A-hole in a van.

[thirdcrank]

The technology for opening or closing gaps isn't the issue, although it's obviously going to be easier if it's built-in rather than improvised. The Leeds Inner Ring Road - A58M - is designated a motorway but as the speed limit is 40mph the carriageway separation is minimal, except in the tunnels. There are also entry and exit slips every few hundred yards minimising the length of trapped queues and gaps in the central island. You could sort out something there with a few cones. I can see how with countless lanes going both ways, or a tidal system you might do all sorts. Also this isn't about longer term layouts at roadworks etc, but the emergency response to a serious crash.

I still don't see how this might work on a typical UK motorway: often operating at or even above planned capacity and with long distances between junctions. As I posted, this is a Highways Agency responsibility and, ultimately, one for the ministry of transport, rather than police and Home Office.

[Vorpal]

I still don't see how this might work on a typical UK motorway: often operating at or even above planned capacity and with long distances between junctions. As I posted, this is a Highways Agency responsibility and, ultimately, one for the ministry of transport, rather than police and Home Office.

I would rather go 8 miles back to the previous junction than sit on a motorway for six hours. If anything, I think the distances between junctions are longer in the USA, outside of cities. And similarly, I think it's better to have very congested traffic moving on one side because it is accomodating temporary flow from the other side, than to have it moving normally and the other side not moving until everything is cleared.

The other thing is that in the UK, they aren't very quick to close a road after an accident happens. They let traffic accumulate until the queue is miles and miles long. And they may never prevent more more traffic from joining. As soon as they realise that the road is going to be closed while vehicles are recovered, etc. They should send the accumulating traffic off at a previous junctions and close the slip roads onto the motorway.

Traffic density may be higher in the UK than many other places, but there are places with much higher traffic density than Leeds (New York city?) that manage to cope okay with emergency road closures and rerouting traffic. But they are prepared for it, and they manage to deal with the logistics of rerouting traffic and closing motorways / highways that belong to other authorities.

That no one can see how it could work is why drivers in Berlin or New York, or the middle of nowhere are merely inconvenienced by an RTC in which they are not involved, while those in the UK sit for hours waiting for it to be cleared.

If nothing else, the government should consider the economic costs of all these people sitting there, not working, not enjoying their holidays, and not spending money; and comparing to the cost and benefits of alternatives.

[Postboxer]

Weigh that cost up against all the tax they are collecting in fuel duty and VAT with all those engines running for all that extra time, even if that only happens on hot days so people can keep their air-con running.

[thirdcrank]

I'm not saying the present arrangement is ideal and as I've already posted, I've been stuck in motorway queues fuming with everyone else. It's my impression that most of the protests I read - and I'm not a visitor to diving forums - are against the prolonged delays caused by road closures for a detailed forensic examination, rather than pressure for methods of clearing the queues. Sweep the debris aside PDQ to get the traffic going, seems to be the message and that's what tends to happen unless it's a KSI. I've also been in the duty officer's seat in a police control room when a large chunk of the motorway network was controlled from there so I've some experience from the other end of the spyglass. I've still not seen anything on how this could be done. eg even diverting all the traffic off at the preceding exit - something that happens naturally anyway as drivers see the tailback - leads to further queuing as all that motorway traffic tries to squeeze onto local roads. Turning every vehicle in the queue round and sending it back to that junction would only increase that congestion.

I'm no fan of highwaymen, the Highways Agency or the ministry of transport, but I'm prepared to believe that they look at how these things are handled elsewhere. eg I believe that variable speed limits in conjunction with using the hard shouldr as a running lane was copied from The Netherlands (in spite of police opposition, incidentally.)

[Pugwash]

"I'm sorry mrs x, I appreciate we were a long time responding to your 999 call. Unfortunately we encountered a litterer, an illegal number plate and a pavement cyclist without pedal reflectors on the way here"

I'd want police to prioritise more urgent cases over more minor ones

The poster point was that if the officer may not have had time to properly enforce the law with regards to a driver on a mobile phone because of a domestic incident, what happens if that driver then goes on to run over someone because they are not concentrating properly, does that RTA then become more important than the next domestic incident ?

I appreciate it is very difficult for and individual officer, for that very reason they should not be picking and choosing which laws they think have time to enforce. If there is a pecking order - it should be published so we can use it to discuss with police and crime commissioners, this is supposed to be a democratic system after all.

[Bicycler]

Even with many more police on the streets you would always end up with an individual officer having to prioritise one thing over another (he cannot be in two places at once) even if there are enough police in total to deal with every minor misdemeanour.

[mjr]

... Some of the older forum members have posted about a time when they would not wheel a pedal cycle on a pavement and spent ages on quiet Sunday mornings, jumping up and down on the rubber strips which activated traffic light. Mutatis mutandis the behaviour of most drivers was similar. Visible police patrolling combined with enforcement produced civilised standards from most road users. ...

Returning to this because after reflection I still don't understand this use of "mutatis mutandis" or in English "changing only what needs changing": yes, most drivers refuse to get out and push their car on a pavement past a broken traffic light... so what's uncivilised in either example or changed by visible police patrolling?

[bigjim]

The poster point was that if the officer may not have had time to properly enforce the law with regards to a driver on a mobile phone because of a domestic incident, what happens if that driver then goes on to run over someone because they are not concentrating properly, does that RTA then become more important than the next domestic incident ?

But if I throw that back at you. Most domestic incidents involving a police callout is because there is a violent, or possible violent situation. The only officer on duty, en-route,then stops to give a ticket to mobile phone wielding driver. In the meantime the original incident escalates and a person is severely injured or killed because of the delay.
Now where do you stand?