Correct road markings?

[Peño]

I'm not going to dispute the council's road markings because they should know better than I do. But they have recently put down new markings which makes no sense to me, and I've noticed a few other road users ignoring the new markings too:

The road south of the picture has always been divided into two lanes by road users for years. Recently, the council added markings to this road to define this (as indicated by the red line in the photo). However the left lane has been marked as "left only" and the right is marked as "straight ahead and right". The majority of the traffic goes straight on and in the past people would use either lane and merge in turn. However now people have to use the right lane and are often stuck behind the odd car waiting to turn right. This means the queue has to wait for any "left only" cars to finish their turn before they pass around the car and carry on ahead. This is very inconvenient when you have a queue of cars and you don't know who is turning right until they stop in the middle of the box. The left lane is usually less busy so people have been ignoring the markings and potential inconvenience by just going straight ahead in the left lane. Surely this makes more sense? To have it "left and straight ahead" and the right lane as "right only"? I've considered writing to the council to have this amended but would like hear a general consensus on this first.

 

[PMKeates]

Destination/directional road markings are an indication, and I don't *think* there's a Highway Code rule or a law that mandates they are followed at all times.

 

[Daaaveee]

Surely this makes more sense? To have it "left and straight ahead" and the right lane as "right only"? I've considered writing to the council to have this amended but would like hear a general consensus on this first.

As someone who sometimes has to produce road marking layouts I would agree with you, from what you have described I can't see a reason for the left lane not to be for strait ahead aswell, or instead of the right lane if there is not sufficient space to merge after the junction.

Would be interesting to hear the councils reply, I wouldn't rule out it simply being an oversight tbh!

 

[Howard]

There's a junction on my way home from work like that too.. Left, and Right/Straight on. I sometimes go on the left round a person waiting to turn right but there isn't usually any room between the stream of cars going left, thus I inevitably get stuck and have to wait for the lights.

If what PMKeates said is true then I didn't know that.. But surely you'd have to be extra careful to ensure the person next to you is going right and doesn't change their mind, and the amount of people who take them as gospel and thus would get annoyed..

 

[PMKeates]

If what PMKeates said is true then I didn't know that.. But surely you'd have to be extra careful to ensure the person next to you is going right and doesn't change their mind, and the amount of people who take them as gospel and thus would get annoyed..

I don't know if it's absolutely true, but I've certainly never come across an actual rule that says you have to follow those markings. Therefore, to be charged for not following the markings I think you'd have to be accused of driving without due care/attention/reasonable consideration, and that would be quite hard to get a conviction for if there was no accident, no serious distress and you were otherwise driving safely.

There's a roundabout near my home where most people do not follow the destination markings on the road - they'd be convicting dozens of people of careless driving everyday if it was a problem.

http://maps.google.co.uk/?ie=UTF8&l...d=q7A2gVtoc6MF-wlpEk7QIw&cbp=12,65.21,,0,2.58 - this one if anyone knows it.

 

[Howard]

Hmm

I've always just followed them out of principle really, and because 95% of the time they make sense!