CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » General Edinburgh
"New bus lane cameras ‘causing road chaos’ "
(198 posts)-
Posted 12 years ago #
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unbelievable slant on enforcing law.
Posted 12 years ago # -
A EN commenter agrees -
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Once again, the editor of this disgraceful rag sides with the law breakers and anti-social element, when this paper should be on the side of the people as a whole. It's disgusting of this paper to undermine efforts to enforce the laws agreed by our democratically elected representatives, just because it's cheap and populist to join the pub bore ranters. The sheer idiocy of those whingers who think the clock can be turned back to the days when there were a fraction of the cars on the road today, allowing them to drive and park where they please, beggars belief. One expects that of the intellectual pygmies who whine on here day after day with their self-serving rants. But for the editor of this paper to take their side is beyond shameful.
"Posted 12 years ago # -
Drivers in can't read very clear signage shocka.
Posted 12 years ago # -
Great comment!
Posted 12 years ago # -
Also I note with amusement they blur out all the licence plates but miss one
EDIT - in the paper - they have cropped it for the webPosted 12 years ago # -
Drivers shocked at not being allowed to drive somewhere they aren't allowed to drive.
Posted 12 years ago # -
Drivers appalled that plan to favour public transport over private transport favours public transport over private transport.
Posted 12 years ago # -
As the Evening News reported on Saturday, about 5000 fines have been handed out already, netting the council around £300,000 in a single week. Transport chiefs had originally expected to hand out 4000 every year.
And somehow it's the cameras enforcing the lanes, and not the motorists breaking the law by driving in the lanes, that are at fault?
If I thought it would make a blind bit of difference, I'd write to the EEN. It's not worth the keystrokes though.
Posted 12 years ago # -
Question that has always sprung to mind as I've only ever lived in greenwayed embra.
When all the roads like ferry/glasgow/corstorphined were two laned highways, was edinburgh some sort of driving nirvana that never saw any traffic queues, or did is just mean there were loads more cars for the buses to get gummed up in?
Posted 12 years ago # -
It was amazing. You could park and drive anywhere you wanted even on the pavement. Petrol was free and the streets were paved with gold.
Posted 12 years ago # -
"As the Evening News reported on Saturday, about 5000 fines have been handed out already, netting the council around £300,000 in a single week. Transport chiefs had originally expected to hand out 4000 every year."
That just goes to show:
a. the huge scale of law breaking by drivers (sorry, "normally law abiding motorists" in the parlance).
b. the unbelievable stupidity of those who thought they could get away with it even after the cameras were installed..
Posted 12 years ago # -
How do the camera's know where to send the fines? It's not as if cars have a unique code on them that's linked to a database with the owners details is it?.............
Posted 12 years ago # -
Steady now recombodna, next you'll be suggesting that some form of testing and licensing would eliminate all the problems on the road.... ;)
Posted 12 years ago # -
Or that they were all paying a friendly dog for help should they collide with someone and have to *gasp* repair said metal bubble or the metal bubble they ran into.
Does that database also cover who has paid VED TAX?Posted 12 years ago # -
I seem to recall that pre-green lanes everyone just drove in the outside lane anyway as everyone is feart of getting stuck behind the occasional parked car or stopped bus that's in the inside lane.
Extra lanes and road space don't always help our poor blighted drivers.
An excellent example is on the bypass, heading east (well south actually) from the Gogar roundabout.
There used to be two lanes. Two lanes would join from the M8, and there was chaos. Largely due to frickin stupid people cutting across the hatched area to join the bypass 'early'. As if that solved anything for anyone.
Now the bypass merges to a single lane which swings to the outside of the bypass before the junction.
The outside lane from the M8 merges with it. The inside lane from the M8 becomes the 'new' inside lane of the bypass.
Result: no queues anymore.
Reason: most drivers are selfish and that doesn't work very well when lots of people need to get on together on the road.
Posted 12 years ago # -
Drivers appalled that plan to favour public transport over private transport favours public transport over private transport.
There is an interesting point though. If observing the bus lane causes queues that are so long the buses themselves can't get to the start of the lane, and are consequently running late - doesn't favouring public transport mean removing the bus lane? Technically?
Posted 12 years ago # -
If observing the bus lane causes queues that are so long the buses themselves can't get to the start of the lane, and are consequently running late - doesn't favouring public transport mean removing the bus lane? Technically?
Surely it means extending the bus lane further out to prevent traffic queues from holding up the buses?
Anyway, all this talk of "chaos". It only happens during the peak times. 10-15 minute delays: get on a bike or a bus instead? Or just get up 10-15 minutes earlier?
Posted 12 years ago # -
Give all the buses wings and jet engines, they can fly over the cars, make bus stops on stilts.
Posted 12 years ago # -
doesn't favouring public transport mean removing the bus lane? Technically?
