Possibly silly question for someone over the pond...

[GrimJack]

I've been watching a fair bit of Top Gear recently, and all the footage of British roads has made me wonder.

What is with the crooked lines between lanes? Are all the line painters horribly drunk?

 

[A. Jay]

In for answer also.

 

[Kai]

Crooked lines? Take a picture - so i can see what you mean...

 

[GrimJack]

Like this: http://studyabroad.duke.edu/uploads/photos/714_t.jpg

or this: http://tackytouristphotos.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/abbey-road-Beatles-Tourists.jpg

 

[northwestsupra]

:3d_frown:silly drunk line people

 

[Kai]

Highway code, rule #167

You MUST NOT park on a crossing or in the area covered by the zig-zag lines. You MUST NOT overtake the moving vehicle nearest the crossing or the vehicle nearest the crossing which has stopped to give way to pedestrians.

http://www.ukmotorists.com/highway code6.asp

That might clear things up...

 

[91Supra313]

So basically the govment over there wanted to waste more of their tax payers quid, by paying the painters to draw extra crap on the road instead of doing what most other countries do.... Tell people when they get their license, " Don't park, or pass another car near crosswalks "...... Now I know why some of the guys on the UK Supra site want to get out of there so bad.

 

[Kai]

Most of the highway code isn't annoying though...and in situations like that, having someone park or overtake in those areas is just plain dangerous. One of the important things to remember, is most UK roads in town/city centres are very narrow, as they were there before cars were around. Hell, 50% of london is inaccessible to cars as large as the Supra, simply because of the limited width of the lanes/roads. I couldn't take a Supra through the width restriction on Hammersmith bridge, even if i had a narrowbody...can barely squeeze a VW Golf through it. Likewise with parking spaces - i'm a blue badge holder (disabled badge) and loathe though i am to use it - a lot of the time i have no choice but to park in disabled spaces, because other parking spaces are too narrow to fit in or if you can, opening the doors becomes a challenge...

Things like the red routes exist because it's NOT safe to park on the kerb there, as you pose a major obstruction to traffic.

 

[GrimJack]

Interesting. Here, they paint the curb yellow, which means you can't park there. And every stop sign has small print on it that says you can't park withing X meters / feet. Anything else is covered using signs.

I suspect that the zig zag lines method is probably cheaper.

 

[Kangae]

When you say overtake, you're talking about the guys who blast around the right side of a guy who is turning left and waiting for traffic on the shoulder even though they're driving an SUV and there is a 4 foot deep ditch and mailboxes over there, but there was only one car coming so you ended up getting out of the way before that guy could navigate around you, right?

 

[GrimJack]

I thought he meant any kind of passing... on either side.