Solution to Middle Lane Morons

Victor

Middle Lane Morons are people who consistently use the middle lane of a three- (or more) lane carriageway and fail to move back to the left when overtaking. In Ireland, with mostly two-lane carriageways on motorways and dual carriageways, this manifests itself as people hogging the overtaking lane.

I have a solution (repeat at every overbridge).

Stark

The gantries on the Naas road are actually misleading I've noticed. There are a few instances where the signs over the middle lane and overtaking lane are marked in the correct green colour with Dublin/Limerick written over them, but the sign over the left lane is white with the name of the turnoff written and the arrow pointing straight down towards the lane. This makes it look like the left lane is for turning off only. In other countries I've noticed that they handle a situation like this by having green signs (or equivalent) over all 3 lanes, and a 4th sign to the left (or right), with an arrow pointing bottom left(or right) to indicate that a turning lane is coming up.

I must admit, when I first used the new Naas road, I didn't cotton to the fact that I could stay in the left lane for the whole trip until I'd passed 2 or 3 junctions.

John R

Stark wrote:

The gantries on the Naas road are actually misleading I've noticed. There are a few instances where the signs over the middle lane and overtaking lane are marked in the correct green colour with Dublin/Limerick written over them, but the sign over the left lane is white with the name of the turnoff written and the arrow pointing straight down towards the lane. This makes it look like the left lane is for turning off only. In other countries I've noticed that they handle a situation like this by having green signs (or equivalent) over all 3 lanes, and a 4th sign to the left (or right), with an arrow pointing bottom left(or right) to indicate that a turning lane is coming up.

I must admit, when I first used the new Naas road, I didn't cotton to the fact that I could stay in the left lane for the whole trip until I'd passed 2 or 3 junctions.

There is a bunch of those signs on the southern section of the M50 as well, indicating that the driving lane is for the next two exits several miles away and the overtaking lane is to stay on the motorway.

Alun

Stark wrote:

The gantries on the Naas road are actually misleading I've noticed. There are a few instances where the signs over the middle lane and overtaking lane are marked in the correct green colour with Dublin/Limerick written over them, but the sign over the left lane is white with the name of the turnoff written and the arrow pointing straight down towards the lane. This makes it look like the left lane is for turning off only. In other countries I've noticed that they handle a situation like this by having green signs (or equivalent) over all 3 lanes, and a 4th sign to the left (or right), with an arrow pointing bottom left(or right) to indicate that a turning lane is coming up.

I must admit, when I first used the new Naas road, I didn't cotton to the fact that I could stay in the left lane for the whole trip until I'd passed 2 or 3 junctions.

Exactly. And like John R said, the new southern section of the M50 (only two lanes though) is littered with them. When that part of the M50 first opened, you'd get people swerving from lane 1 to lane 2 before every exit, but by and large they've copped on now that's it's a false alarm.

Some people here emailed the NRA about it, and someone actually got a reply that indicated they might do something about it, but the wording was such that they clearly didn't think that what they'd done was 'wrong' in any way. Bunch of tossers.

Davidth88

The signs on the Naas road are very misleading , I agree .

I am a pretty experienced driver on 3 lane roads ( driven for 20 years in the UK with a lot of motorway driving ) and I find driving down the new section of the Naas road you feel you have to be in the middle lane and have to force yourself to ignore the signage.

The answer to ' middle lane morons' is more education , if motorways were more available I would say make them part of the test ( something the UK still hasn't done ), but of course how would someone in the West pass a test then ?

Zoney

Davidth88 wrote:

The signs on the Naas road are very misleading , I agree .

I am a pretty experienced driver on 3 lane roads ( driven for 20 years in the UK with a lot of motorway driving ) and I find driving down the new section of the Naas road you feel you have to be in the middle lane and have to force yourself to ignore the signage.

The answer to ' middle lane morons' is more education , if motorways were more available I would say make them part of the test ( something the UK still hasn't done ), but of course how would someone in the West pass a test then ?

