What does this sign mean ?

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Re: What does this sign mean ?

Post by Nicholas »

Bryn666 wrote:It's why I like the French approach of slapping a roundabout in at the first opportunity so you have to slow down for the village: https://goo.gl/maps/XqPCpiFTY4D2
A lot of villages have the more British approach - stick speed humps eveywhere.
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Re: What does this sign mean ?

Post by michael769 »

Bomag wrote:
Err nope. Under TSRGD the relevant national body can authorise a sign of a different nature or can add a meaning to a prescribed sign. What it cannot do is authorise one prescribed sign to have the same meaning as another prescribed sign, nor can an authorisation amend a requirement or restriction in the Regs. An S.I. would be needed for that. Finally an authorisation is limited to a single authority, anything wider would also need to be an S.I.

This is all covered in Section U6.1.2 in TSM Chapter 8 Part 3
I know we've had this conversation before - so I will simply reiterate that I do not agree with your interpretation of the the law in this case.

At the end of the day it would be up to a Scottish court to decide if the Scottish Government's approach is lawful or not. Until/unless the situation is tested in court both of our positions are mere opinions not facts.

What is a fact, however, is that TSM is guidance on the DFT's interpretation of the law - it has no statutory basis whatsoever.
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Re: What does this sign mean ?

Post by Bomag »

michael769 wrote:
Bomag wrote:
Err nope. Under TSRGD the relevant national body can authorise a sign of a different nature or can add a meaning to a prescribed sign. What it cannot do is authorise one prescribed sign to have the same meaning as another prescribed sign, nor can an authorisation amend a requirement or restriction in the Regs. An S.I. would be needed for that. Finally an authorisation is limited to a single authority, anything wider would also need to be an S.I.

This is all covered in Section U6.1.2 in TSM Chapter 8 Part 3
I know we've had this conversation before - so I will simply reiterate that I do not agree with your interpretation of the the law in this case.

At the end of the day it would be up to a Scottish court to decide if the Scottish Government's approach is lawful or not. Until/unless the situation is tested in court both of our positions are mere opinions not facts.

What is a fact, however, is that TSM is guidance on the DFT's interpretation of the law - it has no statutory basis whatsoever.
Yes you have mentioned this before and I have given it the weighing which it justifies. It is interesting that none of your arguments have ever been reflected by those Scottish organisations which are equivalent to DfT centre or who undertake the Overseeing Organisation role.
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Re: What does this sign mean ?

Post by AndyB »

Countdown signs are not on backing boards.

The assembly is a single sign, consisting of a normal countdown marker (either green with a white border or white with a black border) extended upwards, with a speed limit roundel on the extension.

It isn't replacing an existing sign, and ignoring the sign carries no legal penalty - it is after all the case that speed limit signs only impose a restriction where they stand alone or are placed on a backing board (which must be grey, yellow or luminous yellow and must not have a border.) After all, the combined 30/NSL and speed camera sign is not a regulatory sign.

In this case, the blanket authorisation is to make it lawful to erect a sign that has not been specified in the regulations, not to replace another sign with the same meaning.

What it does do is address the need in some locations to extend restricted roads more than is necessary due to roadside development - because there is advance warning at 300m, 200m and 100m the speed limit signs can be placed at the end of development rather than round the next corner and probably where the 300m marker would otherwise have been. I'm sure its use would remove the need for some 40mph gateways, but these days the sheer amount of roadside development means that there is a point on most roads approaching settlements where a speed limit is appropriate but 30mph is ridiculous.

To go back to the original post, I think I know why they use option 2. First and foremost, it's to replace the old blue worded "xxxxxx limit y measurement z miles ahead" signs which I think were used to avoid drivers misreading them as the restriction starting immediately.

So why not reduce to option 1? I think it's to do two things: to emphasise that the restriction is coming and it's up to you if you can't get turned before you reach the actual restriction; and the restriction has not yet started.

The significance of the second point is what happens when the supplementary plate gets nicked. Granted, you cannot be prosecuted for disobeying a restriction that is (apparently) signed but is not supported by a TRO, but the single assembly is harder to muck about with - and unlike the distance supplementary plate, it's prescribed ;)
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Re: What does this sign mean ?

Post by pat biegaj »

jusme wrote: Sun Dec 17, 2017 16:38 So what does this mean...

vlcsnap-2017-12-17-16h31m14s322.jpg

:stir:
this sign means that you are approaching a 60mph speed limit in 300yds.
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Re: What does this sign mean ?

Post by traffic-light-man »

Do the temporary '50 1/2 mile' type signs for road works still get much use these days (if they're even still in the regs)? I don't think I've seen any for what feels like about 20 years and I do sometimes think they'd be useful, but then again I don't think they'd do anything to help the '90mph then slam on at the first SPECS' kind of characters.
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Re: What does this sign mean ?

