S3 Suicide lane

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davemase
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S3 Suicide lane

Post by davemase »

Coming back from Devon on Saturday and about 1 mile west of Minehead I was amazed to find a section of S3 road with a blind spot halfway along it due to a large 'hump' obscuring the road further on.

http://g.co/maps/x894n is the actual location however it doesn't show the blind spot.

Are there any other examples of S3's with blind spots on them still about? Or have they all been removed now.

It was a lovely straight section of road, just perfect for :driving:
WHBM
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Re: S3 Suicide lane

Post by WHBM »

I've known that section since the late 1960s, always been the only part of the A39 around there where you can overtake. Used to be another west of Williton but it was marked down to two.

Three lane roads were fine in their time and I never heard of any head-on collision between opposing overtakers. Where they did have an accident history was at junctions with minor lanes, or access to premises, where a right-turner might be slowing/stopped in the centre; the collisions were as likely to come from behind as from the front.

It's the same as overtaking on an S2 - used to be commonplace but when I do it nowadays, passengers are surprised at at, whereas it used to be universal. This attitude then gets into Highway Authorities. Fortunately the Somerset CC engineer who completely wrecked the A358 from Taunton to Williton with a succession of inappropriate 40 mph limits in the country, and excessive traffic calming measures, never got west of Minehead - I suppose he drove so slowly and cautiously he always had to turn round by there to get back to the office in Taunton for finishing time :)
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Truvelo
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Re: S3 Suicide lane

Post by Truvelo »

If it's where I think it is then it's the same stretch as this I pictured in 2001. I'm surprised the centre lane hasn't become a right turn lane.
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davemase
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Re: S3 Suicide lane

Post by davemase »

Its definately the same stretch as in your photo Truvelo.

There's a good driving section for about a couple of miles east of Minehead as well just before you hit Dunster. Afterwards you hit a few villages and the road gets quite twisty.

Speed limit drops to 50 through the Quantock hills (which is justifiable), however it stays at 50 thereafter until you reach Bridgwater, even on the bypasses round Nether Stowey and Cannington which are decent S2's :x
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A42_Sparks
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Re: S3 Suicide lane

Post by A42_Sparks »

Was there ever any official guidlines or 'etiquette' to using S3 roads when they were more commonplace? They do seem an incredibly risky arrangement to modern eyes, particularly your example Truvelo.
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Re: S3 Suicide lane

Post by geo449 »

davemase wrote: Speed limit drops to 50 through the Quantock hills (which is justifiable), however it stays at 50 thereafter until you reach Bridgwater, even on the bypasses round Nether Stowey and Cannington which are decent S2's :x
The Cannington bypass is a 50 now? The no good :censored: :censored: 's!

I will always remember the time back in 2008 when I managed to get my (at the time) 10 year old Mondeo (R.I.P.) up the 33% hill just to the west. I don't think I got out of 2nd gear until the road had leveled out about a mile after that very steep hill section! Might've explained why I needed a new clutch...
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davemase
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Re: S3 Suicide lane

Post by davemase »

geo449 wrote:
I will always remember the time back in 2008 when I managed to get my (at the time) 10 year old Mondeo (R.I.P.) up the 33% hill just to the west. I don't think I got out of 2nd gear until the road had leveled out about a mile after that very steep hill section! Might've explained why I needed a new clutch...
Which hill are you thinking about? Porlock or one of the ones outside lynton/lymouth?
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Re: S3 Suicide lane

Post by WHBM »

davemase wrote:Which hill are you thinking about? Porlock or one of the ones outside Lynton/Lynmouth?
I've known those hills all my life as well, and have family stories about them going back to the late 1920s. Don't want to pollute this S3 thread, start a separate thread on Porlock Hill etc if anyone would like to discuss more :)
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Re: S3 Suicide lane

Post by nick_dunn »

A42_Sparks wrote:Was there ever any official guidlines or 'etiquette' to using S3 roads when they were more commonplace? They do seem an incredibly risky arrangement to modern eyes, particularly your example Truvelo.
It looks like the writing was on the wall even back in 1976 when the Highway Code was reviewed in the House of Lords.
Hansard Dec 1976 (paragraph 736).
Hansard wrote:The noble Lord, Lord Mowbray and Stourton, was speaking about roads that are mixed up between single carriageway and three lanes. I believe that the three-lane highway is one of the most dangerous roads there is. I strongly advocate that, where there is a three-lane highway with a middle lane where overtaking is optional, there should be no option—for one mile, the traffic on the side should be allowed to overtake and for the next mile the traffic on the other side should be allowed to do so. In other words, there should be double white lines on all three-lane highways. There is one piece of three-lane highway four miles from where I live, and on that stretch there have been three accidents and four people killed in the last three months, entirely because nobody knows who has the priority on a three-lane highway, because there is no priority.
My own view is that if you overtake on a S3, you keep your eyes fixed on the horizon and go like hell!
I regularly used to drive from Bridgwater to Lynmouth and back about 5 years ago, usually in the pitch black - that was not much fun. It was pretty pointless overtaking even if you could because you'd inevitably catch up with the next batch of traffic and have to start again.
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Re: S3 Suicide lane

Post by roadrunner »

I much prefer a wide road with only a dashed centre marking. it usually prevents or makes the "woolley brigade" think twice, about overtaking, whilst allowing more adventurous and observant drivers to overtake safely, without having to worry if some fool who is not looking ahead but watching a white line, will suddenly pull out into the path of someone who is already overtaking.
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Re: S3 Suicide lane

Post by hughster »

There's a great example here at the A149 Queen Elizabeth Way east of King's Lynn of a former S3 now reduced to S2. I don't remember it myself, but the road was clearly three lanes wide for most of its life before being narrowed sometime during the last 20 years. The original S3 edge markings and filled-in catseye holes are still visible along the road's length.

