Highways England "Go Left" radio campaign

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Bryn666
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Re: Highways England "Go Left" radio campaign

Post by Bryn666 »

frediculous_biggs wrote: Thu Apr 01, 2021 14:26
Glen wrote: Thu Apr 01, 2021 13:15
frediculous_biggs wrote: Thu Apr 01, 2021 13:07 I thought the Village People had the original?
Yes, but it's based on the Pet Shop Boys version.
Really? Village People released theirs in 1979, Pet Shop Boys in 1993!


Anyway, is this campaign about people moving into refuge areas, or simply improving lane discipline and "middle lane hoggers"?

As long as we don't start seeing MS3/4s wasted with more distracting info
The synth used in the background is classic PSB. The Village People didn't have that. Let's not get into a detailed discussion about the fact that PSB covers are better than the originals, because you will lose as soon as Always On My Mind is trotted out :wink:
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Re: Highways England "Go Left" radio campaign

Post by trickstat »

frediculous_biggs wrote: Thu Apr 01, 2021 14:26
Glen wrote: Thu Apr 01, 2021 13:15
frediculous_biggs wrote: Thu Apr 01, 2021 13:07 I thought the Village People had the original?
Yes, but it's based on the Pet Shop Boys version.
Really? Village People released theirs in 1979, Pet Shop Boys in 1993!
I think because it uses their arrangement, the Pet Shop Boys will hold some of the musical copyright. IIRC there was an advert a few years back (in the 90s?) that used the song "It must be Love", that was written and originally recorded by Labi Siffre and later covered by Madness. The version in the advert used Madness's arrangement and they successfully sued for a share of the royalties from the makers of the advert.
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Re: Highways England "Go Left" radio campaign

Post by jackal »

Patrick Harper wrote: Thu Apr 01, 2021 14:43 Anyone who's hooked on the anti-smart motorway hysteria will take ads like this as an insult, but for the rest of us it's harmless.
My thoughts exactly.

I have one quibble, which is that it says (correctly) to exit using the passenger door but doesn't actually show this - just a fraction of a second of him starting to clamber over would have reinforced the message.

Otherwise it's very sound and straightforwardly presented advice. Obvious to people on SABRE, sure, but the typical road user is not a registered 'road enthusiast'.

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Re: Highways England "Go Left" radio campaign

Post by Piatkow »

I don't listen to commercial radio so I have only seen the TV version. The first few times I really had no idea what it was about.
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Re: Highways England "Go Left" radio campaign

Post by Chris Bertram »

trickstat wrote: Thu Apr 01, 2021 14:55
frediculous_biggs wrote: Thu Apr 01, 2021 14:26
Glen wrote: Thu Apr 01, 2021 13:15
Yes, but it's based on the Pet Shop Boys version.
Really? Village People released theirs in 1979, Pet Shop Boys in 1993!
I think because it uses their arrangement, the Pet Shop Boys will hold some of the musical copyright. IIRC there was an advert a few years back (in the 90s?) that used the song "It must be Love", that was written and originally recorded by Labi Siffre and later covered by Madness. The version in the advert used Madness's arrangement performance and they successfully sued for a share of the royalties from the makers of the advert.
FTFY. It's the difference between *intellectual* copyright (the writer of the song has this) and *mechanical* copyright (the performer on the record has this). They used to have different rules of expiry - for the former it expires 70 (I think) years after the death of the last person involved in the creation of the work, for the latter it used to be 50 years from the issue of the recording, though I have a feeling that that may have changed* after Cliff Richard and some others had a whinge about it expiring on their earlier records before they were dead. In the case of It Must Be Love, both Labi Siffre and Madness should be entitled to royalty payments.

* It did change in 2013 to 70 years for works not at that date already in the public domain.
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Re: Highways England "Go Left" radio campaign

Post by Glen »

frediculous_biggs wrote: Thu Apr 01, 2021 14:26 Really? Village People released theirs in 1979, Pet Shop Boys in 1993!
The music in the advert is based on the Pet Shop Boys' electronic cover, not the Village People's disco original.
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Re: Highways England "Go Left" radio campaign

Post by OLD GIT »

ChrisH wrote: Thu Apr 01, 2021 13:34 Highways England planning teams: "Hard shoulders are a dangerous relic and we should get rid of them."

Highways England comms teams: "Go left and pull over on the hard shoulder if you need to stop."

:idea:
I'd think that some of the brain dead morons on HE team should try a breakdown ( as I did some years ago on a Motorway with a hard shoulder), where the car looses power- mine was as a result of por garage work, where a drive shaft detached sufficiently for vehicle to loose drive, when I was in the middle lane of a three lane motorway. Fortunately I had sufficiently courteous drivers around to let me coast to the hard shoulder. These days, thee would be no hard shoulder ( unless I was very lucky).
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Re: Highways England "Go Left" radio campaign

Post by frediculous_biggs »

Glen wrote: Thu Apr 01, 2021 21:17
frediculous_biggs wrote: Thu Apr 01, 2021 14:26 Really? Village People released theirs in 1979, Pet Shop Boys in 1993!
The music in the advert is based on the Pet Shop Boys' electronic cover, not the Village People's disco original.
Ahh, that makes sense, thanks
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Re: Highways England "Go Left" radio campaign

Post by Gav »

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Re: Highways England "Go Left" radio campaign

Post by Debaser »

Gav wrote: Fri Apr 02, 2021 13:16 https://news.sky.com/story/smart-motorw ... s-12263368

its official then
Sky article wrote:The report, commissioned by lawyers for Claire Mercer whose husband Jason Mercer was killed in accident on a stretch of the M1 without a hard shoulder, found that where all lanes were open to traffic there was a 216% increased chance of being involved in a live lane breakdown.
Debaser wrote:You should get a [Hazard Log] report, once used only for smart motorways, now adopted for all HE schemes, which compares the before and after hazards, explaining the scoring system used. In short, hazards can be scored 0 to 12. The scoring system is exponential. Scores below 7.5 are essentially discounted as together they account for about 10% of the total hazard score and reducing them has no effect on the total risk score of the scheme.

