UK Roads Thread

[vdeane]

Weird that people would avoid the left lane with American-style markings.

That's what neither I, nor the DMRB, said. And I'm not just talking about that it would be the right lane as we drive on the left.

We said that concentric circle markings encourage people to use both lanes. Nothing was said about that not being true for spiral markings.

This attitude is anathema to you and me, but the British seem to have embraced it, probably for the same reason they have a king.

The people in London called the rebels in North America 'Royalists' because the rebels were demanding that the king exert power he didn't constitutionally have. In 1792 Washington, not Hannover, was the George with more power over his relevant people - because the American constitution sort to give them a king not constrained by the 100 years of constitutional development since 1689 (or even 1660), but hated the term. And the power held by the President has only grown since then.

But this is perhaps the same problem as the main problem in this discussion - there's no understanding of nuance or reality and everything must be spelled out explicitly - Kings are bad, President's good, purely on the word used not on the tyranny they actually hold! Diagrams must show every possibility because how else would we know what's legal! Lane markings and signage must tell you the rules of the road at every possible juncture!

The latter is especially nonsensical - the confusion about kings is in the US DNA, but the US is a Common Law jurisdiction, not a Continental Law one. It's not Germany where everything not legal is illegal. It's the US, where everything not illegal is legal.

I should note that the UK has far safer roads than the US - a lot of that is other factors, but a decent amount of the difference is education (the 3 Es of road safety: Education, Engineering, and Enforcement) - because we expect high levels of capability and decision making from our drivers so that they can deal with the unexpected. More than half of driving tests end in a fail (average pass rate is 48.5%).

British driving requires you to be aware of the road and other users (and assuming that they will stick to the rules is against the rules), to make decisions without your hand being held at every step, and to seek to avoid collisions as you make manuevers. What's wrong with any of that?

Pavement markings are supposed to define where traffic goes.  Having a situation where the legal flow of traffic and the striping of the lanes is different is nonsensical.  I agree that there are some instances where we over-sign in the US (look at every subdivision with all-way stops plastered everywhere), but roundabout/intersection signage denoting what lane goes where isn't one of them (the US approach is also more flexible in this context, as multi-lane roundabouts here don't require all approaches and exits to have the same number of lanes).

As for watching traffic, there's only so much you can do.  When I'm in a roundabout, I'm watching the car in front of me so I don't rear end it, the road so I can maneuver and exit properly, and the other entrances to make sure nobody's going to cut me off rather than yielding.  Naturally I have an awareness of nearby traffic, but closely paying attention to what everyone else is doing (including checking the mirrors) to the amount I would before a lane change is well beyond the mental bandwidth there.

[bing101]

Here is a tour of the Runcorn Busway. 

[bing101]

[Tom958]

Here is a tour of the Runcorn Busway.

I've been fascinated with Runcorn since I discovered it as a youthful planning enthusiast in the early seventies. one thing he didn't mention was that, according to one source I came across back then, one purpose of the busway network was to prevent the expressways from needing six lanes instead of four. I'd wondered how the relatively skeletal busway network was expected to accomplish that, but that's because I'd never seen the much more extensive network shown at 2:22 in the video.

While we're on the subject of Runcorn, I also appreciated Jon's video about Runcorn's road system, though I did get the pedantic pleasure of pointing out the unfortunate side effect of reworking the Southern Expressway-westion Link interchange Google Maps link.

[Tom958]

I feel a need to write about this: The essential genius of the British scheme for multilane roundabouts is that it can shepherd multiple multilane streams of traffic through the roundabout without requiring weaving. Recognizing this genius, some other (mostly English-speaking) countries, including Australia and eventually the US, adopted the same scheme themselves. Eventually, roundabouts started to proliferate in continental Europe, too. I'd assumed that this happened because the continental Europeans, had recognized the genius of the British concept and decided, wisely, to adopt it themselves.

