Like the rest of you I spend hours sat in queues and snail pace traffic on this countries motorways. My own personal opinion is that these queues etc are generally caused by traffic either leaving or joining the motorway, swapping lanes causing those behind to brake and the “knock-on” effect to all traffic behind.
So, my idea is that the government should spend all the money the recieve in vehicle excise duty to build new roads, but not in the normal way.
How about a raised “expressway” above the motorway, with limited junctions. Take the M1 for instance…it could start at the M25, with junctions only for say Northampton,M6, Nottingham, Sheffield then finishes at Leeds at the M62/M621 junction. This way all traffic from the South to the North that doesnt need to stop anywhere on the way gets to use the expressway, and any other traffic uses the current M1.
A similar one on the M25 with junctions only at M4, M3, M20, A1, and M1 would surely ease the traffic?
Now obviously cost would be enormous, but I did a bit of research and I think it would cost approx £1.8billion per mile to build a raised carriageway, so M1 at around 180 miles would equate to £324billion. There are approximately 32 million vehicles in the UK, and lets say they pay on average £100 per annum in road tax ( thats without even taking into account all the other taxes they make from vehicles ), in 10 years it would be paid for.
It’s a nice idea, but you’d be shagged if there was a major RTA, the road was closed for 6 hours (as is sometimes the case) and the next exit is 57 miles away!
Instead, I think the government should give tax breaks and for people who don’t commute far to work as an incentive for people to live closer to where they work or work closer to where they live. And to also give people who would be prepared to move house financial assitance to make this possible. I think if you ask people most of them would choose not to commute far if they could help it. If they didn’t have to travel miles to and from work (I know several people who spend about 3 hours per day commuting) then the roads wouldn’t grind to a halt at rush hour and people would have more time with their families (or down the pub )
This could be paid for be the road fund license and have change to spare, but if you were to divert the money from where it is going currently then how would our government pay for it’s little Blair wars!?
It would be a nice idea, if the revenue raised from vehicle excise duty and fuel tax were ringfenced, but as it is, instead the excise duty goes towards lesbians living in Leeds and the Thespians needing greasepaint
You are not going to end Motorway or town congestion until Road Fund Licence go’es back up to something like it use to be:ie: 38 ton artic £3500 a year and all none UK trucks should pay to enter the UK. 4x4 should be £1000 per year and small car £360 per year. This is the only way to make people think about the use of their vehicles. There are too many cars which never hardly move Monday to Friday and just cause parking congestion in Cities, And yes I own a 4x4 and a car and are both used for business.
The theory is good but in practice it would only work if there were limitations, that is a seperate expressway for goods vehicles, anything under 7.5 tonnes banned from using it, at any time. In the event of a major RTA we would have to wait as we do now , but without lane hopping cars to contend with ,there would be far less accidents. It is very rare you see two trucks only involved in a RTA
The Highway Man:
I’ve attended a number of multi LGV only RTC’s so they’re not that rare.
With respect ,I assume from your user name that you are a Highways traffic officer, or an ambulance driver, and as such will obviously see the outcome of more RTAs than most of us. but we see more causes of these RTAs and more often than not they are caused by a private car who after causing them do not stop.
Traffic isn’t caused by onslips/offslips its caused by volume - 1000’s of cars with 1 person in them - they are the problem. The time you pay off your 300 hundred billion the road will be out of date and thats you pumping every single penny into it without leaving any funds for other road projects.
Tomorrow at around 8am look around you and see how many people are in a car by themselves, that’s the problem
I can appreciate where you are coming from. Granted a large number of RTC’s are caused by impatient unattentive car drivers, but i’m talking about the RTC’s where a LGV driver hasn’t noticed a slower moving LGV and hits it up the back end. I attended one recently like this where once the initial collision had occurred, a further 2 LGV’s also hit the stationary vehicles causing mayhem. We had 2 lanes closed for hours sorting it out.
merc0447:
Traffic isn’t caused by onslips/offslips its caused by volume - 1000’s of cars with 1 person in them - they are the problem. The time you pay off your 300 hundred billion the road will be out of date and thats you pumping every single penny into it without leaving any funds for other road projects.
Tomorrow at around 8am look around you and see how many people are in a car by themselves, that’s the problem
I agree…and how many of them will hop on and off the motorway for 2 or 3 junctions? Long stretches between junctions are never as crowded as parts of the motorway where there are 2 or 3 junctions close together dont you think?
