A361 (was A39) Vergemasters - Update 05-07-07

A303Paul · Post by **A303Paul** » Sat Dec 30, 2006 21:16

RichieGraham wrote:Personally, I'm still awaiting a reply from my letters; I mentioned this in Chat the other night that I received the standard 'It's nothing to do with us so we've passed your message on' letter from South West Highways (the people who carried out the works), so now Devon County Council has received three identical letters from me!

Let's just hope that they don't mind the fact that I actually work for them!

As also mentioned in Chat the other night, when Highwayman gave snippets of his reply, it appears that they wanted to change the three lanes into two, and that if such is the case they should have done what they did on the A361 at Knowstone - see here (thanks to DavidBrown for the photo again! I really ought to sort my own roads photo site out...)

Thats fine but why put the posts up. I dont notice a plague of people driving along motorway hard shoulders which dont have such posts (or the many S2 + HS roads in RoI ad South Africa

RichieGraham · Post by **RichieGraham** » Sat Jan 06, 2007 00:19

I've received my reply, and it seems strangely familliar...

Dear Mr Graham,

Thank you for your letter dated 9th December which has been passed to me by South West Highways for reply. I have taken the liberty of reply via email to speed up the response time.

At the particular site to which you refer there is a history of injury accidents associated with overtaking and with vehicles travelling at speed over the brow and colliding with slower moving vehicles. One of the measures agreed to address the accident problem here was to remove the overtaking lane when the major highway structural strengthening works were carried out.

The County Council is also aware of queueing on the west bound approach to Bishops Tawton roundabout which can be eased by increasing the right turn lane length on this section of road, and therefore the removal of the middle lane would solve both issues.

With respect to your comments on the design I am afraid that the County Council does not share your concerns on the placing of the vergemasters in the hatched area. Both during the design and auditing processes, safety of all users of the highway is at the forefront of our minds. However the County Council had concerns that the layout without the vergemasters may lead to a core of drivers overtaking in the hatched area regardless of any line restrictions. Since there was already a history of overtaking accidents on this section of road it would have been irresponsible to ignore this and rely solely on Police enforcement.

I would however add that your comments have been shown to our safety auditor and he will shortly be undertaking a post opening safety audit. Should this audit recommend any further changes other than those outlined above, please be assured that these will be carried out.

Yours sincerely

Simon Hill

Let's just hope that this safety auditor has some sense...

highwaymana31 · Post by **highwaymana31** » Sat Jan 06, 2007 00:47

The joys of cut and paste Richie

J--M--B · Post by **J--M--B** » Sat Jan 06, 2007 01:02

jcpren wrote:I understand the A9 has a grim safety record, much of it due to drivers making poor judgment calls when overtaking, and causing head-on crashes. Any time you drive the A9, you are almost guaranteed to witness a close call at some point on one of the S2 sections, when someone gets frustrated and tries to overtake when they really shouldn't. I am grateful for the S2+1 sections on the A9 as they are, and knowing the standard of driving on that road, I would definitely not support a change to allow overtaking from the single lane direction. The S2+1's alternate anyway, so it's no great hassle for drivers to wait until they have the benefit of the second lane.

Also, great emphasis has been placed on signs and markings on the A9 to make the current status of the road crystal clear, as it changes so much between S2, D2 and alternating S2+1. The fact that the two carriageways of the dual sections are sometimes so far apart that they aren't visible to each other creates a risk of mistaking single and dual carriageways. Arrows on the road surface and "two way" warning signs go some way to resolving this problem, and I believe the red hatched area might have been designed with this in mind, too.

I found some of the comments about the A9 on the BBC message board quite laughable. Someone thought it was the worst trunk road in Scotland - they have never obviously never travelled through all the potholes and surface water on the A82 where you have to slow right down at most corners because any large vehicle will be over the centre line of the road. You only have to compare the European Road Assessment Programme rating of the two roads.

If most accidents on the A9 are caused by bad overtaking then that can be easily fixed with double-white lines with little effect on total journey time.

MB

SteveA30 · Post by **SteveA30** » Sat Jan 06, 2007 09:24

In the case of the A361 at Knowestone, I believe the left lane was taken out of use because of the turning, which doesn't have its own slip. So why not build the slip, then reopen the climbing lane?

That stretch is on a long hill, the turning is near the top, yet the whole lengthy climbing lane has been lost. Taking away designed overtaking chances only increases the likelihood of dangerous overtaking. However wrong, people do it.

Bryn666 · Post by **Bryn666** » Sat Jan 06, 2007 16:11

Being out in France this week I managed to have a look at the N39, now D939 between Montreuil and Arras - it too has bollards down the middle in places, but this is on the S4 sections. It's quite odd, I'll upload pictures later.

DavidBrown · Post by **DavidBrown** » Tue Feb 20, 2007 00:03

Another Update.

Last week, I took this photo:

Note one post (first one on the left) has been hit and obliterated. However, whilst driving this road last night (no picture this time), I noticed that at least half a dozen or so posts have been damaged beyond repair - some have completely come off like the one pictured, and some have snapped in half. It looks a complete mess, and there is a fair bit of debris in the hatched area now.

If they're not replaced, they'l be all gone soon, and if they are, how much money will need to be spent replacing them this often?

RichieGraham · Post by **RichieGraham** » Tue Feb 20, 2007 11:47

I noticed this the other day as well. Haven't been up there since to see the other posts gone but it didn't surprise me to hear. I think the first one on the othet approach had also gone when I was there.

