white.
The bloke driving it didn’t look to happy.

tsr · 20 Mar 2019

In terms of variable speed limits, they're good if everyone's on the ball, and the associated speed cameras inevitably mean that once each BMW driver (sorry) has been ticketed a couple of times, they learn that anything lit up in red circles is there to be obeyed, so it does seem more and more people are taking notice. The problem does indeed seem to be those people who aren't paying too much attention, but then realise the problem and panic, thereby slamming on their brakes just as they go under the signs. Occasionally, if there's very poor visibility, it's hard to make out the difference between a 60 and 50, as they are visually quite similar in poor conditions, but this shouldn't result in much slamming on of brakes. Other than those 2 sets of numbers, everything else should - and I say "should" - be obvious enough.

And those gantry speed cameras can be very brutal - I've been cruising at the displayed limit and seen cars get "flashed" whilst only very gradually overtaking me. Indeed, I have also been snapped whilst just under the limit, although obviously nothing ever came of that! Some of the major motorways have them every few hundred yards, especially the M25 around J10-J16 ish, so the authorities effectively use it as a system to ensure a set average speed is enforced, without any acceleration and braking between the camera gantries.

HOOVER29 said:
I’m no way an expert in car systems what with all the sensors under the bonnet nowadays. Give me the old days of changing a ford escort clutch or dropping the prop & whipping off the gearbox of a mk 1 cav or Opel manta/ascona. Do cars have such a thing as satalite cruise control?
Basically from what I can gather it latches onto the back of the car in front & when that brakes the car behind automatically brakes with no input from the driver? Maybe I was seeing that as it was mainly the usual high end Audi/vw BMW Volvo ie cars you’d expect this sort of equipment to be on. The second this BMW braked the Audi behind braked a split second later like in the blink of an eye. The problems arise when Mr big standard Vauxhall driver behind the Audi can’t or doesn’t brake as hard & gets involved.

On a lighter note I almost wet myself on the M40 passing an 18 plate Range Rover that had been vinyled. It was grubby (maybe deliberately) but it looked like it was based on the colour scheme of a zebra ie black & white.
The bloke driving it didn’t look to happy.

1. This does exist. It's called radar cruise control (other fancy terms available, usually with the word "adaptive" in them somewhere). Nothing to do with satellites unless it also links to GPS for some reason or other.
2. Manufacturers' test cars often use a black and white vinyl pattern to prevent the shape and styling of new vehicles being so easy to pick out. This tends to be fairly ineffective and draws a lot of attention to themselves, so it's a bit pointless, but it's a big thing at the moment. You might have seen this, but on the other hand, I'm not sure why an 18 plate would have been on such a car.

Geezertronic · 21 Mar 2019

As a regular user, the M42 in particular is ball-ache at the best of times but traffic does seem to flow better. The smart motorways are springing up all over the place - my journey today was M6 / M1 / M25 / M11 and three out of those four have smart motorways for most of their duration (plus roadworks for the setup of smart motorways)

I still think that the Red X needs to be displayed above the hard shoulder when the hard shoulder is not in use because, even though the matrix signs say that the hard shoulder is only to be used for emergency purposes, you still get people driving in it

PeterC · 21 Mar 2019

I am glad it isn't just me who has issues with the 60 / 50 distinction at a distance.
On the M25 the limits normally step down 60 - 50 - 40 so there shouldn't be a need to drop more than 10mph at any point. However over long sections I have seen limits go 40 - 50 - 40 or even be removed at a single gantry. While it is frustration if you have a fixed arrival time the enforced 50mph running does give far better petrol consumption.

Since I bought a car with a speed limiter I have no issues over average limits but with the previous vehicle it was very distracting having to keep one eye on the speedo.

HOOVER29 · 21 Mar 2019

tsr said:
Manufacturers' test cars often use a black and white vinyl pattern to prevent the shape and styling of new vehicles being so easy to pick out. This tends to be fairly ineffective and draws a lot of attention to themselves, so it's a bit pointless, but it's a big thing at the moment. You might have seen this, but on the other hand, I'm not sure why an 18 plate would have been on such a car.