Why only £3500 road tax why not £35000,sorry but it will make no differance the roads will still be overcrowded we had 8x4 paying £4400 ect the reason is that this country is overcrowded , if people are priced off the road most will not make the journey they will stay at home and will not pay high prices to use public transport where people cough ■■■■ pick nose ect ect around them .I do think there will be less folk going to work for a few years yet because the country is about bankrupt so you may get the open roads you want ,lets hope you are not one to get paid off
Why not just close all entry and exits except motorway intersections and the major cities and make traffic doing local journeys use local roads and A roads.It’s probably because most modern drivers have’nt got a clue how to get around unless they use a motorway.But the congestion is mostly caused by slow speeds and all types of traffic not using lane discipline and travelling in the overtaking lanes at a slower speed than the inside running lane traffic is often travelling at.
Why not upgrade the rail lines and bridges/tunnels etc so that they could run a shuttle up and down with cars and trucks on, with terminals at all the major cities.
This would save fuel, conjestion and the environment as well as being far more efficient.
Why not upgrade the rail lines and bridges/tunnels etc so that they could run a shuttle up and down with cars and trucks on, with terminals at all the major cities.
This would save fuel, conjestion and the environment as well as being far more efficient.
Because we’d spend all day queing up to while they load and unload trains at each stop and each train would have to be so long to take all the cars and trucks that there would’nt be any space left on the tracks for them all and all the other half empty trains running passengers.And where’s the actual proof that trains are any more environmentally friendly than road transport and I’d get bored sitting there while some overpaid train driver did all the driving anyway.Sounds like something which Stalin would have liked though.
At half a mile shove a load of cones between lane one and two all the way though the junction if you aint in the lane tough they’ll soon learn to get in early and not cut up at the last min. they could do this every now and again with out warning apart from a sign 1 milefrom the jn sayng
for jun ■■ A43 to55ervile use lane one only NOW
then half mile down the road shove the cones out job sorted
nick2008:
At half a mile shove a load of cones between lane one and two all the way though the junction if you aint in the lane tough they’ll soon learn to get in early and not cut up at the last min. they could do this every now and again with out warning apart from a sign 1 milefrom the jn sayng
for jun ■■ A43 to55ervile use lane one only NOW
then half mile down the road shove the cones out job sorted
I agree with this in principle, it would cause chaos for a few weeks ,but when the d***heads have got used to it it would ease congestion at junctions
but use concrete paveing instead of cones, making it permanent
Why not upgrade the rail lines and bridges/tunnels etc so that they could run a shuttle up and down with cars and trucks on, with terminals at all the major cities.
This would save fuel, conjestion and the environment as well as being far more efficient.
Because we’d spend all day queing up to while they load and unload trains at each stop and each train would have to be so long to take all the cars and trucks that there would’nt be any space left on the tracks for them all and all the other half empty trains running passengers.And where’s the actual proof that trains are any more environmentally friendly than road transport and I’d get bored sitting there while some overpaid train driver did all the driving anyway.Sounds like something which Stalin would have liked though.
They seem to manage under the Channel OK. And I though we established that train drivers are not paid much more than most of us, and less than some.
Why not upgrade the rail lines and bridges/tunnels etc so that they could run a shuttle up and down with cars and trucks on, with terminals at all the major cities.
This would save fuel, conjestion and the environment as well as being far more efficient.
Because we’d spend all day queing up to while they load and unload trains at each stop and each train would have to be so long to take all the cars and trucks that there would’nt be any space left on the tracks for them all and all the other half empty trains running passengers.And where’s the actual proof that trains are any more environmentally friendly than road transport and I’d get bored sitting there while some overpaid train driver did all the driving anyway.Sounds like something which Stalin would have liked though.
They seem to manage under the Channel OK. And I though we established that train drivers are not paid much more than most of us, and less than some.
They manage under the channel because most sensible drivers doing international work go by boat not the train because there’s been enough near misses with fires under there to frighten off most of those who might have used it.But I use the boat anyway on princible because I’d rather give them my money than the rail operators who any right minded road transport supporter would want to see put out of business instead of the ro-ro ferry companys who we’ve worked with over the years to the benefit of both industries.And no I have’nt seen anything which would establish that train drivers don’t earn a lot more than most truck or bus/coach drivers which is probably why you’ll see a lot more jobs for truck/ bus drivers advertised at the jobcentre than train drivers jobs.However the ones which you won’t see advertised are those international/long distance road transport jobs using the ferry to cross the channel because they’re the ones most of us rightly want.Anyway it won’t be long before all of us British long distance road transport drivers are out of work because the commie government here want the rail lot to take our jobs but luckily the East European road transport industry is putting up a better fight than we are which is why you’ll see a lot more of them queing up at Dover for the ferry than you will British ones queing up at Ashford for the shuttle.But I’d be happy to join those East European drivers earning around £200 per week to haul the freight from point of collection to point of delivery and it would be worth it just for the pleasure of knowing that maybe someday I’d be helping to save the European road transport industry.It’s at that wage level where I reckon that the average train driver would be out there on the picket line with ASLEF and the RMT while I and my East European mates drive through the picket line with 2 fingers up as we drive onto the ferry.
)
needing greasepaint