Or so I thought. However, to my chagrin, I eventually learned (via Dull Men's Club on Facebook!) that, in fact, most of these nations striped their multilane roundabouts in the dysfunctional way shown below. You may recall that this diagram was created by Spain's highways agency to illustrate how drivers from places that understand how to sensibly stripe roundabouts will cause crashes in Spain's dysfunctionally marked roundabouts. 




Furthermore, even more recently, I learned that the genius British scheme apparently didn't appear until about thirty years ago (I'd appreciate clarification on that). That would mean that other countries went heavy into roundabouts before they were really any good! Until then, the efficient functioning of British multilane roundabouts depended on rigorous driver training and licensing. More on that later. 

For me, it's gotten to the point that it's not even about roundabouts anymore. It's about how British people think. To illustrate, check out https://www.facebook.com/groups/autoshenanigans/posts/1042475538023753/ . This post is about two multilane roundabouts that are identical in function and less than a mile apart, yet are striped completely differently. One commenter said he could see what I was talking about. The rest not only couldn't see the difference, but roundly denounced me for doing so as well as my country of origin. The really odd thing is that this Facebook page and the YouTube channel it promotes generally find fault with the authorities and poke fun at them, usually deservedly so. When I posted what I did, I expected the peanut gallery to join me in ridiculing the wankers who painted that roundabout incorrectly. What actually happened was that they took the side of the authorities.  WTF?

The only explanation I can think of for this is that UK drivers' emotional investment in their onerous driver training and licensing is strong enough to overcome their disdain for incompetent government authorities. That's pretty damn strong. Faced with an incorrectly striped multilane roundabout, they'll drive through it successfully without even noticing and denounce as an idiot anyone who does, along with their country of origin, if applicable. How very strange.

So, is this relevant to American road design authorities? I doubt it. While we, too, have a cabal of extremely hard-headed multilane roundabout drivers, their hard-headedness leads them to ignore correct signage and markings and cause crashes and near misses, not successfully negotiate badly-marked roundabouts without even noticing. We'll never achieve that, so I'm putting my hopes upon the more emphatic lane markings we're seeing lately.   
 
----------------

Tangential to the topic, I'm not being the least bit sarcastic in calling the British scheme genius. This weekend, I made this Facebook post  about navigating Toyota Island It's a three-level roundabout interchange that serves the A50, the A38, a Toyota factory, and a services area and minor road. Unlike most such interchanges, it has no traffic signals, which means that drivers are expected to navigate at the posted speed of 40 mph. From what I see, they can do it, too. All they have to do is get into the correct lane upon entering the roundabout and stay there, pay attention to the signage (which is both unusually elaborate and doubled up, i.e., placed on both sides of the circular road), and exit at the correct point. 

[Tom958]

I feel a need to write about this: The essential genius of the British scheme for multilane roundabouts is that it can shepherd multiple multilane streams of traffic through the roundabout without requiring weaving. Recognizing this genius, some other (mostly English-speaking) countries, including Australia and eventually the US, adopted the same scheme themselves. Eventually, roundabouts started to proliferate in continental Europe, too. I'd assumed that this happened because the continental Europeans, had recognized the genius of the British concept and decided, wisely, to adopt it themselves.

Or so I thought. However, to my chagrin, I eventually learned (via Dull Men's Club on Facebook!) that, in fact, most of these nations striped their multilane roundabouts in the dysfunctional way shown below. You may recall that this diagram was created by Spain's highways agency to illustrate how drivers from places that understand how to sensibly stripe roundabouts will cause crashes in Spain's dysfunctionally marked roundabouts. 




Furthermore, even more recently, I learned that the genius British scheme apparently didn't appear until about thirty years ago (I'd appreciate clarification on that). That would mean that the UK and other countries went heavy into multilane roundabouts before they were really any good! Until then, the efficient functioning of British multilane roundabouts depended on rigorous driver training and licensing. More on that later. 