What always puzzles me about this road is what made the engineers decide that the best solution to the "suicide lane" problem was to reduce the capacity of the road by narrowing it to S2 rather than making it S2+1 with alternating priority as described in the Hansard quote above. Being such a busy route to and from the North Norfolk coastal resorts, at the height of Summer there are always significant tailbacks due to large numbers of slow-moving caravans, so it seems they've just exchanged one problem for another.

The road remains at its full width with an intact running surface on the shoulders, no physical obstacles to remove and no right turns to accommodate; surely the meagre cost of re-painting it for S2+1 and installing new catseyes would be more than met by the economic benefits of improving the capacity of this important route?
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Re: S3 Suicide lane

Post by Fenlander »

I remember that one from my youth, we used it quite a lot during the summer going back and forth to grandad's caravan at Hunstanton. As a child it always amazed me that there weren't massive piles of crashed cars along the way, it just seemed to work.
Nowadays I take the A16 to Skegness, there's a S2 section between Sutterton roundabout (A17) and Boston where the road is quite clearly marked as S2 with solid white lines and a hard shoulder but most of the slower traffic (farm & lorries) often straddle the white line to open up the magic middle lane for overtaking.
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Re: S3 Suicide lane

Post by Glen »

roadrunner wrote:I much prefer a wide road with only a dashed centre marking. it usually prevents or makes the "woolley brigade" think twice, about overtaking, whilst allowing more adventurous and observant drivers to overtake safely, without having to worry if some fool who is not looking ahead but watching a white line, will suddenly pull out into the path of someone who is already overtaking.
The problem with WS2+1 is when some drivers don't stay far enough left and drive in the centre of the lane or worse, near the centre line when they have no intention of overtaking.
But, yes when people keep a good lane position it does make overtaking easier as the ditherers stay out the way.
hughster wrote:The road remains at its full width with an intact running surface on the shoulders, no physical obstacles to remove and no right turns to accommodate; surely the meagre cost of re-painting it for S2+1 and installing new catseyes would be more than met by the economic benefits of improving the capacity of this important route?
That example looks rather narrow for three lanes in any configuration, it is basically a modern standard S2 with hard strips as it is laid out now. That can't be much more than 10m and certainly nowhere near the 13.5m that modern WS2+1 is.

Could you imagine being between two lorries on a carriageway that wide with not much room for error from any vehicle and equally narrow "lorry shaking" laybys which vehicles three-abreast would be literally scraping past.
If slower traffic is considerate it will stay slightly left to allow traffic looking to overtake some more forward visibility, but a road where large vehicles are constantly on the edge line with a third lane in the middle is hardly ideal.
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Re: S3 Suicide lane

Post by Truvelo »

hughster wrote:There's a great example here at the A149 Queen Elizabeth Way east of King's Lynn of a former S3 now reduced to S2. I don't remember it myself, but the road was clearly three lanes wide for most of its life before being narrowed sometime during the last 20 years. The original S3 edge markings and filled-in catseye holes are still visible along the road's length.
Once again I took a picture of that in 2001 when the old lane markings were still visible. Judging by how faded they are I would say 20 years is about right.
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WHBM
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Re: S3 Suicide lane

Post by WHBM »

One of the most surprising S3s remaining is Constitution Hill, right in the centre of London.

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=Westmin ... 3,,0,13.05
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Re: S3 Suicide lane

Post by SteveA30 »

Here is my A39 S3 pic, taken in August, almost at the top of the hill. The road is so quiet, the middle lane must see little use anyway.
There is still one on the A30 at the east end of the Honiton bypass.
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Re: S3 Suicide lane

Post by Stevie D »

I was surprised by the S3 on the A39 when I went down to Somerset earlier this year, although having made use of it in both directions, it felt safer than I would have expected. That's partly because a torquey TDi gets past a single 40mph dodderer in five seconds flat, so I only needed a very short length of the suicide lane to overtake. Had I been driving a slower or heavier car, or wanting to overtake a slightly faster-moving car or a tail of traffic, it might have been a different game.
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hughster
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Re: S3 Suicide lane

Post by hughster »

Glen wrote:That example looks rather narrow for three lanes in any configuration, it is basically a modern standard S2 with hard strips as it is laid out now. That can't be much more than 10m and certainly nowhere near the 13.5m that modern WS2+1 is.

Could you imagine being between two lorries on a carriageway that wide with not much room for error from any vehicle and equally narrow "lorry shaking" laybys which vehicles three-abreast would be literally scraping past.
If slower traffic is considerate it will stay slightly left to allow traffic looking to overtake some more forward visibility, but a road where large vehicles are constantly on the edge line with a third lane in the middle is hardly ideal.
I'd agree that it's not WS2+1, but it's certainly just as wide as any other S2+1 of similar age I've ever seen and I never feel uneasy when passing between wide vehicles on such roads.

Compare the reduced-to-S2 A149 (first) with an S2+1 example of apparently equal width on the A47 near Wardley (second):

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Re: S3 Suicide lane

Post by bothar »

I remember seeing an article somewhere, in an old Reader's Digest I think, arguing for 3 lane roads with alternating priority. Apart from the usual markings this added the word ON in the centre lane where one side had priority, which appeared as NO from the other side.

Has this been discussed here before? Was it ever used?
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Re: S3 Suicide lane

Post by wrinkly »

I haven't heard of an ON/NO road marking being tried out.

The idea of alternating sections was often suggested in the 60s when there were still quite a lot of 3-lane stretches on major trunk roads. An experiment was tried at a few sites but I think accidents went up and the trial was cut short.

Something similar has happened in more recent years with the development (initially in Scotland) of the WS2+1 layout, which is often built with alternating sections.
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