It seems that the love affair some cars seem to have with driving onto tram only sections across the country shows no sign of abating with both Nottingham and Manchester hit during the past few days.
For Nottingham it was the same place on two separate occasions with the Lenton Lane Bridge the location. The first car found its way onto the bridge on Saturday 12th December at around 1530 and was removed within 90 minutes with the second incident being just three days later on Tuesday 15th December. This time the car was not in situ for too long but still long enough to cause delays on the Toton Lane to Hucknall service. These are the second and third times a vehicle has driven onto the tramway here with a previous occurrence in October.
Meanwhile over in Manchester it was the turn of the Manchester Airport line to be affected on Thursday 17th December when a car drove onto the tracks at Barlow Moor Road getting itself well and truly stuck. Services were only able to run from the Airport to Northern Moor whilst the car was freed and removed from the tramway.
No matter what road signs may be in place it would appear that some motorists are determined to find out just what happens when their car pretends to be a tram!
I hope these morons are prosecuted, fined heavily and banned from driving.
I am going to say this until I am blue in the face, but the old adages are always the best.
You can sign all you want – but triangular deterrent timbers a la heavy rail practice across the separation points MUST be installed if these incompetents are ever to be dissuaded – a level entry point with neon signage is never going to solve the problem.
Prevention is better than cure, and signage is not preventing this problem.
Whilst I agree that signage obviously does little to deter these incompetent drivers I don’t think that a little bit of timber will help in any way. They installed them at Oldham Mumps on the original temporary alignment and they did nothing to prevent at least three incursions on the north side. On heavy rail level crossings they are installed as pedestrian deterrents not as vehicle deterrents.
The Cambridgeshire guided busway has dedicated car traps (signed as such) at the entrance to each guideway section, but cars still drive into them, as they do the rising bollards in the city centre which have no fewer than three signs warning drivers, before inevitably the cars are trashed by them. So whatever precautions are taken, one cannot pre-empt carelessness, inattention or stupidity, and so, sadly, such events will continue to happen.
Of course bearing in mind that 99.99999% of motorists negotiate these junctions correctly there can’t be that much wrong with the signage. And bearing in mind that in every field there is the small percentage of idiots who wouldn’t recognise the blindingly obvious even if they tripped over it, I don’t really see what else can be done, other than putting railway style barriers at every single road interface.
Thinking about the possible reasons why motorists mistakenly turn onto tramways is the possibility that they are running on satnav and when told to turn next right or left mistake the tramway as the next right or left turn rather than driving further to the proper turn – the next road to the right or left. Perhaps satnavs should be tweaked to allow for railway, tramway and busway crossings to be marked by an audible warning not to turn onto them.
I have stopped two cars driving on the dedicated bus way in Runcorn and both drivers told me the satnav says it is ok despite the fact they have driven past a no entry sign. Unfortunately these idiots do not read the highway code. When you take your driving test you are told when instructed to turn left or right to take the correct turning and not the first turning they come to.
Physical deterrents are needed. When I was working we used pyramidial shaped concrete blocks for emergency accesses. They would stop anything short of a fire engine.
Perhaps satnavs should be programmed to regularly broadcast to the user that they are an aid to driving and do not overrule road signs.
So not only do we Brits provide excellent whingeing cyclists but now car drivers have joined the merry bands of incompetents. Ye gods!