For me, it's gotten to the point that it's not even about roundabouts anymore. It's about how British people think. To illustrate, check out https://www.facebook.com/groups/autoshenanigans/posts/1042475538023753/ . This post is about two multilane roundabouts that are identical in function and less than a mile apart, yet are striped completely differently. One commenter said he could see what I was talking about. The rest not only couldn't see the difference, but roundly denounced me for doing so as well as my country of origin. The really odd thing is that this Facebook page and the YouTube channel it promotes generally find fault with the authorities and poke fun at them, usually deservedly so. When I posted what I did, I expected the peanut gallery to join me in ridiculing the wankers who painted that roundabout incorrectly. What actually happened was that they took the side of the authorities.  WTF?

The only explanation I can think of for this is that UK drivers' emotional investment in their onerous driver training and licensing is strong enough to overcome their disdain for incompetent government authorities. That's pretty damn strong. Faced with an incorrectly striped multilane roundabout, they'll drive through it successfully without even noticing and denounce as an idiot anyone who does, along with their country of origin, if applicable. How very strange.

So, is this relevant to American road design authorities? I doubt it. While we, too, have a cabal of extremely hard-headed multilane roundabout drivers, their hard-headedness leads them to ignore correct signage and markings and cause crashes and near misses, not successfully negotiate badly-marked roundabouts without even noticing. We'll never achieve that, so I'm putting my hopes upon the more emphatic lane markings we're seeing lately.   
 
----------------

Tangential to the topic, I'm not being the least bit sarcastic in calling the British scheme genius. This weekend, I made this Facebook post  about navigating Toyota Island It's a three-level roundabout interchange that serves the A50, the A38, a Toyota factory, and a services area and minor road. Unlike most such interchanges, it has no traffic signals, which means that drivers are expected to navigate at the posted speed of 40 mph. From what I see, they can do it, too. All they have to do is get into the correct lane upon entering the roundabout and stay there, pay attention to the signage (which is both unusually elaborate and doubled up, i.e., placed on both sides of the circular road), and exit at the correct point. 

[ElishaGOtis]

I think this has been brought up before, but I'm not entirely sure. Is there an official name for this slip road join configuration where one lane splits off and joins the main carriageway, then the next lane joins? What is the benefit of this versus either ending the lane early on the slip road, or a standard taper? There's a ton of these I found in the UK.

Has this been used anywhere other than the UK before? Haven't found any examples other but just curious. Thanks lol

https://maps.app.goo.gl/exqbu72jgKLAQeG66?g_st=ipc (this is on M11)

[cockroachking]

I think this has been brought up before, but I'm not entirely sure. Is there an official name for this slip road join configuration where one lane splits off and joins the main carriageway, then the next lane joins? What is the benefit of this versus either ending the lane early on the slip road, or a standard taper? There's a ton of these I found in the UK.

Has this been used anywhere other than the UK before? Haven't found any examples other but just curious. Thanks lol

https://maps.app.goo.gl/exqbu72jgKLAQeG66?g_st=ipc (this is on M11)

Atlantic City Expy Exit 12

It seems to make sense to me in that the "faster" of the two lanes (left here, right in UK) merges into the mainline first, giving more time for slower vehicles in the outer lane to match the speed of the mainline. While the US "double parallel" method allows for the same, the UK "double taper" method somewhat forces the proper behavior instead of allowing "anything goes."

[english si]

I think this has been brought up before, but I'm not entirely sure. Is there an official name for this slip road join configuration where one lane splits off and joins the main carriageway, then the next lane joins? What is the benefit of this versus either ending the lane early on the slip road, or a standard taper? There's a ton of these I found in the UK.

Has this been used anywhere other than the UK before? Haven't found any examples other but just curious. Thanks lol

https://maps.app.goo.gl/exqbu72jgKLAQeG66?g_st=ipc (this is on M11)

Tiger tail, or (more formally) ghost island

http://sabre-roads.org.uk/wiki/Tiger_tail

[ElishaGOtis]

I think this has been brought up before, but I'm not entirely sure. Is there an official name for this slip road join configuration where one lane splits off and joins the main carriageway, then the next lane joins? What is the benefit of this versus either ending the lane early on the slip road, or a standard taper? There's a ton of these I found in the UK.

