27 March (Part 2) - Design failure
What’s
with the plague of keep left signs in Lower Road asked a reader. Photo 1 shows
eight, two more are only just excluded and a similar number may be seen
further down the road. My correspondent says he has not seen vehicles on the
wrong side of the road though I have to confess I have, several times. The
narrowing of Belvedere’s B213 has become so frustrating to some drivers they
pass buses (and once me) by ignoring the keep left signs.
My recollection is that ASDA were going to pay for road revisions outside the
new store. As the only exit is in the Erith direction the temptation is to do an
early U turn so a central reservation has been installed with a rough surface to
deter driving over it. Obviously the people who design these things have no idea
of the standard of driving frequently seen in these parts. Hence the
introduction of cones.
Bexley council has provided the following explanation…
The keep left bollards that you refer to are in fact associated with the traffic
islands recently implemented which are intended to slow vehicles down whilst offering
protection to right turning vehicles. They were not introduced to address an issue of
motorists driving on the wrong side of the carriageway.
What the council doesn’t seem to have realised is that narrowing the road at this
point means that if two buses should come along at once, and off peak 14 are
scheduled each hour on
three different routes, the second one is left tailing out into the carriageway and blocking it.
And the man in charge gets a bonus.