Wednesday 3 September 2008

Crash Roadworks

There's some roadworks on all over St Andrews right now; traffic lights, bits of green in the middle of the road; someone has been running new power lines all the way from Locleaze. Currently bits of Ashley Down road are undergoing work. Work that leaves squares of the road fenced off for weeks on end.

Mostly this makes for some interesting traffic calming. Because the two directions of traffic are forced to take turns, you get lots of quiet time cycling followed by bursts of cars. Its good. But is it safe? Not here.

Here's the problem. When heading towards St Andrews, your way is blocked, by a big green barrier. The barrier shows that you have the right of way over oncoming vehicles. Which means it is OK to pull out; they will give way.


But look on the other side. There's no sign saying oncoming vehicles have right of way. All you get is a keep left sign, which means "keep to your side of the road". Which implies you have right of way unless otherwise stated.

This is a mess. If there was a contact number painted up I'd have photoed it and complained.

As it is, all I could do was move the barriers enough to create a bike lane, so when going towards St Andrews it was slightly safer. It's still pretty dodgy cycling in the other direction though.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

That is actually a other-direction-has-priority sign (the red circle is a bit of a giveaway), it's just that some dork put it up upside down.

SteveL said...

I looked at that, but couldnt see how to rotate it. It is probably safer to remove the sign altogether... I will do that tonight

Unknown said...

Big arrow, Small arrow = Car moving in direction of big arrow have priority NOT right of way.

Blue arrow in white ring = Keep left/right NOT right of way....

Pick up a highway code before you try to guess what signs mean dude!

jah p said...

I'm in williamson road.

When do these roadworks end ?

Although, they are actually traffic calming in some ways !

SteveL said...

@jah: I have no idea when the roadworks will end

@robert: as far as bristol drivers are concerned, if you have the big arrow, you get to pull out