Chris Bertram · Post by **Chris Bertram** » Tue Feb 20, 2007 11:57

Bryn666 wrote:Being out in France this week I managed to have a look at the N39, now D939 between Montreuil and Arras - it too has bollards down the middle in places, but this is on the S4 sections. It's quite odd, I'll upload pictures later.

I saw that road last week - it's most odd. What you have is *almost* a dual-carriageway, with 2 lanes each way, and that would normally have a 110 km/h limit. But because there is no real central divide, it's single-carriageway, so it's 90 km/h

Parts of it *are* real dual-carriageway, of course, but west of Hesdin, it's so obviously a half-finished job. It has "expressway" restrictions, but most of it is S2 with no overtaking, broken up by the odd km or two of D2. Sad.

scynthius726 · Post by **scynthius726** » Tue Feb 20, 2007 11:59

A303Paul wrote:Thats fine but why put the posts up. I dont notice a plague of people driving along motorway hard shoulders which dont have such posts (or the many S2 + HS roads in RoI ad South Africa

You obviously haven't done much driving in South Africa then

People use the HS on S2+HS roads for a sensible reason there, though - to let faster traffic past. Exceptionally polite, although it could cause problems in darkness if the hard shoulder suddenly came to an end.

As for motorway hard shoulders, they're used as a minibus taxi lane over there!

Steven · Post by **Steven** » Tue Feb 20, 2007 12:38

There's some really weird hatching on the A519 in Staffordshire.

It was standard centreline hatching, but one side was dotted lines, and the other side was solid.

I know what they're getting at, but what's wrong with the standard lines without the extra hatching?

flyingscot · Post by **flyingscot** » Tue Feb 20, 2007 13:11

DavidBrown wrote:Another Update.

Last week, I took this photo:

Note one post (first one on the left) has been hit and obliterated. However, whilst driving this road last night (no picture this time), I noticed that at least half a dozen or so posts have been damaged beyond repair - some have completely come off like the one pictured, and some have snapped in half. It looks a complete mess, and there is a fair bit of debris in the hatched area now.

If they're not replaced, they'l be all gone soon, and if they are, how much money will need to be spent replacing them this often?

I looked at this and thought- surely if they really wanted to put the markers in they could just do it with one row in the middle- giving sapce to pass, but discouraging vehicles overtaking.

highwaymana31 · Post by **highwaymana31** » Tue Feb 20, 2007 18:18

DavidBrown wrote:Another Update.

Last week, I took this photo:

Note one post (first one on the left) has been hit and obliterated. However, whilst driving this road last night (no picture this time), I noticed that at least half a dozen or so posts have been damaged beyond repair - some have completely come off like the one pictured, and some have snapped in half. It looks a complete mess, and there is a fair bit of debris in the hatched area now.

If they're not replaced, they'l be all gone soon, and if they are, how much money will need to be spent replacing them this often?

I assume from the kink in the safety fence just in front of the blue lorry that the fence has been hit, seems the safety scheme is having results

jcpren · Post by **jcpren** » Tue Feb 20, 2007 18:41

highwaymana31 wrote:I assume from the kink in the safety fence just in front of the blue lorry that the fence has been hit, seems the safety scheme is having results

Looks to me like the fence has been built that way to avoid a manhole cover, and its posts all look intact...

highwaymana31 · Post by **highwaymana31** » Tue Feb 20, 2007 20:06

jcpren wrote:
highwaymana31 wrote:I assume from the kink in the safety fence just in front of the blue lorry that the fence has been hit, seems the safety scheme is having results
Looks to me like the fence has been built that way to avoid a manhole cover, and its posts all look intact...

I agree the posts could be intact, there are ways of spanning manholes etc by changing spacings of posts or using surface mounted posts

RichieGraham · Post by **RichieGraham** » Tue Feb 20, 2007 21:37

highwaymana31 wrote:
jcpren wrote:
highwaymana31 wrote:I assume from the kink in the safety fence just in front of the blue lorry that the fence has been hit, seems the safety scheme is having results
Looks to me like the fence has been built that way to avoid a manhole cover, and its posts all look intact...
I agree the posts could be intact, there are ways of spanning manholes etc by changing spacings of posts or using surface mounted posts

Yeah, but this is DCC we're talking here

DavidBrown · Post by **DavidBrown** » Tue Feb 20, 2007 23:34

As of today:

At least a dozen posts have been snapped or are missing, and a further 10 or so posts have their orange reflective patches either missing or are damaged.

To be honest, it looks a complete mess.

BigToe · Post by **BigToe** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 00:26

You mean it didn't look a complete mess before?

Plan:

1) Get a motorbike
2) Overtake someone within the bollards
3) "Accidentally" hit some debris from the bollards (of course, you'll need protective gear)
4) Sue, saying the posts are dangerous and the markings don't prohibit overtaking
5) Profit! (either by the posts being removed, or being replaced(along with another 20,000 options)... so maybe not profit)

PeterA5145 · Post by **PeterA5145** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 00:34

Folks on SafeSpeed are suggesting that an elderly Volvo might be the best tactic

RichieGraham · Post by **RichieGraham** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 14:57

Squirrel (SafeSpeed Forums) wrote:I have friends in Torrington, not far from Barnstaple. Coming back one night along that very section of road I got stuck behind a broken down HGV.

For about 2 hours.

And nothing could move, nothing could overtake it.

Utter utter stupidity.

I then had another 2 hours drive to get home (I live just north of Bristol).