DRIVE ARRIVE executive transfers

This is an email I was eventually invited to send to Highways England on Tuesday 18th February 2020 following concerns I have over their traffic management at Brampton Hut Roundabout on the A14/A1 junction

 

Following numerous unanswered comments I have made on your Facebook page about the recent alterations at Brampton Hut I have been invited to email my concerns to you at this address. A14CambridgeHuntingdon@highwaysengland.co.uk

 

I am an ex advanced driving instructor, ex fire service and now a professional driver owning a multi award winning private hire business and am a regular user of this junction.

 

Recently, as part of the Huntingdon Southern Relief Road project you have made some changes to the kerb lines, lane markings and traffic light phasing at Brampton Hut roundabout. I have serious and pressing concerns over this location and fear its only a matter of time before someone gets hurt or killed there. I will list them below.

 

1) The off slip from the A1 Northbound down to the roundabout currently has two lanes down to the traffic lights. Lane one is marked to take traffic left and straight on and lane two to take traffic right, under the road bridge and on towards Spittals Roundabout. The green light phasing here is not long enough to allow sufficient vehicles, particularly if there are slower moving HGV’s in the queue to free up the off slip. This is a particularly problem at peak times with traffic often queuing dangerously up and onto lane 1, the live 70mph lane of the A1 N/B.

 

2) Since you have chevroned (closed) lane one under the bridge heading east towards Spittals this also concerns me. The new lane one (the old middle lane) here is for ahead only to Spittals and lane 2 for the right turn south onto the A1 and is controlled by lights. These lights see traffic stationary under the bridge, in darkness and further restrict the flow of traffic heading east. I really don’t see why a perfectly good section of road should be closed off here with chevrons.

 

3) Heading west under the bridge from Spittals Roundabout there is a further problem that I encountered the other day. There are currently two lanes marked with straight on arrows on the road surface but the outside of these two lanes suddenly and unexpectedly becomes coned off as you are exiting the junction and heading up to the new roundabout 300 yards or so on. This happens at a critical time as drivers are shoulder checking left etc and I found myself having to brake hard becoming stranded and stationary in the middle of the road. There was no warning of this and the cones were out of sight from under the bridge. I know these cones will eventually be removed but they are causing a problem right now! Maybe you could remove them for half the distance up to the new roundabout to prevent this and allow drivers to merge safely between the roundabouts?

 

4) The slip road onto the A1 south from Spittals has been coned off for several weeks now. In previous correspondence it was stated this was because roadworks were ongoing at the roundabout. This however is only being carried out between 21.00hrs and 05.00hrs and the problem this closed lane causes is unnecessary congestion, again due to slow moving vehicles in lane one that are heading west up the A14 holding back traffic that wants to go south. I have seen drivers getting frustrated here and popping out of line, overtaking and cutting back dangerously across the traffic at the last second. A very simple remedy would be to remove the dozen or so cones and the single metal framed sign during the day and replacing them when works are actually taking place.

 

Essentially most roundabouts do not need traffic light control, this only causes unnecessary congestion and frustration. Spittals roundabout now is a classic example of this needing no traffic light intervention whatsoever except maybe at the blind junction with the A1 southbound off slip where it meets the roundabout. You very quickly put covers over the lights at the top of the old A14 eastbound slip which was sensible and I thank you for that.

 

I know Highways England like to exercise control. However over zealous control is dangerous and while I also know you view driver frustration as the drivers fault and cutting in, undertaking etc a breach of the law I feel you need to take proper consideration of the psychology of drivers and allow them to self manage. Last week the traffic lights were not working at Brampton Hut for a day and on the two occasions I used the junction there was absolutely no congestion, no queues, no traffic dangerously backing up into 70mph traffic and it quite simply……worked.

 

Now on to the road networks in general, especially the motorways. I also know Highways England view congestion as ’safe’, that's why congestion is deliberately created by control room staff on the so called smart motorways, especially where intersections are. The fact of the matter is that the very great majority of drivers are safe and law abiding. In my extensive experience of our motorway networks you get it ’so’ wrong. 1/1000 drivers are dangerous reckless morons who view their vehicles as playthings, toys if you like and will do ‘anything' to be ahead. Your way of dealing with this scenario is imposing speed reductions on miles and miles of perfectly good motorways effectively hemming these people in bunches of slow moving traffic……congestion is safe remember, even though this causes massive frustration and delays to hundreds of thousands of law abiding people on a daily basis. Please be aware too of the countless people I see who then, to feed their mobile phone addiction can’t resist picking up their devices while moving slowly in traffic.

 

I also know Highways Englands justification for converting the life saving hard shoulder to a live running lane is because you believe, due to increased traffic volumes we need wider roads. We don’t need more lanes and what should have happened is the several £billion of tax payers money that has been, and is still being wasted on smart motorways should have been given to police forces for them to put good old fashioned traffic units back on the motorways to enforce the law, namely correct lane usage, tailgating and general aggressive and anti social driving. With modern video evidence these perpetrators wouldn’t even need to be stopped, they would just receive a notice of intended prosecution in the post and again with effective PR and social media people would soon get the message that our roads are being cleaned ‘and freed’ up.

 

These are my views and I can tell you they are shared by so many of my industry colleagues who are all professional drivers and so many other road users too. Still however Highways England don’t want to listen!