Enjoy your trip FLT, please have some black stuff for me as I love the stuff, it's ok over here but much nicer over there.
But the bigger problem is traffic planners. In my time in Southampton there's been a rephasing of most of the traffic lights in the city. Once people have almost all of their responsibility taken away by incessant traffic lights,they are unable to cope with any kind of complexity at those lights, so the traffic planners now have lights that don't allow people from opposite side roads out at the same time. This significantly slows traffic flow and generates huge queues. Now I used to cycle through London daily and I noticed that queues disappeared when traffic lights were out of order. So I waited, and, last winter, this happened. It's a couple of minutes long but has pedestrians crossing and cyclings safely negotiating the junction. Amazing - anyone who has used that junction at 8:40 will know that there are normally queues about a third of a mile of traffic from down Hill Lane and Archers Road, a couple of hundred yards on Howard Road and a couple of dozen cars coming up Hill Lane. When the lights blew a fuse, there was no noticable queue in any direction for most of the morning. When lights are removed, traffic slows. Accidents do still happen but they tend to be at low speed and don't cause injury. There's a place in the Netherlands, Drachten, (pop 50,000, so not a village) that removed all its lights and saw much better traffic flow and many fewer accidents. Radical, but if traffic is sitting in queues, it's emitting a lot of pollution to no-one's benefit. Keep it moving. Vin
Lights are really most useful at junctions where one road is the major busy one and people on the minor road rarely get a look in. In Newport, we have a major roundabout where giving way to the right meant that in rush hour drivers from Cowes couldn't get out because of High Street traffic which was fairly constant. Lights markedly improved traffic flow and people are happy because they all get a chance after a very short wait. However, too many traffic lights slow traffic down because of the need to overcome inertia when drivers set off. It has been showed that on a busy motorway it only takes one car at the front to slow down (not even stop) to cause traffic behind to stop and build up. The time to overcome inertia of those vehicles (especially HGV) produces a traffic jam.
City planners in the UK need to study traffic flow management here in Mallorca or Rio in Brazil, where the implementation of many one way systems helps keep traffic moving. Solution. Make the traffic coming into Southampton from the east via Thornhill one way, and the one via the Itchen Bridge the outward one.
I see that New Zealanders are getting upset about a 'hakarena' version of the haka. They need to get a life and develop a sense of humour. I remember a few years back one of our players was criticized for stepping forward and confronting the haka rather than standing there like a lemon. I think we should insist on doing a very long Morris dance prior to a match and refusing to play if we are insulted by any New Zealander laughing. The Scots could do can cans in kilts, finishing with hairy arses on show. The haka is interesting and adds a bit of life to the game, but you have to accept that some people will have a laugh at your expense.
I totally and utterly agree with everything you say there Vin, and I have always been at odds with the traffic planners in the city. I too have observed that traffic flows far better when the traffic lights are not functioning, and I am aware of a city in Europe dispensing with all of their lights and signs [although I thought it was in Sweden - memory fail]. What I was pointing out was the prime cause of why traffic build-up occurs so much in Southampton particularly. I agree that the traffic planners do nothing to help it. In fact, they make it worse. But, BUT... they would point to legitimate evidence of idiots who would run the lights at high speed and cause major accidents. This hasn't happened for years because people have become conditioned to the lights, but I wonder how long it would be before it happened again. Personally, I would do some proper experiments on traffic light removal, ie switch them off at certain times of the day. Then again, what would happen if there was a major accident.? SCC would be in court. Catch 22.
Traffic planners have their own little agendas too. A few years ago someone who had a very senior position in that part of the council moved in next door to my parents. Within six months two zebra crossings had sprung up on roads his wife had to cross to take their kids to school!
My eldest brother,, who is a retired motor engineer, was once called upon by his canvassing local MP, who proudly pointed out the number of sleeping policemen that he had pushed through as part of his environmental package for the local area. My brother asked him if he drove a car, to which he replied, no, he couldn't drive. So, as part of his environmental package, my brother went on to explain the environmental damage he had actually done by making vehicles brake and accelerate. Each time they braked they wasted energy and created dust, some of it toxic, and after they passed the hump they accelerated, so adding unnecessary particulates and/or hydrocarbons to the local atmosphere. This happened with every SP. That's not to mention the increased wear and tear on the vehicles themselves and the fact that the SPs were potentially dangerous, so everybody was the loser. A simple set of reminder speed signs would have done more good and would have been a lot cheaper. But that is the state of town and traffic planning, particularly in Southampton.
One for LTL. Misnamed record and album titles: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/art...bumcoverfails&intc_linkname=arts_fac_article1 I'm sure there are loads, but the most famous one I know exactly is that the first pressing of Jimi Hendrix's 3rd album, Electric Ladyland, came back to him as Electric Landlady. This was apparently due to some person in the record company not believing the actual title could possibly be the right way round [incidentally, the spell checker on Firefox is insisting it should be Landlady too ]. I think Slade's early singles were originally titled incorrectly [like Dolly Parton's White Limozeen], but then they just carried on with it.
I disagree with the second paragraph in general. People wouldn't speed through junctions without lights as they would know that they didn't have right of way. On the approach, a sign could reinforce this. Every crossroad approach would be the same as it currently is when you approach from a side road, i.e no right of way. People don't speed in that situation. What they have done in many experiments is make the junction confusing; different road surfaces at odd angles,even shaped painted on the surface ( http://www.itv.com/news/london/2014-05-06/star-shaped-road-marking-sparks-confusion-in-dagenham/ ). All of this makes people think and slow as they approach the junction. I experienced it in a town in France and it works. The road surface changed colour on each entrance to most of the junctions in the town and everyone slowed significantly. But, importantly, the traffic still flowed. Also, if the decision is made on the basis of data (of which there are plenty) showing that overall deaths will be lower, what's the basis for a case? There's a much better case to be made over accidents at traffic lights. Traffic speeds are higher in these accidents, so you are much more likely to be seriously injured. No-one's taking SCC to court over that. Here's the results when they switched them off in Portishead. Vin
Once again, I agree with you. I don't need the convincing. The argument against is why lights were put in, in the first place, and is still one of the arguments given today. Now because I had no idea that experiments of the nature of Portishead, or those that I suggested, had taken place in the UK, I gave the old planners excuse, even though I agree that it is invalid. However, it is an urban geography fact that Southampton's traffic problems are exacerbated by being hemmed in by its rivers. That also doesn't mean they cannot be solved (look at Portsmouth - not so bad). So'ton traffic planners do seem to do their level best to slow traffic to a standstill than make it flow.
Tim Wonnacott reportedly sacked from Bargain Hunt after coming to blows with a producer. What is it with the BBC and its producers? On a side note, it is reported that Clarkson's new show will be called Gear Knobs.