Presumably that section of N13 in Donegal, N4 in Sligo, N6 around Galway, N6 Athlone bypass would suffice? I would imagine those are fairly busy and/or sufficiently non-straight-forward (i.e. poor and needing careful driver attention) to be reasonable experience for DC driving.

Del2005

Davidth88 wrote:

The answer to ' middle lane morons' is more education , if motorways were more available I would say make them part of the test ( something the UK still hasn't done ), but of course how would someone in the West pass a test then ?

The problem with this is that you can't drive on a motorway on a provisional licence. They would need to bring in stepped licencing for this to work and they can't even get our crap test done in a reasonable time frame could you imagine the chaos that stepped licences would cause.

Alun

Del2005 wrote:

The problem with this is that you can't drive on a motorway on a provisional licence.

No, but you can on a HQ dual carriageway which for the purpose of the exercise (teaching lane discipline, merging and exiting) is effectively the same thing.

Zoney

Alun wrote:

No, but you can on a HQ dual carriageway which for the purpose of the exercise (teaching lane discipline, merging and exiting) is effectively the same thing.

Yes - hence those should have motorway restrictions, such as no learner drivers, no *pedestrians*, *automatic* 120km/h, etc. The current situation is farcical! Also, although the N2 has 120km/h limit and other such routes can have such a limit applied specially, only motorways automatically get 120km/h limits. Either that too is a nonsense (i.e. all suitable DCs should get that limit) or else it's a distinction made for a reason (i.e. faster traffic needs the usage restrictions). It ends up being a case "why bother having motorways"? Or at best, you revisit the rules for motorways, water them down, and have all suitable DCs be motorways rather than HQDC nonsense. Either way there's no excusing the current situation.

AndrewMc

Davidth88 wrote:

The signs on the Naas road are very misleading , I agree .

I am a pretty experienced driver on 3 lane roads ( driven for 20 years in the UK with a lot of motorway driving ) and I find driving down the new section of the Naas road you feel you have to be in the middle lane and have to force yourself to ignore the signage.

Unfortunately, if you ignore all the signage heading for Limerick, say, you'll end up in Naas (IIRC); the last sign before the motorway is actually correct. The key is not to ignore the signage, it's to get the NRA to correct it.

Motorists really shouldn't be encouraged to second-guess the road layout. That's a recipe for all sorts of dodgy last-minute lane-changing.

Tails142

its all to do with grade, radius of bends, on grade/off grade junctions as to whether something is a motorway or a dual carriageway. Road geometry (lane width) and available range of sight (going back to bends, dips) governs the speed limit.

Wishbone Ash

Stark wrote:

The gantries on the Naas road are actually misleading

It's the same on the M1 northbound just after the M50 junction. The left lane is marked "SWORDS" and the right lane "BELFAST". :rolleyes:

MICKEYG

Wishbone Ash wrote:

It's the same on the M1 northbound just after the M50 junction. The left lane is marked "SWORDS" and the right lane "BELFAST". :rolleyes:

Fully agree. Why the NRA needs to depart from international standards is beyond me. In the US, where a lane can take you in two directions (an example here would be the middle lane on the M11 northbound coming up to the M50) there would be two arrows over the one lane indicating that it will split but you are are OK in that lane for both directions. Easy really but some one was probably paid a fortune for thinking up the new confusing method and now they are too afraid to back down.

Also, there is no need for the gantries unless a lane is leaving the carriageway. Waste of money in my opinion. The gantries are to indicate where each lane is going but if all the lanes are going straight on then why use them? The regular sign on the left of the road would do just fine.

Finally (at the end of my rant) isn't if funny that now everyone knows they are misleading they ignore them. Typical Ireland, the signs make sense to those people who don't need them. Pity the tourist in this country.

Victor

MICKEYG wrote:

Also, there is no need for the gantries unless a lane is leaving the carriageway. Waste of money in my opinion. The gantries are to indicate where each lane is going but if all the lanes are going straight on then why use them? The regular sign on the left of the road would do just fine.