Has this been used anywhere other than the UK before? Haven't found any examples other but just curious. Thanks lol

https://maps.app.goo.gl/exqbu72jgKLAQeG66?g_st=ipc (this is on M11)

Tiger tail, or (more formally) ghost island

http://sabre-roads.org.uk/wiki/Tiger_tail

Ghost Island, like the name. Thank you!

[rte66man]

I learned to drive in England in the 70's (still have my driving license as it is good until I turn 70). I do not remember ever seeing a stripe in the roundabout itself, even on the giant A40 roundabouts coming east from Uxbridge. Was very glad to see those are history.

My driving instructor made it very clear what the rules were. Most everyone seemed to obey them.

[ElishaGOtis]

Oxford Council "temporarily" putting some tolls on busier city roadways due to construction closures. https://www.oxfordshire.gov.uk/transport-and-travel/oxfords-temporary-congestion-charge-cars/about-congestion-charge

I don't think this is a cordon zone scheme like London? It could be due to the sheer number of bus gates, but it doesn't immediately appear to be. Certain residents are partially exempt from the tolls depending on where they live. This is a precursor to the traffic filtering scheme, however... This is in addition to the ZEZ, bus gates, and central city pedestrian zone.

[english si]

I don't think this is a cordon zone scheme like London? It could be due to the sheer number of bus gates, but it doesn't immediately appear to be.

Nothing to do with busgates, everything to do with stopping rat-running, and allocating road space in a very congested city (Oxford recently was found to be the 6th most-congested city in the UK - and mostly saved from being higher by it's geographical smallness)

At the bottom of Oxfordshire CC's page, it gives a route that isn't chargeable across inside the ringroad. But it also says pretty much all the car parks in the centre and the west side of town (at least you can go to the John Radcliffe Hospital, which is nation-leading specialist in some fields and so gets patients from all over) will require you to go past a camera and have to pay the charge.

There is an extensive Park & Ride system and the city centre (and most of the city too) is a congested maze of roads - there's both carrot and stick for you not to drive in the city already. RJ Smeed (who was focusing on the larger city further downstream and made a prediction about traffic speeds in the urban environment in 1949 that held until 2012) advocated this sort of road pricing to allocate the scarce road space to those that need it more.

Certain residents are partially exempt from the tolls depending on where they live. This is a precursor to the traffic filtering scheme, however...

It's definitely fuelling the anti-"15-minute cities" people, not least as Oxford City Council is very pro the concept (though has dropped using the "toxic" term) of making sure everyone lived within 15 minutes of the amenities they would regularly need as a planning aspiration while the unrelated Oxfordshire County Council is proposing stuff like traffic-filtering to try and deal with the problem of road congestion, which has meant that Oxfordshire's approach to traffic got combined with Oxford's desire for walkable neighbourhoods and created a conspiracy around the idea (especially with COVID truthers and the like).

It should be said though that the creator of the concept of 15-minute cities, Carlos Moreno, sells equipment for surveillance and 'smart cities' as his day job and had a lot of it in the original concept. Paris (a city that was already "15-minute", and probably mostly "10-minute-or-better") does have the concept as originally meant with permits needed to avoid fines if you want to drive to another part of the city frequently backed by Moreno's tech!

And the (British, at least) people who are anti 15-minute cities are against the civil liberties stuff of being watched and coerced into behaving certain ways, not the idea that they'd be able to walk to amenities within 15 minutes (which most Brits have anyway, or at least within 20 minutes).

