Being stuck in a traffic jam is one of the most frustrating things that a motorist can face, especially on their daily commute. 61% of drivers say that congestion has become worse in the past year. The UK is in desperate need of a solution – but are traffic lights on motorways really the answer?
Motorway traffic lights trial
In order to combat some of the UK’s traffic woes, Highways England is investing £7 million into a trial that will see traffic lights being used on the link road between the M6 and M62 motorways during the morning rush hour.
Accompanied by electronic signs displaying congestion warnings and variable speed limits, these traffic lights will be switched on between 6.30 am and 9.30am. The hope is that they will ease the flow of traffic and create a smoother journey for commuters.
The lights were tested last month and will be switched on in December. They will be monitored by cameras for a year to see if they are having the desired effect. If so, such schemes may be rolled out across the country.
Until now, traffic lights have only been installed on slip roads to slow traffic as it joins the motorway. However, this new plan aims to monitor the vehicles leaving the M6 so that they can be controlled as part of efforts to minimise queuing on the M62.
(Credit – Highways England)
A topsy turvy plan?
While transport professionals believe that the traffic lights will help to ease congestion, it seems contraindicative to think that slowing down traffic will help to speed up journey times. Indeed, many motorists are concerned that the traffic lights will simply increase the number of accidents on the link road, with commuters engaging in drag racing-style efforts to get ahead on their route between the motorways!
Naturally, the chance to raise revenue as part of the scheme has not been missed. Drivers who don’t obey the variable speed limits or stop at the red lights will be fined. No doubt this will anger motorists already facing the risk of fines due to newly implemented smart motorways, with all their related (and widely misunderstood) rules.
A growing problem
There were 1.35 million traffic jams on motorways and A roads in the past year. That equates to an average of 3,700 tailbacks each day. The estimated cost to the economy of all this congestion is £9 billion per year.
Motorways are definitely causing drivers the most issues. Although they only make up 1% of the UK’s road network, they are responsible for 21% of all of the miles driven each year. Add to that the fact that traffic is up 30% in comparison to the mid-90s and the scale of the problem becomes apparent.
Where will it end?
New technological updates on the roads (smart motorways technology being the prime example) are simply making driving less enjoyable. This is definitely not being helped by the increasing congestion that motorists are facing every day. Could this be on reason that car sales have been dropping, as people opt to use public transport or car shares instead?
Even if congestion on our motorways isn’t stopping people driving to work, it could certainly be changing their behaviour. Many drivers are opting to use smaller roads instead of the motorway network. The likely result will be more congestion on our A and B roads, resulting in similar problems to those that drivers are already facing on the motorways.
Congestion on smaller roads also causes its own host of problems, including blocking crossings and making roads around schools more dangerous. Larger vehicles could even be at risk of getting stuck if they meet something of a similar size travelling in the opposite direction.
The government is in the process of investing £50 million into a number of large projects that aim to ease congestion. However, with motorists already feeling angry about the financial side of owning and using a car, the government will need to do an awful lot in order to make driving enjoyable again. Rolling out a nationwide motorway traffic light system is unlikely to win hearts and minds. There’s no simple answer to controlling the UK’s traffic during the busiest times of the day, but an answer is what we need – and fast!
Do you find driving less pleasurable than it used to be? What changes could be made that would enhance your driving experience? Share your thoughts by leaving a comment below.
As regards sheer congestion, we are a crowded land with an ever-increasing volume of traffic trying to squeeze onto the same roads particularly during ‘rush hour’. Ther is no answer to this, short of compulsorily purchasing tracts of land on either side of all our major roads and then spending our entire GDP on a programme to double the size of all those roads. People are in fairy-land if they think there is a magic pill to ease congestion. This scheme to put traffic lights on the M6-M62 interchange will not improve journey times because it will not magically increase the amount of road space. All it will do is ensure that there are longer traffic jams that stretch down the M6 away from that interchange. This will in all likelihood feel worse to everybody because a problem isolated to that interchange will have been spread to inconvenience those not intending to use the interchange.. Instead of there being a temporary standstill on that interchange there will be many miles of traffic held under ‘variable’ speed limits up and down the M6 either side of there. I have sympathy for those who get stuck there currently, but can we ask why there is so much more traffic? What happened to the notion of people living near where they work?