Post by Bryn666 »

traffic-light-man wrote: Thu Jan 13, 2022 10:53 Do the temporary '50 1/2 mile' type signs for road works still get much use these days (if they're even still in the regs)? I don't think I've seen any for what feels like about 20 years and I do sometimes think they'd be useful, but then again I don't think they'd do anything to help the '90mph then slam on at the first SPECS' kind of characters.
They're not in the regs any more, the method now is to start the lower speed limit between the 1 mile and 800 yard warnings of the work, with the first enforcement camera not far after that. The idea now is to get everyone doing 50 before the cones, not as they arrive there. Your mileage may vary on how effective this is in practice.
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Re: What does this sign mean ?

Post by Bomag »

traffic-light-man wrote: Thu Jan 13, 2022 10:53 Do the temporary '50 1/2 mile' type signs for road works still get much use these days (if they're even still in the regs)? I don't think I've seen any for what feels like about 20 years and I do sometimes think they'd be useful, but then again I don't think they'd do anything to help the '90mph then slam on at the first SPECS' kind of characters.
Diagram 7290 was killed off with extreme prejudice in the 2016 Regs. When the speed limit terminals were moved to 50m in front of the first lane control sign the impact of the advance notice sign was to increase the spread of speeds at the terminal signs i.e some people slowed down early, others put their foot down. Now the spread of speeds is more concentrated i.e. better, and with enforcement starting after the first repeater there is plenty of time to slow down.
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Re: What does this sign mean ?

Post by Conekicker »

Bryn666 wrote: Thu Jan 13, 2022 13:14
traffic-light-man wrote: Thu Jan 13, 2022 10:53 Do the temporary '50 1/2 mile' type signs for road works still get much use these days (if they're even still in the regs)? I don't think I've seen any for what feels like about 20 years and I do sometimes think they'd be useful, but then again I don't think they'd do anything to help the '90mph then slam on at the first SPECS' kind of characters.
They're not in the regs any more, the method now is to start the lower speed limit between the 1 mile and 800 yard warnings of the work, with the first enforcement camera not far after that. The idea now is to get everyone doing 50 before the cones, not as they arrive there. Your mileage may vary on how effective this is in practice.
It's very effective.

Prior to 2006, when the speed limit reduction was only 100 yards (metres) out from the first cone, there were numerous collisions from around 200m or so out from the first cone up to just past the start of the coning. This was due to traffic rushing to get past slower moving HGVs prior to getting to the works as well as leaving it to the last minute before getting into the appropriate lane. In short, there were too many things happening at high but reducing speed in a very short length of road and thus accidents happened. In my time on site it was a depressingly regular occurrence.

In 2006, moving the speed limit change out to 50m in advance of the first sign at road works indicating a restriction or lane closure greatly reduced these collisions as traffic had typically either 850 or 650m of road before they came across the coning to sort themselves out at the lower speed.

Obviously the presence of speed cameras also had a big impact on the amount of speeding that occurred as well. Perhaps not so much with spot-speed cameras such as GATSO but very definitely the case with average speed kit.
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Re: What does this sign mean ?

Post by FosseWay »

When I was in the UK in October I hired a car which, among a number of other features that belong somewhere on the "questionable to pointless" scale, displayed in the driver information module what speed limit currently applied to the road I was on. One of the repeated mistakes it made was to interpret roundels with countdowns as applicable now, not in x hundred yards, and it did this regardless of the colour of the roundel. It made various other mistakes as well, both excusable (such as misinterpreting or missing altogether dirty or partially obscured signs) and less so (reading roundels off the back of lorries or on one occasion telling me I could do some ridiculously high speed because it was reading a sign off the railway I was driving parallel to), but the difference here is that it was interpreting a deliberately erected, good-condition sign intended for consumption by drivers travelling on the road and in the direction I was travelling.

Now, I could clearly simply ignore what the car was telling me because I have both eyes and a brain in my head, and the car didn't do anything other than flash a speed roundel at me. But it's more of an issue if a driver suddenly reacts to what the car tells them without having paid attention to the actual signage (I know we'd rather such drivers stopped driving or learnt better, but...) and definitely a problem if in the future cars are going to physically react in some way, such as slowing down smartly, if they detect that they are exceeding the posted limit.