[vdeane]

It should be said though that the creator of the concept of 15-minute cities, Carlos Moreno, sells equipment for surveillance and 'smart cities' as his day job and had a lot of it in the original concept. Paris (a city that was already "15-minute", and probably mostly "10-minute-or-better") does have the concept as originally meant with permits needed to avoid fines if you want to drive to another part of the city frequently backed by Moreno's tech!

Wait, what?  Whenever I hear about 15 minute cities (outside of conspiracy theories), it's about making it so that you'll have all the amenities you want within a 15 minute walk or bike ride.  The conspiracy theory about cordoning things off and limiting travel actually have truth to them!?

[english si]

Looking they haven't implemented the fines or permits in Paris (that was Oxford, when the totally different Oxfordshire council run by a different party to Oxford city council that was bigging up "15 minute cities" trialled traffic filtering)

However, Moreno definitely sells 'Smart City' equipment (CCTV, software to process that to get licence plates, etc) as his day job and literally said:

"Were it not for Covid-19, I think that the conditions for deploying the 15-minute city concept would have been very hard to instigate."

Given the first city to adopt his proposal was Paris, I really don't understand why it was felt it needed a big change in society to push the concept of having amenities close by - Paris already saw it as normative and desirable.

There's certainly a fishiness around surveillance-seller Moreno, even if the  places desiring the concept of 15-minutes are not being sinister. And of course, the two tiers of local government in Oxford combined with different policies to give a very-similar-to-COVID-regs policy of staying within your zone. As conspiracy theories go, it's not that out there, even if it's jumping to conclusions a bit hastily because the cities desiring 15-minute cities have no idea how to make them real where they don't already exist.

This article (though the author has since said he didn't know about Moreno's day job and feels he may of "soft-pedalled on the inherent authoritanism of 15-minute cities") is a good exploration of the whole thing: 15-minute cities, and the Oxford/Oxfordshire specific stuff.

[ElishaGOtis]

I think this has been brought up before, but I'm not entirely sure. Is there an official name for this slip road join configuration where one lane splits off and joins the main carriageway, then the next lane joins? What is the benefit of this versus either ending the lane early on the slip road, or a standard taper? There's a ton of these I found in the UK.

Has this been used anywhere other than the UK before? Haven't found any examples other but just curious. Thanks lol

https://maps.app.goo.gl/exqbu72jgKLAQeG66?g_st=ipc (this is on M11)

Atlantic City Expy Exit 12

It seems to make sense to me in that the "faster" of the two lanes (left here, right in UK) merges into the mainline first, giving more time for slower vehicles in the outer lane to match the speed of the mainline. While the US "double parallel" method allows for the same, the UK "double taper" method somewhat forces the proper behavior instead of allowing "anything goes."

To add, I believe I came across a few more in TEXAS of all places...
HOV to reversible transition: https://maps.app.goo.gl/nLVD7YEv9AqoR8gR7?g_st=ic
Multiple lanes merging in super close proximity (not entirely the same, but extremely similar given the taper offsets): https://maps.app.goo.gl/mVgBdGWdJAaThLsv6?g_st=ic

[webny99]

I had my first-ever trip to the UK last month and figured I'd share a few road-related thoughts. For context, I visited the London area, Scotland, and the Jurassic Coast.

The good:

• Pavement markings for speed limit changes are a great way to provide redundancy if you miss the sign.
• Traffic signals have a short amber phase before turning green so you can already be accelerating by the time it turns green. This basically validates what I already often do.
• Drivers are less arrogant and more adaptable. "I own the road" type stuff that you see frequently in the US, like brake checking, intentional slow driving, speed yo-yo's, and left lane camping, are all very minimal.
• Willingness to pass on two-lane roads. No one gets offended or speeds up to block. It's simply par for the course.
• General efficiency. Slower traffic is good about yielding to faster traffic, and intersections are designed to keep traffic moving.
• No four way stops, and no massive intersections with 4+ signal phases.