I have probably got this wrong but does this mean that the motorway lanes will have traffic lights at stop to allow those on the slip road to join safely or is it just to let a dozen or so vehicles to join the motorway en block and cause chaos as there is only space for 2 vehicles
In reality with households being multicar locations, most consequently parked on the street, and as a result of the economic requirements of owning a home, people need cars to acess their workplaces or the local station or park and ride.
Furthermore in my area there are so many new housing developments, that really get minimal infra structure investment, other than tinkering with roundabouts and traffic lights, that it will only get worse, from congestion on side roads through to Motorways. What joy!
“can traffic lights ease congestion?” NO. In 65 years driving I have noticed that the displaying of 40 or 50 MPH signs (for no apparent reason) on the overhead gantry does make the traffic slow usually to a standstill. Once these are switched off, the traffic then moves freely without any holdups. Traffic lights will make this worse plus, X number of cars moving off at once will increase the pollution level as we all know (or most of us do) that most pollution is generated when moving off from being stationary rather than at a steady 60 MPH. Please ask these Dumbos to think again.
You have it the wrong way round. If there’s a standstill, the 40 mph speed limit is switched on to prevent cars arriving at the congested area at high speed. Slowing cars down ahead of the standstill reduces the risks of accidents and can also ease congestion (fewer cars get to the congested area when speed is reduced). Once traffic moves freely without any holdups, the variable speed limits are switched off.
Don’t call other people Dumbos if you don’t want to be called one yourself.
Sorry Jan. You have it the wrong way – the 40 signs CAUSE the standstill. As I tried to say, after the signs, the traffic flows normally upset possibly by drivers entering the motorway at 40MPH when the vehicles on the road are doing 55 – 60 MPH
Read and take in what Jan said, they are correct, maybe go and find out how smart motorways work before commenting again!
However, with a million miles under my belt over 50 years, this not my experience. Too many times I have seen the speed restricted to 40 on a virtually empty motorway and even 10 miles later could not see any evidence of congestion. These smart systems don’t do as promised except for the Chancellor. Time after time I see M Way signs saying obstruction ahead and never actually seen the so called obstruction. Poor systems managed by idiots will not make our roads better.
Jan has pretty much summed up the answer for you. Further more, people should look at a cure when prevention is not up their street. What is the cause of congestion…. Its simple. Driving with out due care and attention. Not reading the road ahead, not forward thinking… How can this be fixed? Well on Motorways, its simple, start by educating drivers that driving to close to the car in front will slow you down. The speed limit on the motor way is 70. You should drive in the left lane. Until this is taught and hammered into motorists, then we will never see congestion ease on motorways. (No matter how many lanes you put on.) With today’s technology, we should be able to monitor the motor way and catch out the middle lane hogger, speeder and other misdemeanors. If you are caught speeding on the motorway, 3 points, if your lane hogging 3 points. No fines needed, however, the points should be kept on your license for at least 5 years. This in turn will start changing peoples attitude to motorway and that they can not drive on them like lemmings, following the car in front. This in turn will solve over 70% of motorway congestion within 3 years. People need to learn to drive their cars and enjoy it. Keep your distance and use the engine to control your speed. Stop pressing your brake every 3 seconds… That’s the problem on the motorway.
urburr, you are correct, the 40 signs seem to be switched on a lot of time for no apparent reason. This does slow traffic unnecessarily. They are anything but smart motorways controls.
Many of the traffic jams seem to be caused by excessive use of traffic lights especially on roundabouts.
Also drivers seem to be unable to read the road ahead and refuse to move to the left hand lane even when its perfectly clear.
are you not confusing the old speed advisory signs, usually on central reservations with the variable speed limit signs on overhead gantries on smart motorways?