Once saw the Mini ONE being “secretly” tested on the M40 earlyone Sunday. Could easily see it was a mini but they went to great lengths adding various shapes to the four corners of the car. It was the size of a Mondeo by the time they’d finished & one that looked like it’d been knocked together in someone’s shed in Grimsby.

So that’s the speed cameras sorted.
Now what about the “outside lane hogger” ?
Driving down to Oxford early yesterday morning on the M40 by the Leamington junction I was in lane one being overtaken by someone in lane three. No one was in lane two.
The car stayed in the outside lane until I could no longer see it.
I was doing 60, they was doing maybe 90 so I stared at it for a good couple of minutes.
I reckon some people just switch on the cruise control & switch off on motorways.

Ianno87 · 21 Mar 2019

Geezertronic said:
I still think that the Red X needs to be displayed above the hard shoulder when the hard shoulder is not in use because, even though the matrix signs say that the hard shoulder is only to be used for emergency purposes, you still get people driving in it

Perhaps a Red X, with 'Except In Emergency' underneath, for clarity?

HOOVER29 · 21 Mar 2019

It like the lane closed workforce in road scenario or because one lane is coned off. People receive a warning up to 3 miles away. Plenty of time to move over or so you’d think. The amount of drivers that move over in the last 100 yards.
Where I used to work there was a woman whose son worked for the highways agency. His job was to stand on a platform on the side of the lorry depositing cones on the carriageway. One night two lorries were over taking another when they came across his lorry depositing said cones. The first lorry managed to cut in at the last second, it’s driver thinking phew close one. The second lorry wasn’t as lucky as it struck the cone truck at 50 plus mph.

Nor was the woman’s son.

Let’s just say he never went home to his family again.

Shortly afterwards they bought in the big yellow lorry with the flashing orange arrow sign on the back of it.

Motorways are a great invention & they are safe 95% of the time.
It’s just the 5% you have to be wary about.
There are enough YouTube clips to realise how quickly things can & do go wrong.

edwin_m · 21 Mar 2019

HOOVER29 said:
It like the lane closed workforce in road scenario or because one lane is coned off. People receive a warning up to 3 miles away. Plenty of time to move over or so you’d think. The amount of drivers that move over in the last 100 yards.

Actually I suggest there's a good argument for giving people only a short warning of lane closure, because people will react to the first warning and try and get into the appropriate lane, effectively extending the closure back to near the first warning. Then other people will sail through the empty lane to cut in at the last minute, and truck drivers will straddle two lanes to stop that happening, all resulting in general aggro.

Long-term motorway roadworks now almost always work by keeping the full number of lanes open but narrowing them and imposing a speed limit with camera enforcement. This works much better than the old system of trying to funnel down into fewer lanes, which now tends to be used only for short-term work at quieter times of day.

DarloRich · 21 Mar 2019

Bald Rick said:
You are looking at symptom, not cause.

The speeds on smart motorways are usually deployed automatically, which is why, occasionally, you will get a speed limit shown when there’s nothing around. The reduction in speed displayed is because of the congestion immediately ahead, and not caused by it.

The M42 between junctions 3A and 7 was the pilot project, and it showed journey times reduced by up to a quarter, fuel use fell by 4% and emissions by 10%. I cant find the actual HA report, but this article covers the whole project.

https://www.roadtraffic-technology.com/projects/m42/

we don't need facts and expert evidence here! Personally, I don't ever seem to have issues with these variable limits. You just need to be paying the sort of attention required of a competent driver. These days I am most often to be found driving a van of various sorts

whhistle · 21 Mar 2019

bramling said:
If people left adequate gaps, read their surroundings, and used lifting their foot off the accelerator as the means of reducing speed then the effect described wouldn't happen.

BUt people aren't like that.
It's not in our culture and will be mightily hard to change because our police are too wimpy.