I wonder how long it will take for the traffic volumes to readjust and start using a different route and relieving the pressure on the pre bus lane road. The phenomenon is usually observed on the first day of well documented road works.
Day 1 chaos as every one takes their normal route and finds it much busier due to lane restrictions, closures etc.
Day 2 very light traffic as every one avoids it
Day 3 "normal" queue lengths as appropriate traffic levels find equilibrium.Posted 12 years ago # -
Day 4 big tailbacks outside council offices as 3,000 motorists queue to pay fines. :-)
Posted 12 years ago # -
Oh dear, poor things, boo hoo...I suggest that they get the bus. Dearie me also having to look to see if the road is clear when they want to turn left, I am fairly sure that was what they are supposed to do anyway. More folk on buses, less traffic...makes perfect sense to me. I take it the bus jams are due to left turning vehicles rushing into the space where buses are going to be, so beat the bus mentality. What I find interesting is how many motorists have obviously been flouting the bus lane regulations for ever.
Posted 12 years ago # -
The bus jams will be due to the two lane road reducing to effectively a one lane road where the bus lane starts. Presumably the right hand lane is queued up, so the drivers in the left hand lane sit there with their indicators on, blocking the start of the bus lane.
Posted 12 years ago # -
On the plus side jams leave more time to text ........
Posted 12 years ago # -
@PS, I thought part of good driving technique was anticipation, clearly the drivers clogging up the bus lane start are not anticipating no-one letting them in because they are trying to get ahead...I can't say I noticed this to be a problem in London, however, on moving up here I must say that drivers seemed loathe to give way to anyone else or let them in, even their fellow drivers. I cycled for years in London and hardly ever encountered drivers who felt the need to rush ahead by overtaking me just before a set of lights just to carve me up by moving so far in towards the pavement as to impede my progress, that was a bit of any eye opener (the exception being cab drivers in London).
Posted 12 years ago # -
@claggycog - had that cut up thing twice today but I was on sit up bike as son sprained ankle and was on a backie to school. Makes it even more fun to saunter past the cut you uppers without any effort at all when they are stopped at the lights they didn't see or the traffic that has come to a halt that they didn't see. I anticipate no anticipation in the motoring classes.
Posted 12 years ago # -
@gembo - you might be right...I was thinking advanced driving test technique. I don't imagine that too many folk out on the road have ever done the ADL. Interestingly, proper bike training incorporates a great deal more than the current car driving test, you are literally taught enough to get you through the test to get a licence to drive...what happens then? You learn by experience and over time. How can that be no-one is telling you what it is you need to know, people are too lazy to look it up, and think that once they have passed the test they have every right to drive and know better than anyone else on the road. Now that is scary. What with that and old folk out on the road who should not be...blimey we are overrun (may be literally) with incompetents.
Posted 12 years ago # -
The bus lane restrictions aren't hard to understand - there's only two sets in Edinburgh.
Monday - Friday, Peak times (two lines on signage)
Monday - Saturday, All day (four lines on signage)
There's a couple of 24-hour stretches however these are short and tend to be marked more aggressively by 'no entry' or the like.
What needs to happen though is that every single area of bus lane in Edinburgh needs it's signage and road surface reviewed urgently in lieu of the new round of enforcement.
The whole area around York Place is a total mess and as far as I can tell there aren't any active bus lanes just now, however the paint is still in place in many places and is confusing.
London Road / Abbey Lane has a big white line through the junction that implies a bus lane that isn't there. The right hand lane is more often than not blocked by right-turners.
The right turn from Lanark Road onto Craiglockhart Ave often backs up to the bus lane which I'm pretty sure is longer than the overhead photo shows.
The merge in to the left lane to cross southbound at the North Bridge / Royal Mile junction has always been a joke with parked cars outside the hotel. Reversing the Cockburn St one-way arrangement to uphill-only would make a right turn ban here much more viable.
These are all areas where through traffic is being trained into driving in the right turn/overtake lane. Calder Road flows ok during the rush hour when the through traffic at each junction merges left (two lanes through the roundabout) then merges in. Hopefully enforcement actually encourages this behaviour, I don't drive Calder Road much very more but when I used to there were two classes of driver - those who hogged the centre lane no matter what and those who shot through to undertake half way between the roundabouts. The latter made merging in at the end of the bus lane at best a waiting game, and at worst dangerous.
Posted 12 years ago # -
"Reversing the Cockburn St one-way arrangement to uphill-only would make a right turn ban here much more viable."
You, sir, are a genius.
Posted 12 years ago # -
"
Driver caught on bus lanes 30 times in two weeksA DRIVER has been hit with £1800 worth of fines after being snapped by new bus lane cameras 30 times in just two weeks.
"
Posted 12 years ago #
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