What I fail to grasp is that given the problem of excessive traffic on our roads government is planning an autonomous car policy that will enable a tranche of people to own and travel in cars that at present are unable or unwilling to do so.
To help traffic coming on to Motorway, They need to make the slip roads longer so cars coming to Motorway can get up to the speed of traffic already on the Motorway. ,As traffic lights willl increase accidents , Do the people that put these laws in drive them selves, No they just sleep in back of there , While being driven from there office to there home address
Traffic lights anywhere just stop traffic flowing Necessary in places where there is not going to be any break in traffic to allow traffic to cross or join another road Councils “improve ” roads to improve traffic flow then install traffic lights to stop it flowing at all Some places near lights a for a short time some days but permanent one are unnecessary part time ones only maybe Most sensors which are there to control traffic lights never work properly at all and nothing is done about those which stop working as set Traffi lights are just a delaying nuisance in many places serving only to frustrate driver doing no good at all but cause more congestion on the approach to them in all directions
Are we funding the traffic light manufacturers here in our country? They are everywhere.
Only way to ease the congestion on motorways is to reduce the number of exits/entrances so that a motorway runs from one place to another. It stops people “hoping on and off”. Examples are the M5 at Avonmouth and most of the M25. It may well be that the local infrastructure has to be reassessed but motorway flow would certainly improve.
one way of dealing with that is like many Scottish motorways, notably the M8, where the left hand lane becomes the junction exit and entry so when you join the motorway , the entry road becomes the left hand lane and to exit you move into the left hand lane which becomes the junction exit road. It means there’s no real competition between traffic on the motorway & traffic joining the motorway
I find that Smart Motorways make the journey easier. They’ve certainly cut queuing on the routes I use. However motorists often go over the speed limits so can’t expect to be surprised when they are fined for this. Yes, they make money, but how else do you get drivers to stick to the speed limit?
On normal motorways speed limits are frequently put in place well before they are needed or even when they’re not needed at all. This encourages drivers to ignore them.
This waist of money as done it on top A34 & traffic has got a lot worse it back up to oxford pear tree
Also done it on A40 between headington roundabout & pear tree this so bad it now take an 1 hour or 45 minutes from oxford to bicester at 2pm in afternoon something needs to be done
The lights in Leeds (Tingley- M62) where this has been trialled, restricts only a few cars or a truck to enter every so often. It is not uncommon for the lights to complete a full cycle before a truck had made it through the lights.(Green-Red- Green)
Stopping/slowing traffic that is attempting to match the motorway speed on an incline, make it impossible for some larger vehicles who have to accelerate as hard as possible ( Environmental stuff about gentle acceleration!!!) to enter the motorway without slowing other users. ( Could users on the motorway changing lanes be an option – making a clear entry for slower vehicles to join?)
Another junction in leeds that causes issues it M62 Birstall. Two lanes lead onto the motorway, one lane merges, the other becomes a new lane. The traffic merging results in vehicles slowing down to let cars in and a ‘caterpillar’ effect causes tailbacks. (the ironic situation is that the lane that becomes a new lane is used by less cars!)
WHY NOT HAVE THE JOINING TRAFFIC ENTER THE MOTORWAY IN ONE LANE FOR IT TO MERGE WHEN THEY HAVE MATCHED THEIR SPEED AFTER 300 YARDS IF THEY DESIRE (This is also the same for Chain Bar East Bound)
In the UK our motorways allow for this speed matching before changing lane, but we fail to use it.
In Germany their merging sections ( for entry onto the motorway and to leave the motorway/autobhan) are shorter and serve two purposes. May be it is just the arrogant AUDI/Golf/ Mondeo drivers who are always in a rush, that force their way that need more education.
Instead of joining traffic being brought into a lane that then has to merge into the already occupied nearside lane,why not have the nearside lane specifically for joining traffic so there is no merging/filtering involved at all and on approach to these intersections all traffic already on the main road slow lane/overtaking lanes could be directed across with lines to allow this joining lane to occurr.As this merging lane is already a lane in its own right the joining cars can then join with no hold ups at all and can filter into other lanes as they wish further on in their journey.Surely this is better than traffic lights holding traffic up more.
