Merge In Turn, why does no one do it properly!

[Avocet]

Apart from the part I made bold, I would have done exactly as you did.

Leftmost lane, unless you can't.

In the case of lane reduction though, it's wrong, and we should try to force ourselves to use both, but human nature is a peculiar thing! Traffic would flow better and more cars would get through the bottleneck in a given time, but we Brits just aren't wired like that!

 

[dishman]

Apart from the part I made bold, I would have done exactly as you did.

Leftmost lane, unless you can't.

This is true, but it was a while ago, so I can't actually remember how long I stayed in the left lane before moving to the middle expecting the merge (which never came). The left lane may have actually been been X'd. I can't quite remember.

 

[dishman]

Well, it happened again!

Travelling up the M1, and the gantry indicated that the outside three lanes were closing.

As I was already travelling in the inside most lane already, I initially ended up in the inevitable queue.

But after rechecking the signs, I realised that all the other lanes were still live and it was actually a merge in turn at some point ahead.

So after sitting for in the queue for about 30 seconds, I pulled out and travelled past about 2 miles or so of single lane queue and sure enough, there was a gradual merge at the closure point.

I think I only received one angry beep and a passive aggressive flash along the way. But it saved me about 20 minutes of ghost queuing.

The gantry sign was not exactly the best I have seen as it did not actually properly communicate there was a merge. But the lanes were not X'd, which is why I took a moment to be sure.

 

[freddiemercurystwin]

What symbol was showing in the gantry signs?

 

[dishman]

It was essentially one of these, but on a gantry

 

[dishman]

Interesting conundrum recently regarding lane merges on motorways and poor gantry signage.

Twice now I have come across a situation where lane closed X's have been shown on gantries, only for it to end up being a normal graduated merge lane closure.

The older gantry I experienced above showed the correct signage, with "lane closing ahead" images.

The two recent instances I have experienced had the modern gantry just showing X'd lanes for a few miles, before it ended up being a merge type situation for standard roadworks.

This frustration was compounded by the fact that, ironically, a large number of people were ignoring the X'd lanes.

On one occasion the X'd lanes on the gantry were contradicted by signs on the side of the road similar to the one in the post above, showing lanes closing ahead.

But, needlessly X'ing the lanes caused unnecessary delay as it forced people correctly following the signage to get into a single lane far earlier than needed. It also has the effect of making people less likely to heed the importance of not being in an X lane in the future.

Thoughts? Were the lanes poorly X'd?

 

[johnny2007]

Yes, on the M25 I regularly find lanes X'd when in fact there's nothing ahead.
They either forget to update the electronic signs or do it deliberately to issue fines and generate revenue.
My friend was caught by such trap and despite having dash cam footage showing that there was no obstruction or roadworks on the X'd lane, they refused the appeal and he had to pay.

 

[yorksbuilder]

Us Brits love rules. Also love queuing.

It's a lack of common sense to all use the left lane and make the queue there twice as long as it needs to be... And then giving aggro to the sensible drivers who use the merge lane is dumb, they just want to shorten the queue, reduce congestion etc..

Do it in Sweden for example, everyone uses both lanes, then just merge one at a time, calmly. No one loses out!

Merge lane misuse and rage is one of the worst things about driving in UK. The number one thing is the state of the road surfaces themselves...