I think this has been brought up before, but I'm not entirely sure. Is there an official name for this slip road join configuration where one lane splits off and joins the main carriageway, then the next lane joins? What is the benefit of this versus either ending the lane early on the slip road, or a standard taper? There's a ton of these I found in the UK.

It seems to make sense to me in that the "faster" of the two lanes (left here, right in UK) merges into the mainline first, giving more time for slower vehicles in the outer lane to match the speed of the mainline. While the US "double parallel" method allows for the same, the UK "double taper" method somewhat forces the proper behavior instead of allowing "anything goes."

Yeah, this is probably the most awesome one of all:

• Multi-lane entrance ramps merge into the mainline one lane at a time instead of one merging into the other first. This is the functional equivalent of an option lane in reverse, which spreads out the merge and keeps traffic balanced between the lanes instead of crowding the inside lane.

The bad:

• Driving on the "wrong" side of the road still feels wrong, even after time to adjust. I found it particularly disorienting at night and on curvy roads.
• Passing zone rules are confusing. A surprising amount of two lane roads have legal passing zones, even ones with frequent curves that would be double yellow solid in the US.
• Right turns (US equivalent of left turns) are often very tight. Between the narrow roads and limited sightlines, cars exiting from side roads tend to pull out quite far, so the margin for error is slim with no room for sloppy or wide turns.
• Lack of "arterial" style roads – many non-divided highways that would be four lanes in the US are only two lanes. To be expected given the age of the road network, but it doesn't help traffic.
• In the London area, an awesome public transit network is countered by a lack of urban highways, so it's still very congested on balance.
• Gaps in the motorway network. Outside the London area, east-west connectivity is particularly lacking.
• Lack of route number shields on signage – most signs are text-only. The route hierarchy is also more complex than simple tiered system in the US.

The ugly:

• No yellow lane separators for two-way traffic!? Lane separators are white for both one way and two way roads – and they're often dashed (meaning passing is allowed) so you basically just have to know if there's oncoming traffic or not. I had never thought about it before, but it was a surprising adjustment - confusing at best and dangerous at worst.
• Other than the motorways, traveling by car in the UK could definitely be nauseating for anyone prone to car sickness. The combination of curvy roads, lack of shoulders, passing on two lane roads, much smaller personal space bubbles, fast-paced roundabouts, free flow at most intersections, and disorientation from driving on the "wrong" side is a lot. I actually really enjoyed the faster pace, and since I got home, driving in the US genuinely feels like driving in slow motion... everything is so much more spacious and so much slower! But that's me - I enjoy driving, and I'm a roadgeek. No doubt the average US driver would find driving in the UK to be an intense and possibly uncomfortable experience.
• Curve ahead signage. I mean, I know the roads are curvy, but come on...

Overall, I think I'm philosophically a better fit for UK driving culture than US driving culture. I had a general sense of that already, but it's definitely confirmed now. The US road network with UK driving culture would probably be my ideal place to drive.

[vdeane]

No doubt the average US driver would find driving in the UK to be an intense and possibly uncomfortable experience.

I think this helped crystallize a thought I've been having for a while; I think most US drivers are actually afraid of driving, even if they won't admit it.  I feel like a lot of behaviors (such as refusing to get up to speed until merged in, or merging at the earliest opportunity even if it's not the best opportunity - creating additional congestion in the process and nullifying the advantages of auxiliary lanes where they exist) are caused by anxiety and drivers feeling overwhelmed.  Also things like lane usage; stuff like "I should get into the right left turn lane because it's empty and the left one is backed up onto the thru lanes and worry about getting into the left lane after I've turned" never seems to occur to peple, or they don't trust that they'll be able to find a gap.

[Road Hog]

I used to appreciate the short red-amber sequence before green in Germany, which does it as well. But in the U.S., that's just an invite to get T-boned by a red light runner.

In the U.S., at least in my area, there's a couple-second pause between red in one direction and green in the other for this very reason, which is very wise.

[ElishaGOtis]

No doubt the average US driver would find driving in the UK to be an intense and possibly uncomfortable experience.