Or maybe more people could actually learn how to join a motor way!
I’m with you Lawrence,the whole standard of motorway driving is poor beyond belief.There should be more rigorous mandatory instruction lessons with high rates of competence levels to be achieved,how many cretins still refer to ‘the slow lane’,the overtaking lane and ‘the fast lane ‘ unbelievable!!
If drivers looked ahead 400 mtrs and not 40 mtrs whilst up the backside of the driver in lane 2 or 3 (on a 3 lane motorway)and adjusted their speed by easing off the gas instead of BRAKING!!things would regulate gently and properly.Then,if drawn to a halt,DON’T leave 600 mtrs gap as you begin to follow the vehicle in front.
Instead of the police having to pull drivers over for speeding,which cameras now do very efficiently,they should concentrate on poor driving habits like lane hogging,which now we have the legislation to fine people is NOT being enforced,and the other mindless morons who sit in lane 2 or 3 as soon as it rains with rear foglights on! How dangerous is that,and if the new traffic lights start a queue,which is inevitable,how many lives will be lost as seeing brake lights through foglights in the rain in virtually impossible.
Up the standards,get the morons off the motorways is the way forward.
If they have traffic lights on them then are they really motorways anymore?
The so-called smart motorways are only any use if someone smart is operating them. I assume the speed limits are manually set, either that or someone incredibly bad at mathematics wrote the software which works out what the limit should be.
Quite often the limit is dropped on a totally clear road, of course Highways England would say “its clear BECAUSE we dropped it” the usually response of an organisation seeking to justify the massive expenditure for ZERO improvement in travel times, traffic flow or congestion
It is all quite clear to me. The roads will be much clearer when we squeeze the poor off them with fuel rate rises and frequent fines on smart motorways. Then us well off drivers can enjoy congestion free driving in our BMW’s to the golf course for erm.. business meetings?
Driving is less pleasurable and 5000 times more stressful than it used to be – been driving 40 years – due to many factors: road works restriction when no “work” is taking place, 40 mile limits which really mean 4 mph which slows traffic unnecessarily at times, cameras, people driving in the middle lane for miles when there is nothing in the inside lane, lorries trying to overtake on a hill when they haven’t got the power to do so – effectively reducing the motorway to a single lane, too many cars, etc. etc. Not sure what the solution is, but traffic lights isn’t one of them.
How can traffic lights reduce congestion ? Crazy idea by so called intelligent people. All that will happen is people racing trying to beat the lights. The root cause of this is overpopulation of cars. Every day more and more cars are coming onto the road, without a similar number coming off. Without tackling the root cause this problem can only get worse. Of course the government will not want to reduce the number of vehicles on the road, as each is a cash cow.
Have we such short memories that we forget why motorways were introduced in the first place? Surely to install traffic lights on the motorways will render them no different from the roads they were designed to relieve!
On the one hand we hear that the government is introducing higher diesel tax to help combat vehicle pollution, and then on the other they decide to introduce a stop start traffic light on an otherwise free flowing motorway, thereby increasing pollution?! You can’t make this up. Do the government departments actually talk to each other?!
Well.. As we ALL know the only way to move the vast amount of traffic on the roads these days is to make the motorways six lanes wide and restrict heavy vehicles to the inside two lanes. There is far too much traffic for the 3 lane system that we have which dates back to the 1950s when there was FAR less traffic on the roads.. Of course this would mean a capital investment but we all know that the government makes a huge amount from taxes on the motorist (and HGV traffic as well)
Lunacy! Highways England will not rest until all motorways have reached maximum vehicle capacity, and that will only be achieved when all vehicles are stationary. In the USA, when a road gets too busy, they don’t mess with it – they build another road (except where it’s impossible, like on Long Island, but that’s an exception). When the new road opens, they keep the old road. In Spain they are forever building new roads – Madrid now has FOUR orbital motorways! Where they get the money from I don’t know (but I could hazard a guess). In France they are not only building new motorways, but also enhanacing their A-Road system (Routes Nationales) in parallel. They have all realised that they have too little road for the vehicles that want to use them. and the only solution is to build more road. Simples! In the 1960s, we closed large percentage of our railways. Some said it was shorted sighted and were shouted down. No whats happening? We are bulding new railways! So why can’t we have more roads? More roads = less congestion and less pollution. Building and servicing them creates jobs. It’s a win-win situation for all of us, and for the Nation.
