Non motorway traffic forced onto motorway….

[Bryn666]

Currently the A168/A59 junction is partly closed as part of the works to upgrade A1(M) J47. This means anyone prohibited from motorways can't use the A168 legally... here's your diversion sign:

Except that isn't what it says at all. Anyone prohibited from motorways can use the A168 legally, they just don't have direction signs to get them there.

The right turn into the A168 is closed, so unless you know where you are going, you cannot get onto the A168 and the official diversion is a motorway - anyone who cannot legally use a motorway is left to fend for themselves. That means your options, if you don't know where you're going, are illegally shift some cones or illegally go down the A1(M).

Hardly an acceptable situation.

[solocle]

Well there's a cop out if I ever saw one. "Use local routes". Excuse me, but what if you don't know local routes!? What if you're on a meticulously planned tour, following a long distance LAR along the line of the A1(M).

How many people do you think are going to be in a position where
they are not legally able to use the motorway (eg a learner driver would not count because they must be accompanied by a qualified driver who can take the wheel), and
they are not local and so not familiar with alternative routes, and
don't have either a sat-nav or a map with them?
It's going to be a vanishingly small number.

I once took my bike on the train, but there was a replacement bus service on the last leg. Which meant I was unceremoniously ditched in Salisbury late on a Sunday night.

Now, that's only 30 miles from home, but my phone wouldn't get service. Turned out to be a technical gremlin.

I knew I could take the A30 and it would get me home. But I did a lap of the Salisbury Ring Road, and only found the A30 East. Ofc you have to go up the A36 to Wilton, but I didn't know that.

I did find the A354, which I knew took me close enough to home to find my way, and arrived at 3am, having not had any opportunity to even drink for the 40 mile cycle (+10 miles wrt the A30, and far more primary route), and my front light ran out en route... albeit on a tiny C road 1.5 miles from home, that I knew well enough that I could navigate by moonlight.

Point being, that you don't have to be so far from home to be navigationally challenged. I think my example of Bicester, where I was effectively living in Oxford, but only knew the motorway or the pseudo motorway, is a personal record at 6 miles...

So it may be a small number, but it's also quite potentially not zero. If you then stuck a diversion onto a motorway into the equation in my above experience? Well, I didn't have a working phone, there were no later trains, so I'd make for home by any means necessary, even if it did involve illegally riding down a motorway.

If it's not a big enough problem to be worth bothering about, then it's not worth bothering about, right!?

[someone]

How many people do you think are going to be in a position where
they are not legally able to use the motorway (eg a learner driver would not count because they must be accompanied by a qualified driver who can take the wheel), and
they are not local and so not familiar with alternative routes, and
don't have either a sat-nav or a map with them?
It's going to be a vanishingly small number.

You can ride a 125cc motorcycle without accompaniment on a provisional licence on competition of a one-day basic training course to anywhere you want, with the exception of motorways or where explicitly prohibited, such as the A55 special road.
Most of my riding is for leisure or visiting family, I covered 23,892 miles with an L-plate before getting my full licence, almost all of that was where I was not local and had no familiarity.
I never had a sat-nav when I had that bike, never carried a paper map (with nowhere to put one as it did not even have a small under-seat storage area), and having a smart phone with you and it having power are not always congruent (or it has a charge but claims not to, then you plug it into a power outlet (not a battery pack) and it reboots at 70%) nor with having a signal.

Your situation definitely applied to me many times.

Look on a motorcycle forums and you will see threads from people who are wanting to and asking for advice on making long trips to visit family and friends or go on tours. So that is quite common.

I do not know how many of them find themselves , but it is easy enough to happen by accident. However taking navigation aids is not something you are supposed to have to do so is not advised during training, basic or full, that I am sure many people will not even think of it until the first time they find themselves stuck.

It is one of the reasons I still hate roads like the upgraded A14 being restricted by traffic orders rather than some sort of designation. Because even with a map or a sat-nav, there is no way of knowing you are not allowed to use such a road until you see the sign just as you are about to turn on to one.

[KeithW]

Except that isn't what it says at all. Anyone prohibited from motorways can use the A168 legally, they just don't have direction signs to get them there.

Which is how things were until those fancy sat navs hit the shelves. Strangely between 1972 and the late 90's when they became affordable I managed to drive from the NE of England to Lake Constance and Chicago to LA on old Route 66 without one Not to mention. Darwin to Adelaide and Melbourne with nothing more than a road Atlas of Australia which included 4WD only tracks.

The trip I am most proud of however was the one where I navigated from Tebay to Penrith on a Honda motorcycle in 1969 to look at the nice shiny new M6 being built. I used OS Maps with the route hand drawn over it. As I recall it was B6261 to the A6 south of Shap and then the A6 to the A66 at Penrith. Still having L plates on I couldnt have used the M6 even had it been open.

[solocle]

Nearly ended up on the M3 cycling London-Stonehenge last night.

There were roadworks on the A30, I ended up off-route, and then I see this...

I double backed to see whether I was indeed the diverted traffic, and was able to proceed along the A30. But had I not been, I was totally prepared to do a junction hop to Popham.

[solocle]

I spotted a possible example of this with a planned road closure, but even after some emails with the council I couldn't quite believe it. And that's despite an initial contact with this quote when I requested "a copy of the diversion route for all road users".

Hertfordshire Highways would not be able to provide the diversion route to all road users, this would mean that every person in the UK driving a car having a copy of it, the vast majority of which wouldnt be using the affected road.

Well, I took a ride up to investigate, fully prepared for the potential layout (unlike a hapless passer-by). The closure hadn't come into force before it was time to catch the train home, but there was zero advance warning, you'd actually be on the roundabout interchange when you'd see "Road Closed" and the aforementioned diversion.

And could that diversion be any worse?


Of course it's an ALR section, of course...

[Pgd]

Hertfordshire Highways would not be able to provide the diversion route to all road users, this would mean that every person in the UK driving a car having a copy of it, the vast majority of which wouldnt be using the affected road.

Oh my goodness, that's properly "laugh or cry" territory isn't it ...

[trickstat]

I wonder if one of the issues here is that I think any other non-motorway diversion route will go outside of Herts and into Greater London.

[solocle]

Hertfordshire Highways would not be able to provide the diversion route to all road users, this would mean that every person in the UK driving a car having a copy of it, the vast majority of which wouldnt be using the affected road.

Oh my goodness, that's properly "laugh or cry" territory isn't it ...

Yep, it rather changed my initial assumption, which was that they hadn't uploaded the non-motorway route to one.network

I wonder if one of the issues here is that I think any other non-motorway diversion route will go outside of Herts and into Greater London.

I mean, I can't see that being an issue - no more than the diversion route crossing from Herts CC's to National Highways' responsibility.

[Nicola_Jayne]

In a nutshell most traffic laws can be temporarily ignored if you are specifically directed by a uniformed constable to do so.

This is why CID officers don't direct traffic, ever, and a designated uniformed incident officer will control the traffic response for a.major incident.

see defintions and case law of 'Uniformed Police Officer' raid hat, warrant card on a lanyard and a hi vis has been held to be unformed

[solocle]

Well, another one, this time from my neighbouring county of Devon.

[solocle]

A juicy one upcoming in Kent. I think this one is actually justified, as to access Little Preston, sandwiched between the M20 and the Medway Valley Line, there is no alternative road.