View Full Version : Road white lines could be removed
'Take more care, because they are confused?' sounds loopy to me:
Road white lines could be removed
Some Aberdeenshire roads could have their white lines removed under plans to improve safety. The system is known as psychological traffic calming, aimed at making drivers slow down and take more care because they are confused. Aberdeenshire councillors are looking at the town and village proposals on Tuesday. It follows a pilot in Wiltshire which appears to be making a positive difference to accident figures.
Similar schemes in Holland and Scandinavia have also reportedly led to a cut in road accidents. Neil Greig, from the Institute of Advanced Motorists (IAM), said it was an intriguing idea. He told BBC Scotland: "The theory is if you create uncertainty in the mind of the driver they will slow down, back off, look around, and proceed more safely. "It does not necessarily work for all drivers, some may become confused, we have to be very careful. "In general, we do need to see a lot of improvement in our rural roads." The local authority said it was just one of several ideas being considered.
Think they tried that a couple of years back in Wick when they turned the traffic lights off at the Cliff Bakery for a few weeks. It certainly slowed the traffic down as you had to crawl forward to see if there was anything coming the other 3 ways!!
Seem to recall that white lines were introduced to help avoid accidents!!!
It's OK to do it on well lit roads but removing the lines (and I assume the cats eyes) on dark country roads will IMO lead to an increase in accidents.
It's like the Dutch scheme to remove all the roadsigns to slow drivers down. If you are not familiar with a road and a T-junction suddenly appears and you fail to stop in time and end up getting t-boned by an arctic wonder who you can end up sueing?
we were just saying the other nightwhen driving from halkirk to wick , that it would be a great benifit to have white lines the whole way along the side of the road as well as the middle , so taking them away altogether seems like a silly idea to me ..
Oh yes, and one no doubt dreamt up by someone who only has to hop on board a bus or tube train.....
Next they will suggest that cyclists ride at night without lights or reflective clothing as it will make drivers drive slowly in case they run them down.....
lol mad pict now your being silly wouldnt it be easier to make all cars drive with there lights off, then there would be no accidents no one would be going fast enough
This sounds like a bit of stupid idea to me..... I don't use the halkirk thurso road at night when it is raining as it is impossible to see where you are going.
I really don't see what the problem is, it is the driver who is responsible for the cars speed, not the road lines.... perhaps just a better use of 20mph speed limits and bigger penalties for speeding in built up areas.
Complete madness! But then again will it ever actually happen? They say they will only make these changes when the road surfaces are updated and we all know how often that happens (not)!
grumpyhippo
31-Oct-07, 00:25
No white lines!!!!? What am I going to follow on the way home from the pub?:lol::lol:
George Brims
31-Oct-07, 01:26
That is a daft idea. Don't they have fog where the proposer of this loopy scheme lives?
Mind you lines aren't always a help. A friend of my grandad once drove down to Perth for the bull sale, and somewhere along the way hit thick fog. He could only make progress by sticking his head out the window and following the white line on the left edge of the road. At one point he lost the line, then veered left and picked it up again. Unfortunately he had unknowingly entered a small layby, and when he got to the end and the white line suddenly went to the right again, he couldn't stop and drove off the end of it into the ditch!
This was tried in a city centre in Sweden (I think) a few years ago. My initial reaction was "That sounds crazy!"
But - along with the lack of signage and road markings, goes the warning:
If you hit a pedestrian - you will have a hell of a job convincing a court that it was not your (the driver's) fault.
If you collide with another vehicle - you will not be able to attribute blame to the other driver - it will be knock for knock.
The result was that everyone drove as if their very life depended on it.
Accident rates plummeted.
So - It does work.
SunnyChick
31-Oct-07, 11:44
Stripping white lines off the road is a CRAZY idea. [evil] There will always be people who drive dangerously regardelss of the road they are on!
So leave the lines ON the road for those of us who actually benefit from them!
Ridiculous idiot who thought up that idea .... we tax payers have already spent the money putting the lines down in the first place, so what - they can just be taken off again? Not a chance!:mad:
What about the old slogan from the TV adverts - 'The more the paint the greater the danger' ? Us older drivers will have to be retrained!
[quote=grumpyhippo;290542]No white lines!!!!? What am I going to follow on the way home from the pub? /quote]
aye and what will e polis use to decide if you are fit to walk home alone ? [lol]:D
Can't wait for it to happen, in most places there are that many signs and lines that they are nothing but a useless distraction. Besides, not knowing what the road does next adds excitement to the journey, when everything is marked out to "make things easy" it's like watching the same boring film for the fiftieth time.
If the theory they are suggesting is accurate does that mean they will abolish speed limits outside built up areas because if everybody is driving so slowly and carefully they just won't be needed.
I just can't wait for that to happen.
Jeemag_USA
31-Oct-07, 23:17
I think its a very bad idea, one of the things I hate about the city I live in is they do not use the same reflective paint here as they do in Scotland, and they very rarely upgrade the lines with new paint. Apart from the main streets most streets are badly lit and its very hard to see where the edge or middle of the road are, some people may think this will calm people down but its not that that worries me, there are a lot of elderly drivers who already drive in the middle of the street even with the lines there, and then you have nervous drivers that like to stay as far from the outside egde of the road as possible, how would that be going round bends in wooded areas which this city has a lot of. I have been complaining about the state of the lines here since I got here, and I am a very concsiencious driver. I think if Aberdeen wants to do that in towns and cities, then every accident caused as a result of it should be paid for by them and all the funeral bills should be footed as well, its insane! Why do you think lines on roads were invented? What happens when you come to a city stop that has two or three lanes, how do you know if your in lane?
The funniest thing about this, people actually think dangerous drivers will be less dangerous without lines HA HA HA HA HA HA HA :L (straightjackets please, and bring a big padded van)
Welcomefamily
31-Oct-07, 23:37
A totally stupid idea, but it reminds me of a funny story, I often walked from Dunnet to Castletown and got use to walking along the worn out white line on the right hand side of the road, however early last year there was a dead hedge hog right in the middle of the line driven over by a car, about three days later they put new white lines down and yes this new white line went right over the middle of the dead hedge hog.
Jeemag_USA
31-Oct-07, 23:54
A totally stupid idea, but it reminds me of a funny story, I often walked from Dunnet to Castletown and got use to walking along the worn out white line on the right hand side of the road, however early last year there was a dead hedge hog right in the middle of the line driven over by a car, about three days later they put new white lines down and yes this new white line went right over the middle of the dead hedge hog.
Well his life was not wasted, he may just save someones life off of his own back [lol]
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