Recent experience of smart motorways on M5/6 shows they are anything but smart. They are also highly dangerous because if someone breaks down and is unable to roll to the ”emergency parking area” you are likely to be very dead very quickly
I’m doing 60mph (the legal maximum) on the slip road and just as I turn the corner the light goes red, what’s my stopping distance in my new car, what’s the stopping distance of the 3 year old lorry behind me????????????
There is a simple fix fo congestion: work from home. A great portion of cars on the road during rush hour are people driving to an office building to sit at a computer all day. If they could access their work files from a computer at home, there would be no need to get into a car at all. Imagine the effect of everyone who had a desk job not being on the road! With high speed domestic internet, video conferencing, biometric security and other technologies widely available nowadays, many jobs could be done from home. 100s of cars per company could be replaced by just a handful of tech support personnel travelling to people’s homes. Maybe it would boost investment in telecommunications infrastructure too. Office buildings could be converted into much needed housing and/or for-hire meeting spaces for when gathering together in-person is unavoidable. Inner-city pollution would also drop drastically.
As regards sheer congestion, we are a crowded land with an ever-increasing volume of traffic trying to squeeze onto the same roads particularly during ‘rush hour’. Ther is no answer to this, short of compulsorily purchasing tracts of land on either side of all our major roads and then spending our entire GDP on a programme to double the size of all those roads. People are in fairy-land if they think there is a magic pill to ease congestion. This scheme to put traffic lights on the M6-M62 interchange will not improve journey times because it will not magically increase the amount of road space. All it will do is ensure that there are longer traffic jams that stretch down the M6 away from that interchange. This will in all likelihood feel worse to everybody because a problem isolated to that interchange will have been spread to inconvenience those not intending to use the interchange.. Instead of there being a temporary standstill on that interchange there will be many miles of traffic held under ‘variable’ speed limits up and down the M6 either side of there. I have sympathy for those who get stuck there currently, but can we ask why there is so much more traffic? What happened to the notion of people living near where they work?
I have probably got this wrong but does this mean that the motorway lanes will have traffic lights at stop to allow those on the slip road to join safely or is it just to let a dozen or so vehicles to join the motorway en block and cause chaos as there is only space for 2 vehicles
In reality with households being multicar locations, most consequently parked on the street, and as a result of the economic requirements of owning a home, people need cars to acess their workplaces or the local station or park and ride.
Furthermore in my area there are so many new housing developments, that really get minimal infra structure investment, other than tinkering with roundabouts and traffic lights, that it will only get worse, from congestion on side roads through to Motorways. What joy!
“can traffic lights ease congestion?” NO. In 65 years driving I have noticed that the displaying of 40 or 50 MPH signs (for no apparent reason) on the overhead gantry does make the traffic slow usually to a standstill. Once these are switched off, the traffic then moves freely without any holdups. Traffic lights will make this worse plus, X number of cars moving off at once will increase the pollution level as we all know (or most of us do) that most pollution is generated when moving off from being stationary rather than at a steady 60 MPH. Please ask these Dumbos to think again.
You have it the wrong way round. If there’s a standstill, the 40 mph speed limit is switched on to prevent cars arriving at the congested area at high speed. Slowing cars down ahead of the standstill reduces the risks of accidents and can also ease congestion (fewer cars get to the congested area when speed is reduced). Once traffic moves freely without any holdups, the variable speed limits are switched off.