I haven't driven a car with this feature in Sweden, but I imagine precisely the same issue would arise here, where it is entirely normal to get a speed limit roundel with a plate beneath reading "400 m" (or whatever). What, if anything, can be done about this? In the discussion above, I agree both with those who say that UK signage regulations make it needlessly complicated/difficult to sign limit changes in advance, and with those who say that being able to do so is effective and preferable to moving the actual limit start further out, where its purpose is less intuitive. But neither the current semi-authorised UK method nor the European roundel + distance plate method works with speed limit detection systems in vehicles.
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Re: What does this sign mean ?

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FosseWay wrote: Fri Jan 14, 2022 09:14Now, I could clearly simply ignore what the car was telling me because I have both eyes and a brain in my head, and the car didn't do anything other than flash a speed roundel at me. But it's more of an issue if a driver suddenly reacts to what the car tells them without having paid attention to the actual signage (I know we'd rather such drivers stopped driving or learnt better, but...) and definitely a problem if in the future cars are going to physically react in some way, such as slowing down smartly, if they detect that they are exceeding the posted limit.
There's a similar and related issue with mapping apps and satnavs showing a speed limit. In the case of Google Maps, speed limit data has been scraped from somewhere (Streetview probably, and maybe also sources on the web) and the map will show a speed limit roundel as you drive along. I know people who routinely check it to see what the speed limit is when they're driving. The trouble is that it's often wrong - either because the limit has changed at some point in the last few years (so it shows 30 when the limit is now 20), or because you're on a Smart Motorway where the limit is variable, or just because the data is crap for all the reasons you posted and many others. I'm increasingly of the view that it's well intentioned but ultimately misleading and I'd rather see them get rid of it.
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Re: What does this sign mean ?

Post by FosseWay »

Chris5156 wrote: Fri Jan 14, 2022 09:19
FosseWay wrote: Fri Jan 14, 2022 09:14Now, I could clearly simply ignore what the car was telling me because I have both eyes and a brain in my head, and the car didn't do anything other than flash a speed roundel at me. But it's more of an issue if a driver suddenly reacts to what the car tells them without having paid attention to the actual signage (I know we'd rather such drivers stopped driving or learnt better, but...) and definitely a problem if in the future cars are going to physically react in some way, such as slowing down smartly, if they detect that they are exceeding the posted limit.
There's a similar and related issue with mapping apps and satnavs showing a speed limit. In the case of Google Maps, speed limit data has been scraped from somewhere (Streetview probably, and maybe also sources on the web) and the map will show a speed limit roundel as you drive along. I know people who routinely check it to see what the speed limit is when they're driving. The trouble is that it's often wrong - either because the limit has changed at some point in the last few years (so it shows 30 when the limit is now 20), or because you're on a Smart Motorway where the limit is variable, or just because the data is crap for all the reasons you posted and many others. I'm increasingly of the view that it's well intentioned but ultimately misleading and I'd rather see them get rid of it.
I didn't mention it before as it wasn't specially relevant to the issue at hand, but by far the commonest error the car I had made was to fail to show any limit at all, because it had forgotten the last sign it passed and couldn't interpret the environment properly. Unsurprisingly, in the UK this happens most often in urban 30 limits and rural NSL, as these environments require no explicit repeater signage. But different countries have different signage conventions, and some countries have signage practices to which it would be overly generous to apply the term "convention" (yes, Sweden, I mean you). The only way I can see this kind of function working in an even remotely accurate enough way to be legally acceptable is if roads authorities maintain an up-to-date database of every road in their jurisdiction with GPS data at every speed limit change, and for all cars' navigation systems to faultlessly interrogate and use this information in real time. That involves a number of technical and human factors challenges, even before you address the questions of "government tracking by the back door" or simply the existence of older vehicles on the road without this technology.

It all seems rather a sledgehammer to crack a nut, when it's demonstrably possible to (a) sign speed limits properly (which may or may not be the same as "according to the current rules in the jurisdiction in question"), (b) engineer roads so that drivers naturally tend to drive at the desired speed, and (c) enforce where necessary.
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Re: What does this sign mean ?

Post by Bryn666 »

Conekicker wrote: Fri Jan 14, 2022 00:00
Bryn666 wrote: Thu Jan 13, 2022 13:14
traffic-light-man wrote: Thu Jan 13, 2022 10:53 Do the temporary '50 1/2 mile' type signs for road works still get much use these days (if they're even still in the regs)? I don't think I've seen any for what feels like about 20 years and I do sometimes think they'd be useful, but then again I don't think they'd do anything to help the '90mph then slam on at the first SPECS' kind of characters.
They're not in the regs any more, the method now is to start the lower speed limit between the 1 mile and 800 yard warnings of the work, with the first enforcement camera not far after that. The idea now is to get everyone doing 50 before the cones, not as they arrive there. Your mileage may vary on how effective this is in practice.
It's very effective.