If I had a police car and the authority to issue fines for speeding, I'd easily cover my own salary + cost of the vehicle on a short stretch of motorway near me. This causes me to question why they don't employ this method.

Just like those people who warn others where speed cameras are, or demand they're well painted in yellow.
Why?
Surely if someone is speeding, you want them to be caught?

Cowley · 21 Mar 2019

Going back to variable speed limits and average speed limit cameras. It’s remarkable how often you see just one or two cars bomb through them seemingly completely ignoring the limit.
I saw a ten year old (so probably not a plain clothed police vehicle) BMW going through the average (50 mph) speed section of some road works on the M20 at a full 75 mph last week, and was wondering if they knew something that I didn’t?
Or are they just so stupid that they’ll be surprised when a speeding ticket lands through their letterbox in a few days time?
Driving around with that much abandonment around there would surely see you lose your license in fairly short length of time?
I also saw someone going through all the cameras on the M25 way over the limit soon after.

Bald Rick · 21 Mar 2019

whhistle said:
This causes me to question why they don't employ this method.

Because the police authority don’t get the fines.

They do, however, get a proportion of the cash paid for speed awareness courses.

bramling · 21 Mar 2019

HOOVER29 said:
Once saw the Mini ONE being “secretly” tested on the M40 earlyone Sunday. Could easily see it was a mini but they went to great lengths adding various shapes to the four corners of the car. It was the size of a Mondeo by the time they’d finished & one that looked like it’d been knocked together in someone’s shed in Grimsby.

So that’s the speed cameras sorted.
Now what about the “outside lane hogger” ?
Driving down to Oxford early yesterday morning on the M40 by the Leamington junction I was in lane one being overtaken by someone in lane three. No one was in lane two.
The car stayed in the outside lane until I could no longer see it.
I was doing 60, they was doing maybe 90 so I stared at it for a good couple of minutes.
I reckon some people just switch on the cruise control & switch off on motorways.

Someone choosing to stay in the right-hand lane is no problem providing they’re observant and move over in good time if someone is approaching behind and wants to overtake.

For someone doing higher speed it’s probably better practice if there’s sporadic traffic in the other lanes and/or frequent junctions, as it avoids having to faff about moving in and out all the time, and having to keep going from lane one to three and back every time one encounters someone stuck in the middle lane.

al78 · 21 Mar 2019

HOOVER29 said:
It like the lane closed workforce in road scenario or because one lane is coned off. People receive a warning up to 3 miles away. Plenty of time to move over or so you’d think. The amount of drivers that move over in the last 100 yards.

This is the correct thing to do. Moving over a mile in advance just extends the constriction by one mile, which reduces road capacity and means everyone takes longer to get through the constriction. Look up zip merging. Unfortunately too many people have the irrational mentality of queue jumping in such a situation, so because of human irrational thinking (as is often), we end up with a sub-optimal situation for everyone.

al78 · 21 Mar 2019

It is general lack of awareness and not constantly scanning the conditions on the road ahead and to the side. It is not just on motorways, yesterday on a single track road an oncoming driver didn't bother to pull over at the farm buildings where there is a large informal passing place, but instead decided to drive straight up to me where there was no passing place, forcing me to pull onto to the muddy grass next to the lane in order to pass. I'm tempted to blame smartphones, and their ability to shrink the visible universe down to a metre when people use them, meaning nothing is visible to the user more than a metre away, hence the tendency to step into the road without looking or almost walk straight into me. The worst then apply the same lack of awareness when driving, which of course is far more dangerous.

bramling · 21 Mar 2019

al78 said:
This is the correct thing to do. Moving over a mile in advance just extends the constriction by one mile, which reduces road capacity and means everyone takes longer to get through the constriction. Look up zip merging. Unfortunately too many people have the irrational mentality of queue jumping in such a situation, so because of human irrational thinking (as is often), we end up with a sub-optimal situation for everyone.