Don’t call other people Dumbos if you don’t want to be called one yourself.
Sorry Jan. You have it the wrong way – the 40 signs CAUSE the standstill. As I tried to say, after the signs, the traffic flows normally upset possibly by drivers entering the motorway at 40MPH when the vehicles on the road are doing 55 – 60 MPH
Read and take in what Jan said, they are correct, maybe go and find out how smart motorways work before commenting again!
However, with a million miles under my belt over 50 years, this not my experience. Too many times I have seen the speed restricted to 40 on a virtually empty motorway and even 10 miles later could not see any evidence of congestion. These smart systems don’t do as promised except for the Chancellor. Time after time I see M Way signs saying obstruction ahead and never actually seen the so called obstruction. Poor systems managed by idiots will not make our roads better.
Jan has pretty much summed up the answer for you. Further more, people should look at a cure when prevention is not up their street. What is the cause of congestion…. Its simple. Driving with out due care and attention. Not reading the road ahead, not forward thinking… How can this be fixed? Well on Motorways, its simple, start by educating drivers that driving to close to the car in front will slow you down. The speed limit on the motor way is 70. You should drive in the left lane. Until this is taught and hammered into motorists, then we will never see congestion ease on motorways. (No matter how many lanes you put on.) With today’s technology, we should be able to monitor the motor way and catch out the middle lane hogger, speeder and other misdemeanors. If you are caught speeding on the motorway, 3 points, if your lane hogging 3 points. No fines needed, however, the points should be kept on your license for at least 5 years. This in turn will start changing peoples attitude to motorway and that they can not drive on them like lemmings, following the car in front. This in turn will solve over 70% of motorway congestion within 3 years. People need to learn to drive their cars and enjoy it. Keep your distance and use the engine to control your speed. Stop pressing your brake every 3 seconds… That’s the problem on the motorway.
urburr, you are correct, the 40 signs seem to be switched on a lot of time for no apparent reason. This does slow traffic unnecessarily. They are anything but smart motorways controls.
Many of the traffic jams seem to be caused by excessive use of traffic lights especially on roundabouts.
Also drivers seem to be unable to read the road ahead and refuse to move to the left hand lane even when its perfectly clear.
are you not confusing the old speed advisory signs, usually on central reservations with the variable speed limit signs on overhead gantries on smart motorways?
What I fail to grasp is that given the problem of excessive traffic on our roads government is planning an autonomous car policy that will enable a tranche of people to own and travel in cars that at present are unable or unwilling to do so.
To help traffic coming on to Motorway, They need to make the slip roads longer so cars coming to Motorway can get up to the speed of traffic already on the Motorway. ,As traffic lights willl increase accidents , Do the people that put these laws in drive them selves, No they just sleep in back of there , While being driven from there office to there home address
Traffic lights anywhere just stop traffic flowing Necessary in places where there is not going to be any break in traffic to allow traffic to cross or join another road Councils “improve ” roads to improve traffic flow then install traffic lights to stop it flowing at all Some places near lights a for a short time some days but permanent one are unnecessary part time ones only maybe Most sensors which are there to control traffic lights never work properly at all and nothing is done about those which stop working as set Traffi lights are just a delaying nuisance in many places serving only to frustrate driver doing no good at all but cause more congestion on the approach to them in all directions
Are we funding the traffic light manufacturers here in our country? They are everywhere.
Only way to ease the congestion on motorways is to reduce the number of exits/entrances so that a motorway runs from one place to another. It stops people “hoping on and off”. Examples are the M5 at Avonmouth and most of the M25. It may well be that the local infrastructure has to be reassessed but motorway flow would certainly improve.
one way of dealing with that is like many Scottish motorways, notably the M8, where the left hand lane becomes the junction exit and entry so when you join the motorway , the entry road becomes the left hand lane and to exit you move into the left hand lane which becomes the junction exit road. It means there’s no real competition between traffic on the motorway & traffic joining the motorway
I find that Smart Motorways make the journey easier. They’ve certainly cut queuing on the routes I use. However motorists often go over the speed limits so can’t expect to be surprised when they are fined for this. Yes, they make money, but how else do you get drivers to stick to the speed limit?