People in the right hand lane may not see a sign that is only on the left if they are passing another vehicle.

tonc76

Stark wrote:

The gantries on the Naas road are actually misleading I've noticed. There are a few instances where the signs over the middle lane and overtaking lane are marked in the correct green colour with Dublin/Limerick written over them, but the sign over the left lane is white with the name of the turnoff written and the arrow pointing straight down towards the lane. This makes it look like the left lane is for turning off only. In other countries I've noticed that they handle a situation like this by having green signs (or equivalent) over all 3 lanes, and a 4th sign to the left (or right), with an arrow pointing bottom left(or right) to indicate that a turning lane is coming up.

I must admit, when I first used the new Naas road, I didn't cotton to the fact that I could stay in the left lane for the whole trip until I'd passed 2 or 3 junctions.

These signs are designed to display to the driver that in order to take the next exit you should be in the left hand lane. The reason the sign is white is down to the road classification that the exit road has. i.e Blue motorway, green national primary/secondary, white regional/local. The gantries are provided in most cases where map type signs would be too large to erect at roadside.

MICKEYG

Victor wrote:

People in the right hand lane may not see a sign that is only on the left if they are passing another vehicle.

So we should have gantries on every dual carriageway in the country? I believe that 3 signs for each exit at regular intervals before the exit (and indicating the distance to the exit) would be sufficient).

Zoney

tonc76 wrote:

These signs are designed to display to the driver that in order to take the next exit you should be in the left hand lane.

There's a standard way to do that; you place the sign for the upcoming off-slip to the left of the sign for the left-hand lane. Putting such a sign directly over the left-hand lane as the NRA have done implies a lane drop for that lane. As pointed out, we have that situation (i.e. stay in left-hand lane and you end up on a different route) in a couple of places and the exact same signage is used.

Mr Magnolia

Stark wrote:

The gantries on the Naas road are actually misleading I've noticed. There are a few instances where the signs over the middle lane and overtaking lane are marked in the correct green colour with Dublin/Limerick written over them, but the sign over the left lane is white with the name of the turnoff written and the arrow pointing straight down towards the lane. This makes it look like the left lane is for turning off only.......

I must admit, when I first used the new Naas road, I didn't cotton to the fact that I could stay in the left lane for the whole trip until I'd passed 2 or 3 junctions.

This is the case for miles and miles before the said slip-road.
I can't understand how the all the punters are supposed to get it correct while driving when the numpties can't even sign it properly/clearly.



On something Victor picked up on regarding people driving in particular lanes not seeing signage due to traffic in surrounding lanes:

I left the mad cow round-about heading to Limerick in the middle lane with a truck to my left and one to my right. Both trucks were ahead of me with a van in my lane in front, the van pulled into the left lane and I started accelerating away in the middle lane, never copped that the trucks were slowing down as I was speeding up.
My view of the pedestrian traffic lights was totally obstructed by the trucks so I didn't see them at all, they had turned to red. It was like something out of one of those horrific tv adds, I didn't hit anyone but I did brake and skid straight through the crossing with my horn full on. I wasn't right for 3 days after it, no exaggerating

A suspended traffic light over the middle lane would have been visible but we don't have them.

Stark

Zoney wrote:

As pointed out, we have that situation (i.e. stay in left-hand lane and you end up on a different route) in a couple of places and the exact same signage is used.

Perfect example being at the end of the N7, when the left lane veers off and the other two lanes turn into the M7.

r3nu4l

MICKEYG wrote:

So we should have gantries on every dual carriageway in the country? I believe that 3 signs for each exit at regular intervals before the exit (and indicating the distance to the exit) would be sufficient).

I'm not so sure, about that. From where I live, if I want to go to Stansted Airport I have to drive on the A14, which branches onto the A11 which leads to the M11 to London (and Stansted).

There are 3 road signs all within one mile advising motorists of the upcoming A11 turn off. All signs are on the left hand side with no gantries. It is incredibly easy to miss all of these signs thanks to the huge number of articulated trucks that occupy the left-hand lane on the A14 (coming from Felixstowe, Englands busiest commercial port!). If you are in the middle lane of the A14 you may be able to squeeze onto the A11 at the last minute if you realise you're approaching the branch point but if you are in the right hand lane you're screwed and end up adding at least 30 minutes onto your journey.

