Four Into Three Doesn’t Go
Several months ago someone at the Ministry of Transport came up with the idea that to ease motorway congestion, the hard shoulder should be used for normal traffic.
All the motoring organisations, the emergency services and most of the general public deemed this suggestion to be one of the most stupid that this inept government has ever brought forward.
Guess what has happened recently?
Certain motorways at certain times between certain junctions will now allow normal traffic on the hard shoulder.
Just to recap. The hard shoulder is to enable broken down vehicles to remain relatively safe whilst waiting for rescue. And to give the emergency services a path through to the emergency if the other lanes are choc-a-block.
There is one other point that hasn’t been mentioned.
Sooner or later the traffic on the hard shoulder will have to join the bona fide lanes and that is where four into three doesn’t go. Look at the congestion that is created when approaching a road works. Also, as you approach a junction to get off the motorway it is the nearside lane that filters left and the hard shoulders stops to reappear again after the junction. So the four into three doesn’t go scenario will be repeated at every junction.
However what this does highlight is that once the current mob-in-office get an idea, regardless of the public opinion, it is carried through – eventually.
|