On normal motorways speed limits are frequently put in place well before they are needed or even when they’re not needed at all. This encourages drivers to ignore them.
This waist of money as done it on top A34 & traffic has got a lot worse it back up to oxford pear tree
Also done it on A40 between headington roundabout & pear tree this so bad it now take an 1 hour or 45 minutes from oxford to bicester at 2pm in afternoon something needs to be done
The lights in Leeds (Tingley- M62) where this has been trialled, restricts only a few cars or a truck to enter every so often. It is not uncommon for the lights to complete a full cycle before a truck had made it through the lights.(Green-Red- Green)
Stopping/slowing traffic that is attempting to match the motorway speed on an incline, make it impossible for some larger vehicles who have to accelerate as hard as possible ( Environmental stuff about gentle acceleration!!!) to enter the motorway without slowing other users. ( Could users on the motorway changing lanes be an option – making a clear entry for slower vehicles to join?)
Another junction in leeds that causes issues it M62 Birstall. Two lanes lead onto the motorway, one lane merges, the other becomes a new lane. The traffic merging results in vehicles slowing down to let cars in and a ‘caterpillar’ effect causes tailbacks. (the ironic situation is that the lane that becomes a new lane is used by less cars!)
WHY NOT HAVE THE JOINING TRAFFIC ENTER THE MOTORWAY IN ONE LANE FOR IT TO MERGE WHEN THEY HAVE MATCHED THEIR SPEED AFTER 300 YARDS IF THEY DESIRE (This is also the same for Chain Bar East Bound)
In the UK our motorways allow for this speed matching before changing lane, but we fail to use it.
In Germany their merging sections ( for entry onto the motorway and to leave the motorway/autobhan) are shorter and serve two purposes. May be it is just the arrogant AUDI/Golf/ Mondeo drivers who are always in a rush, that force their way that need more education.
Instead of joining traffic being brought into a lane that then has to merge into the already occupied nearside lane,why not have the nearside lane specifically for joining traffic so there is no merging/filtering involved at all and on approach to these intersections all traffic already on the main road slow lane/overtaking lanes could be directed across with lines to allow this joining lane to occurr.As this merging lane is already a lane in its own right the joining cars can then join with no hold ups at all and can filter into other lanes as they wish further on in their journey.Surely this is better than traffic lights holding traffic up more.
Or maybe more people could actually learn how to join a motor way!
I’m with you Lawrence,the whole standard of motorway driving is poor beyond belief.There should be more rigorous mandatory instruction lessons with high rates of competence levels to be achieved,how many cretins still refer to ‘the slow lane’,the overtaking lane and ‘the fast lane ‘ unbelievable!!
If drivers looked ahead 400 mtrs and not 40 mtrs whilst up the backside of the driver in lane 2 or 3 (on a 3 lane motorway)and adjusted their speed by easing off the gas instead of BRAKING!!things would regulate gently and properly.Then,if drawn to a halt,DON’T leave 600 mtrs gap as you begin to follow the vehicle in front.
Instead of the police having to pull drivers over for speeding,which cameras now do very efficiently,they should concentrate on poor driving habits like lane hogging,which now we have the legislation to fine people is NOT being enforced,and the other mindless morons who sit in lane 2 or 3 as soon as it rains with rear foglights on! How dangerous is that,and if the new traffic lights start a queue,which is inevitable,how many lives will be lost as seeing brake lights through foglights in the rain in virtually impossible.
Up the standards,get the morons off the motorways is the way forward.
If they have traffic lights on them then are they really motorways anymore?
The so-called smart motorways are only any use if someone smart is operating them. I assume the speed limits are manually set, either that or someone incredibly bad at mathematics wrote the software which works out what the limit should be.
