Brandane
Legendary Member
- Location
- Costa Clyde
Following a trip in the car to Edinburgh for a course, and driving in wet and dark conditions, I have come up with a theory which potentially endangers us all. It's not an excuse for poor driving, but it certainly doesn't help.
I've noticed a huge increase in recent years of the use of white painted direction signs on the road surface, instead of properly mounted signposts at the side of the road. Presumably this is a cost cutting exercise as I can imagine there is some expense involved in the manufacture and mounting of proper signs. Paint on the road is fine, as long as you know it's there! But take a driver out of their regular environment and it's a different matter, as I have been finding out recently. On dark, wet, busy roads the white paint is all but invisible until you are quite literally almost on top of it. Especially because in true British style it is not renewed as often as it should be and can be faded to the point of uselessness.
It goes some way to explaining why you see so many drivers not looking beyond the few feet in front of their bonnet at roundabouts in particular, as they try to pick out lane markings and direction arrows on the road. It's maybe cheap, roads bosses, but it's dangerous and has the potential to cost lives!
This abomination of a road is one local example. If you're going straight ahead you need to be in the left lane on approach to the first set of lights, but note the absence of arrows on the road until a few yards short of the lights. So if there's even a short queue of traffic you're not going to see them, even in good light conditions... Once through the lights you have to switch to the RIGHT lane to go straight ahead as left is for left turn only! Again the arrows are just prior to the mini roundabout, which is only about 30 yards from the lights... Fine if you're familiar with the road layout, but they don't consider someone driving a large vehicle coming across this on a wet dark night for the first time.
I consider myself a very experienced road user - bikes, motorbikes, cars, artics, and being driving since 1982. But I was struggling to negotiate similar road systems in Edinburgh traffic last week.
I've noticed a huge increase in recent years of the use of white painted direction signs on the road surface, instead of properly mounted signposts at the side of the road. Presumably this is a cost cutting exercise as I can imagine there is some expense involved in the manufacture and mounting of proper signs. Paint on the road is fine, as long as you know it's there! But take a driver out of their regular environment and it's a different matter, as I have been finding out recently. On dark, wet, busy roads the white paint is all but invisible until you are quite literally almost on top of it. Especially because in true British style it is not renewed as often as it should be and can be faded to the point of uselessness.
It goes some way to explaining why you see so many drivers not looking beyond the few feet in front of their bonnet at roundabouts in particular, as they try to pick out lane markings and direction arrows on the road. It's maybe cheap, roads bosses, but it's dangerous and has the potential to cost lives!
This abomination of a road is one local example. If you're going straight ahead you need to be in the left lane on approach to the first set of lights, but note the absence of arrows on the road until a few yards short of the lights. So if there's even a short queue of traffic you're not going to see them, even in good light conditions... Once through the lights you have to switch to the RIGHT lane to go straight ahead as left is for left turn only! Again the arrows are just prior to the mini roundabout, which is only about 30 yards from the lights... Fine if you're familiar with the road layout, but they don't consider someone driving a large vehicle coming across this on a wet dark night for the first time.
I consider myself a very experienced road user - bikes, motorbikes, cars, artics, and being driving since 1982. But I was struggling to negotiate similar road systems in Edinburgh traffic last week.