I think this helped crystallize a thought I've been having for a while; I think most US drivers are actually afraid of driving, even if they won't admit it.  I feel like a lot of behaviors (such as refusing to get up to speed until merged in, or merging at the earliest opportunity even if it's not the best opportunity - creating additional congestion in the process and nullifying the advantages of auxiliary lanes where they exist) are caused by anxiety and drivers feeling overwhelmed.  Also things like lane usage; stuff like "I should get into the right left turn lane because it's empty and the left one is backed up onto the thru lanes and worry about getting into the left lane after I've turned" never seems to occur to peple, or they don't trust that they'll be able to find a gap.

That would explain some of the absolute bonkers behavior I've come across... including the absolutely idiotic belief that "turn signals are a sign of weakness" give me a break 

[vdeane]

I used to appreciate the short red-amber sequence before green in Germany, which does it as well. But in the U.S., that's just an invite to get T-boned by a red light runner.

In the U.S., at least in my area, there's a couple-second pause between red in one direction and green in the other for this very reason, which is very wise.

I presume that all-red phase would be when the red-yellow phase would be.  Lights that have no all-red phase strike me as just reckless.  As for risk of getting T-boned, that's why it's a good idea to pay attention to more streams of traffic than just what's immediately in front of you, and not just when you're able to move.  Better to maintain awareness of everything going on in the intersection at all times (to the point where I can do the red-yellow phase virtually at lights I know well, even without a specific indicator).

[hotdogPi]

Pavement markings for speed limit changes are a great way to provide redundancy if you miss the sign.[/li][/list]

Unless there's snow. I'm not sure how it is in upstate New York, but this is why Massachusetts doesn't have pavement markings like "BLOCK NOT DO" or "CLEAR KEEP" (or "SLOW CHILDREN GO" if you really want to confuse people) or colored curbs.

[webny99]

No doubt the average US driver would find driving in the UK to be an intense and possibly uncomfortable experience.

I think this helped crystallize a thought I've been having for a while; I think most US drivers are actually afraid of driving, even if they won't admit it. I feel like a lot of behaviors (such as refusing to get up to speed until merged in, or merging at the earliest opportunity even if it's not the best opportunity - creating additional congestion in the process and nullifying the advantages of auxiliary lanes where they exist) are caused by anxiety and drivers feeling overwhelmed.  Also things like lane usage; stuff like "I should get into the right left turn lane because it's empty and the left one is backed up onto the thru lanes and worry about getting into the left lane after I've turned" never seems to occur to peple, or they don't trust that they'll be able to find a gap.

I know what you mean, but I wouldn't necessarily describe it as fear. Compared to the UK (and what I understand of other countries internationally as well), it seems more like a lack of adaptability. US drivers seem very limited in their ability to adapt to different situations and in fact often seem to take offense to others adapting. And like you mentioned, there even seems to be a tendency to panic when anything doesn't go exactly as expected which probably stems from our unique combo of higher road standards (creating higher expectations) and less driver training.

[webny99]

In the U.S., at least in my area, there's a couple-second pause between red in one direction and green in the other for this very reason, which is very wise.

I presume that all-red phase would be when the red-yellow phase would be.  Lights that have no all-red phase strike me as just reckless.

Yeah, I never actually confirmed but that was my assumption as well.

Reply #147

Unless I missed something, I think this post is just a quote of my post.

Unless there's snow. I'm not sure how it is in upstate New York, but this is why Massachusetts doesn't have pavement markings like "BLOCK NOT DO" or "CLEAR KEEP" (or "SLOW CHILDREN GO" if you really want to confuse people) or colored curbs.

Snow could create a challenge for sequenced messages, but the UK speed limit signs and pavement markings are just a single circle with the number inside.

[hotdogPi]

Reply #147

Unless I missed something, I think this post is just a quote of my post.

Oops. I only meant to make the post after it. It's been deleted now.