Crawler/Climbing Lanes

[jaf01uk]

Despite the phasing out of these dangerous stretches of road south of the border there are more and more of these appearing up our way (A96 Aberdeen to Inverness) and in my view they are marked out wrongly. The newest one which is in the process of opening is the most ironic because the visibility is outstanding on the way down as it is downhill obviously but on a constant right hand bend with a big drop off on the right affording an unobstructed view for over a mile yet it has a double solid all the way down. The couple however that do concern me are marked with broken lines on the nearside lane allowing (and encouraging you if its dark) to overtake, but 1 is onto a blind left hand bend and the other is on a constant right hand bend in the middle of a wood! where you could all of a sudden be confronted by someone overtaking a lorry! The trouble with these routes are that they are on a trunk route and therefor the preserve of the Scottish Office, but surely local cops or council or both are surely in on the consultation stages? There has been a double fatal on 1 of the stretches caused by this, although how there hasn't been more I dont know, they seem oblivious to the problem, it is after all supposed to be there to allow overtaking going uphill so why do the beancounters insist on allowing this suicidle downhill overtaking to continue? surely there is legislation regarding the markings or are these designs so old that they have expired?
Sorry for the rant,
Gary

[Turbo_Steve]

Overtaking markings are one of my bugbears. You can write and appeal for them to be changed.

[Jen]

Gary - there are regulations for every road marking that gives advice like this.

I'm not at work today, so can't look up the exact restrictions (we have 6 large volumes in the office, they're impossible to remember all of them!! :)) - however, if you have a concern it's best to contact either your local council or the County Council road safety team - you should be able to find their contact details on the web :)

Thing is - unless a member of the Council's teams happens to use these roads they won't get noticed. We do rely on members of the public to report these things which we can then check out. I'nm sure if its a road safety concern they'll take it seriously :)

[jaf01uk]

Cheers Jen, I marked the e mail notification part but did not get an email so didnt notice the reply, but after I posted I e mailed the Scottish Office who are responsible for the trunk routes and they sent a reply saying that the markings on these crawler lanes are being reviewed at the moment, although the one I mentioned with the unobstructed view for over a mile only opened last month? I think there is a local councilor(sp) campaigning for these to be reviewed,
Gary :bang:

[Jen]

HI Gary,

Sorry - I completely forgot about this :bang: I'm a muppet.

These are the distances you should be able to see when the double white lines are stopped, anything less and double white lines are justified:

85th percentile speed (mph): Visbility Distance (m):

37 90
43 105
53 125
62 155
74 185

85th percentile speed is the speed at which 85% or more of the traffic is travelling at, i.e. for a 60mph road it's likley to be slightly higher. All distances are measured from a centre point on the carriageway at a point level with drivers eye height, usually about 1.2 metres IIRC.

So if you're that interested you can get out there and measure your visibility :) ...or just quote that saying you're sure it doesn't meet it ;) :)

[jaf01uk]

Cheers Jen, still not getting e mails for replys so been a while, the new one I mentioned earlier has about 3/4 of a mile of visibility even on the part with the double solid whites! Mmmmm

[Jen]

Mm indeed... :)