Prior to 2006, when the speed limit reduction was only 100 yards (metres) out from the first cone, there were numerous collisions from around 200m or so out from the first cone up to just past the start of the coning. This was due to traffic rushing to get past slower moving HGVs prior to getting to the works as well as leaving it to the last minute before getting into the appropriate lane. In short, there were too many things happening at high but reducing speed in a very short length of road and thus accidents happened. In my time on site it was a depressingly regular occurrence.

In 2006, moving the speed limit change out to 50m in advance of the first sign at road works indicating a restriction or lane closure greatly reduced these collisions as traffic had typically either 850 or 650m of road before they came across the coning to sort themselves out at the lower speed.

Obviously the presence of speed cameras also had a big impact on the amount of speeding that occurred as well. Perhaps not so much with spot-speed cameras such as GATSO but very definitely the case with average speed kit.
Yes, agreed it is very effective if there's average cameras but it's not so good if it's still signed as a Police Speed Check Area like the M55 J2 construction works are, which baffles me as they're over 2 miles long and involve narrow lanes and no hard shoulders. This is a weird inconsistency, normally roadworks in whatever Area 10 is called this week are heavily enforced.
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Re: What does this sign mean ?

Post by jnty »

FosseWay wrote: Fri Jan 14, 2022 09:40
Chris5156 wrote: Fri Jan 14, 2022 09:19
FosseWay wrote: Fri Jan 14, 2022 09:14Now, I could clearly simply ignore what the car was telling me because I have both eyes and a brain in my head, and the car didn't do anything other than flash a speed roundel at me. But it's more of an issue if a driver suddenly reacts to what the car tells them without having paid attention to the actual signage (I know we'd rather such drivers stopped driving or learnt better, but...) and definitely a problem if in the future cars are going to physically react in some way, such as slowing down smartly, if they detect that they are exceeding the posted limit.
There's a similar and related issue with mapping apps and satnavs showing a speed limit. In the case of Google Maps, speed limit data has been scraped from somewhere (Streetview probably, and maybe also sources on the web) and the map will show a speed limit roundel as you drive along. I know people who routinely check it to see what the speed limit is when they're driving. The trouble is that it's often wrong - either because the limit has changed at some point in the last few years (so it shows 30 when the limit is now 20), or because you're on a Smart Motorway where the limit is variable, or just because the data is crap for all the reasons you posted and many others. I'm increasingly of the view that it's well intentioned but ultimately misleading and I'd rather see them get rid of it.
I didn't mention it before as it wasn't specially relevant to the issue at hand, but by far the commonest error the car I had made was to fail to show any limit at all, because it had forgotten the last sign it passed and couldn't interpret the environment properly. Unsurprisingly, in the UK this happens most often in urban 30 limits and rural NSL, as these environments require no explicit repeater signage. But different countries have different signage conventions, and some countries have signage practices to which it would be overly generous to apply the term "convention" (yes, Sweden, I mean you). The only way I can see this kind of function working in an even remotely accurate enough way to be legally acceptable is if roads authorities maintain an up-to-date database of every road in their jurisdiction with GPS data at every speed limit change, and for all cars' navigation systems to faultlessly interrogate and use this information in real time. That involves a number of technical and human factors challenges, even before you address the questions of "government tracking by the back door" or simply the existence of older vehicles on the road without this technology.

It all seems rather a sledgehammer to crack a nut, when it's demonstrably possible to (a) sign speed limits properly (which may or may not be the same as "according to the current rules in the jurisdiction in question"), (b) engineer roads so that drivers naturally tend to drive at the desired speed, and (c) enforce where necessary.
I think the 'speed limit database' thing is the only practical solution to this and, as discussed in other threads, has been largely achieved privately. Accuracy may not be great yet but I suspect it will become a necessity as this becomes standard on most cars, to the point that the database(s) will become, either de jure or de facto, the authoritative source of limits (ie. "that bit of road is still signed 40 but everyone does 30 because that's what it says on the database(s)", or "that road's gone down to 30 but everyone's still doing 40 because the database hasn't been updated yet.")

I've often wondered how these systems interpret the A9 50mph HGV limits - I think I got my answer the other week. On the way north I was behind a fairly modern car presumably fitted with cruise control based on one of these systems; it cruised at an exact 50mph for the whole of the first single carriageway section north of Perth. I'm not sure whether the driver was unaware or simply wanted a quiet life and deferred to their tech.

Having said that, on the way home I was behind an older car doing almost exactly the same thing; except it would drift up to 60mph and then put the brakes on randomly (and for every average speed camera!) Despite actually slowing me down less than the driver above, this one was somehow much more irritating purely because it seemed to be totally down to driver ignorance!
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