Indeed. And another problem with people merging too early is that this then leads to the situation where there can be a queue in one lane with other lanes still having traffic moving at high speed. That situation is lethal. Again much of the problem is people driving in silly ways like not leaving proper gaps and failing to take in their surroundings.

HOOVER29 · 21 Mar 2019

whhistle said:
If I had a police car and the authority to issue fines for speeding, I'd easily cover my own salary + cost of the vehicle on a short stretch of motorway near me. This causes me to question why they don't employ this method

If I had a quid every time I said if I was a copper when I saw dodgy/dangerous driving on our motorway network I’d be very wealthy & happily retired living in deepest Cornwall at a lovely quiet hidey hole that I know that has sea views.

Alas I’m not a traffic officer so no doubt when I see law breakers on the road when I’m out & about I’ll be tutting, shaking my head like a madman & muttering to myself while pointing them out to the imaginary police officer sitting alongside me while chewing my bottom lip.

Geezertronic · 21 Mar 2019

I don't even think it is worth posting video of dodgy driving on Facebook Groups like Idiot Driving as there's always a few that side with the person performing idiot driving even blaming the video poster - who admittedly is sometimes in the wrong themselves, especially those that seem to go out of their way to get footage

PeterC · 21 Mar 2019

al78 said:
This is the correct thing to do. Moving over a mile in advance just extends the constriction by one mile, which reduces road capacity and means everyone takes longer to get through the constriction. Look up zip merging. Unfortunately too many people have the irrational mentality of queue jumping in such a situation, so because of human irrational thinking (as is often), we end up with a sub-optimal situation for everyone.

No, the correct thing to do is to move over at the first red "X" sign.

Bald Rick · 21 Mar 2019

PeterC said:
No, the correct thing to do is to move over at the first red "X" sign.

Where provided!

thejuggler · 21 Mar 2019

Geezertronic said:
I still think that the Red X needs to be displayed above the hard shoulder when the hard shoulder is not in use because, even though the matrix signs say that the hard shoulder is only to be used for emergency purposes, you still get people driving in it

That's what happens when there is no consistency of approach. I can go from M1 with 4 lanes in continual use and no hard shoulder, to the M62 with occasional hard shoulder running, but also extended slip roads which allow continual running, all in a few miles.

Bald Rick · 21 Mar 2019

thejuggler said:
That's what happens when there is no consistency of approach. I can go from M1 with 4 lanes in continual use and no hard shoulder, to the M62 with occasional hard shoulder running, but also extended slip roads which allow continual running, all in a few miles.

You can do all that just on the M1: permanent 4 lane with full hardhsoulder, permanent 4 lane with intermittent hard shoulder, permanent 4 lane with no hard shoulder (All lane running smart motorway), or 3 lane with variable hardhoulder (Smart motorway with Active traffic management).

PeterC · 21 Mar 2019

bramling said:
Someone choosing to stay in the right-hand lane is no problem providing they’re observant and move over in good time if someone is approaching behind and wants to overtake.

For someone doing higher speed it’s probably better practice if there’s sporadic traffic in the other lanes and/or frequent junctions, as it avoids having to faff about moving in and out all the time, and having to keep going from lane one to three and back every time one encounters someone stuck in the middle lane.

Its the ones who sit in the centre lane of an empty motorway that really get me. I used to travel home on the M1 in the late evening quite regularly. With hardly any traffic about I would settle down in lane 1 with cruise control set for economy at around 60 and would end up undertaking at least one car in the centre lane.

Bald Rick · 21 Mar 2019

PeterC said:
Its the ones who sit in the centre lane of an empty motorway that really get me. I used to travel home on the M1 in the late evening quite regularly. With hardly any traffic about I would settle down in lane 1 with cruise control set for economy at around 60 and would end up undertaking at least one car in the centre lane.

It’s those that sit in lane 4 of an empty motorway that annoy me! To be seen every evening south of Luton on the M1 or south of J3 on the M40. Infuriating.

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