Quite often the limit is dropped on a totally clear road, of course Highways England would say “its clear BECAUSE we dropped it” the usually response of an organisation seeking to justify the massive expenditure for ZERO improvement in travel times, traffic flow or congestion
It is all quite clear to me. The roads will be much clearer when we squeeze the poor off them with fuel rate rises and frequent fines on smart motorways. Then us well off drivers can enjoy congestion free driving in our BMW’s to the golf course for erm.. business meetings?
Driving is less pleasurable and 5000 times more stressful than it used to be – been driving 40 years – due to many factors: road works restriction when no “work” is taking place, 40 mile limits which really mean 4 mph which slows traffic unnecessarily at times, cameras, people driving in the middle lane for miles when there is nothing in the inside lane, lorries trying to overtake on a hill when they haven’t got the power to do so – effectively reducing the motorway to a single lane, too many cars, etc. etc. Not sure what the solution is, but traffic lights isn’t one of them.
How can traffic lights reduce congestion ? Crazy idea by so called intelligent people. All that will happen is people racing trying to beat the lights. The root cause of this is overpopulation of cars. Every day more and more cars are coming onto the road, without a similar number coming off. Without tackling the root cause this problem can only get worse. Of course the government will not want to reduce the number of vehicles on the road, as each is a cash cow.
Have we such short memories that we forget why motorways were introduced in the first place? Surely to install traffic lights on the motorways will render them no different from the roads they were designed to relieve!
On the one hand we hear that the government is introducing higher diesel tax to help combat vehicle pollution, and then on the other they decide to introduce a stop start traffic light on an otherwise free flowing motorway, thereby increasing pollution?! You can’t make this up. Do the government departments actually talk to each other?!
Well.. As we ALL know the only way to move the vast amount of traffic on the roads these days is to make the motorways six lanes wide and restrict heavy vehicles to the inside two lanes. There is far too much traffic for the 3 lane system that we have which dates back to the 1950s when there was FAR less traffic on the roads.. Of course this would mean a capital investment but we all know that the government makes a huge amount from taxes on the motorist (and HGV traffic as well)
Lunacy! Highways England will not rest until all motorways have reached maximum vehicle capacity, and that will only be achieved when all vehicles are stationary. In the USA, when a road gets too busy, they don’t mess with it – they build another road (except where it’s impossible, like on Long Island, but that’s an exception). When the new road opens, they keep the old road. In Spain they are forever building new roads – Madrid now has FOUR orbital motorways! Where they get the money from I don’t know (but I could hazard a guess). In France they are not only building new motorways, but also enhanacing their A-Road system (Routes Nationales) in parallel. They have all realised that they have too little road for the vehicles that want to use them. and the only solution is to build more road. Simples! In the 1960s, we closed large percentage of our railways. Some said it was shorted sighted and were shouted down. No whats happening? We are bulding new railways! So why can’t we have more roads? More roads = less congestion and less pollution. Building and servicing them creates jobs. It’s a win-win situation for all of us, and for the Nation.
Recent experience of smart motorways on M5/6 shows they are anything but smart. They are also highly dangerous because if someone breaks down and is unable to roll to the ”emergency parking area” you are likely to be very dead very quickly
I’m doing 60mph (the legal maximum) on the slip road and just as I turn the corner the light goes red, what’s my stopping distance in my new car, what’s the stopping distance of the 3 year old lorry behind me????????????
There is a simple fix fo congestion: work from home. A great portion of cars on the road during rush hour are people driving to an office building to sit at a computer all day. If they could access their work files from a computer at home, there would be no need to get into a car at all. Imagine the effect of everyone who had a desk job not being on the road! With high speed domestic internet, video conferencing, biometric security and other technologies widely available nowadays, many jobs could be done from home. 100s of cars per company could be replaced by just a handful of tech support personnel travelling to people’s homes. Maybe it would boost investment in telecommunications infrastructure too. Office buildings could be converted into much needed housing and/or for-hire meeting spaces for when gathering together in-person is unavoidable. Inner-city pollution would also drop drastically.