ETA
I draw your attention to hazard H155 'vehicle stops in running lane'. Before score 7.0, after score 7.5, an increase in risk of 216%, but a change from a low score to a low score.
No great secret to anyone involved in any way in the design or commissioning of smart motorways or, thesedays, any HE scheme of any size, where the same risk management process is used.
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Re: Highways England "Go Left" radio campaign

Post by Ruperts Trooper »

OLD GIT wrote: Fri Apr 02, 2021 00:33
ChrisH wrote: Thu Apr 01, 2021 13:34 Highways England planning teams: "Hard shoulders are a dangerous relic and we should get rid of them."

Highways England comms teams: "Go left and pull over on the hard shoulder if you need to stop."

:idea:
I'd think that some of the brain dead morons on HE team should try a breakdown ( as I did some years ago on a Motorway with a hard shoulder), where the car looses power- mine was as a result of por garage work, where a drive shaft detached sufficiently for vehicle to loose drive, when I was in the middle lane of a three lane motorway. Fortunately I had sufficiently courteous drivers around to let me coast to the hard shoulder. These days, thee would be no hard shoulder ( unless I was very lucky).
I've had similar complete failure from the outside lane of 3 where getting across to the hard shoulder was hard enough - anyone needing to do so from lane 4 has no chance of coasting to a refuge.

Question - in the event of complete failure with no hard shoulder is it better to stop in lane 4 and risk being hit by a car at 70+ or stop in lane 1 and risk being hit by a HGV at 56 - physics suggests the former!
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Re: Highways England "Go Left" radio campaign

Post by trickstat »

Ruperts Trooper wrote: Fri Apr 02, 2021 14:29
OLD GIT wrote: Fri Apr 02, 2021 00:33
ChrisH wrote: Thu Apr 01, 2021 13:34 Highways England planning teams: "Hard shoulders are a dangerous relic and we should get rid of them."

Highways England comms teams: "Go left and pull over on the hard shoulder if you need to stop."

:idea:
I'd think that some of the brain dead morons on HE team should try a breakdown ( as I did some years ago on a Motorway with a hard shoulder), where the car looses power- mine was as a result of por garage work, where a drive shaft detached sufficiently for vehicle to loose drive, when I was in the middle lane of a three lane motorway. Fortunately I had sufficiently courteous drivers around to let me coast to the hard shoulder. These days, thee would be no hard shoulder ( unless I was very lucky).
I've had similar complete failure from the outside lane of 3 where getting across to the hard shoulder was hard enough - anyone needing to do so from lane 4 has no chance of coasting to a refuge.

Question - in the event of complete failure with no hard shoulder is it better to stop in lane 4 and risk being hit by a car at 70+ or stop in lane 1 and risk being hit by a HGV at 56 - physics suggests the former!
The former will probably also be more likely to be able to avoid you without hitting another vehicle in the process.
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Re: Highways England "Go Left" radio campaign

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Sky article wrote:The report, commissioned by lawyers for Claire Mercer whose husband Jason Mercer was killed in accident on a stretch of the M1 without a hard shoulder, found that where all lanes were open to traffic there was a 216% increased chance of being involved in a live lane breakdown.
Genius.

The best thing that a report commissioned by lawyers for the relative of a victim of a crash after breaking down on a smart motorway is : you are more likely to break down in a live lane of a motorway that only has live lanes.

I assume there were no more damning outcomes to the report, because there were none reported.

Money well spent if you ask me. Where do I apply to get a job writing reports like that?
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Re: Highways England "Go Left" radio campaign

Post by jackal »

Big L wrote: Fri Apr 02, 2021 17:28Where do I apply to get a job writing reports like that?
By the sound of it they mostly copy-pasted an old HE report and left out the bits that didn't fit their narrative.
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Re: Highways England "Go Left" radio campaign

Post by Scratchwood »

Glen wrote: Thu Apr 01, 2021 21:17
frediculous_biggs wrote: Thu Apr 01, 2021 14:26 Really? Village People released theirs in 1979, Pet Shop Boys in 1993!
The music in the advert is based on the Pet Shop Boys' electronic cover, not the Village People's disco original.
And the 2 squashed insects on the windscreen are a PSB style duo, with one on keyboards...
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Re: Highways England "Go Left" radio campaign

Post by A303Chris »

Just spotted this the cost of the campaign which is planned just during March and April, this year.

HE FOI Go Left Costs

I wonder what else they could have spent £5 million on.
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Re: Highways England "Go Left" radio campaign

Post by Bendo »

What an outstanding waste of money.
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Re: Highways England "Go Left" radio campaign

Post by Conekicker »

A303Chris wrote: Mon Apr 19, 2021 11:36 Just spotted this the cost of the campaign which is planned just during March and April, this year.

HE FOI Go Left Costs

I wonder what else they could have spent £5 million on.
What do most of the sub-headings on that cost breakdown actually mean? Most of it is gobbledegook.
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Re: Highways England "Go Left" radio campaign

Post by jonnyf90 »

Bendo wrote: Mon Apr 19, 2021 13:04 What an outstanding waste of money.
And it's knowledge that any competent driver will already know if they've even glimpsed at a Highway Code.
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Re: Highways England "Go Left" radio campaign

Post by Big L »

Was this from the "innovation budget"?
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