Overhead gantries are necessary at any point where two major routes branch away from one another imo.

icdg

tonc76 wrote:

These signs are designed to display to the driver that in order to take the next exit you should be in the left hand lane. The reason the sign is white is down to the road classification that the exit road has. i.e Blue motorway, green national primary/secondary, white regional/local.

Indeed, as this is an all-purpose road "Guildford Rules" patching should be used to indicate the classification of the road reached by the slip road. As you can't patch on NRA dodgey gantries, the entire panel is white.

Note though that on a motorway proper, patching is not allowed, and ALL directional signage (other than brown tourist signs) should be blue. Followed in most cases, but the equivilant new sign at M7 J9 eastbound does have a white panel. The former fork sign here quite correctly didn't.

tonc76

Zoney wrote:

There's a standard way to do that; you place the sign for the upcoming off-slip to the left of the sign for the left-hand lane. Putting such a sign directly over the left-hand lane as the NRA have done implies a lane drop for that lane. As pointed out, we have that situation (i.e. stay in left-hand lane and you end up on a different route) in a couple of places and the exact same signage is used.

Forgive me if I'm wrong on this but if you are in the left hand lane there should be another sign at the slip road directing you to the destination that was shown on the previous gantry. This sign can be one of: a directional sign on the left at the start of the slip road, a directional sign in the nose of the junction, or a cantilever sign hanging over the start of the slip lane.

Stark

The problem is not that you don't know where to get off, but that you don't know if it's okay to stay in your current lane if you're going straight on. I'm well aware of the difference between the white, green and blue signs. Like mentioned previously, the signing is identical regardless of whether the 1st lane is for going straight ahead, and a slip lane is coming up, or whether the 1st lane brances off from the road completely, leaving the road as a 2-laner. This is not in keeping with international standards, where you'll have 3 signs for the 3 main lanes, and a 4th sign for the upcoming slip lane.

If you applied Ireland's signing system to a complex road network, there'd be chaos.

unkel

Mr Magnolia wrote:

in the middle lane with a truck to my left and one to my right. Both trucks were ahead of me with a van in my lane in front, the van pulled into the left lane and I started accelerating away in the middle lane, never copped that the trucks were slowing down as I was speeding up.
My view of the pedestrian traffic lights was totally obstructed by the trucks so I didn't see them at all, they had turned to red. It was like something out of one of those horrific tv adds, I didn't hit anyone but I did brake and skid straight through the crossing

Holy sh1t :eek:

I can visualise that one happening alright. Thankfully there was noone crossing the road

O/T, but maybe related: what's the story with those very tall (guessing 6-8m tall) traffic lights that are popping up all over the shop. Typically at pedestrian crossings on single carriageways. What's the point in these?

Victor

Possibly on a 'faster' road, where someone at a distance, behind other traffic, may not appreciate that there is a crossing ahead and hte light has gone red

testicle

unkel wrote:

O/T, but maybe related: what's the story with those very tall (guessing 6-8m tall) traffic lights that are popping up all over the shop. Typically at pedestrian crossings on single carriageways. What's the point in these?

Trucks, no?

Alun

unkel wrote:

O/T, but maybe related: what's the story with those very tall (guessing 6-8m tall) traffic lights that are popping up all over the shop. Typically at pedestrian crossings on single carriageways. What's the point in these?

We have one of those near us. At first sight, a good idea, as it makes them more visible when large trucks are around etc., BUT, and it's a big BUT, they haven't done the sensible (to me at any rate) thing and ADDED the high level lights to the existing ones, but just MOVED the existing ones higher up. This actually makes them less visible in many situations than they were to start with. I've been driving along there a couple of times (there's a slight downhill slope approaching them from one side) and had to really crane my neck up to see whether they'd changed or not. Also if there's low sun and you've got your sun visor down, they're obscured from quite far away.