Club Arnage

Is this the thin edge of the wedge??

Driving down the M5 today, which I havn't done for a couple of weeks, and saw there are new signs every half a kilometre, with a count up (or down - depending on which way you are travelling) in kilometres from (presumably) the start of the motorway in the midlands.  Thus Taunton is just over 200km from the start of the M5.

I thought that they were going to leave our 'miles' alone.

Del

its surely done for the europeans.

A.K.A mainlanders

Hi Del,

Firstly, can I ask what colour these signs are and do they specifically mention 'Km' etc.

My reply is based on what I believe is the latest edition of the 'regulations'. We don't change signs that often.

2002 No. 3113
ROAD TRAFFIC
The Traffic Signs Regulations and General Directions 2002. comming into force 31st January 2003.

I cannot find any reference to the use of kilometres, just Miles and Yards.

However, Kent Highways erected signs about 2 years ago depicting kilometres which technically speaking were illegal and therefore unenforceable on major roads to ports.

As these were a departure from the regulations, they would have to apply for approval for a 'Non Prescribed Sign'. But, if using Km instead of M, they would be unenforceable.

If I was you, I would write to the Highways Agency and ask for a copy of the NPS and their reasons for doing it under the FoIA and see what happens.

Essex County Council put up some height restriction 'low bridge' signs near to me a couple of years ago, with the height in both feet and metres.
They were found to be in breach of the regs Leftie mentions and had to permanently black out the 'x metres' bit.

Useful reading - http://www.bwmaonline.com/Transport%20-%20DfT%20memo.htm (http://www.bwmaonline.com/Transport%20-%20DfT%20memo.htm)

The signs are about 3' x 2' on poles 5-6'high, white letters on blue background (IIRC).  And no, they don't actually state Km or anything else for that matter.  I drive an imported LHD car, so speedo and odometer are calibrated in Km (/hr), and was able to check the distance between them.

As they don't specifically state Km,  the authorities could quite easily say they are groats (or whetever).  And as they are simply distance, perhaps location markers, there is nothing to enforce.  The southbound ones have an 'A' and the northbound a 'B', so I guess they are location markers for the emergency services.  "There is an RTA at A196.5"  for example.

Del

Also, the official 'The Traffic Signs Regulations and General Directions 2002' http://www.opsi.gov.uk/SI/si2002/20023113.htm (http://www.opsi.gov.uk/SI/si2002/20023113.htm)

(if you can't sleep!)

Now that is stupid. I thought Holland was the only European country in wich rules and regulations were held up that rigourously  :-\

If it had only mentioned metres and not feet I would have agreed, but just adding the height in metres only makes things easier for people from other countries.

I was in an amusement park somewhere near London quite a few years ago and there was a sign next to one of the rides saying passengers must weigh less than a certain number of stones. So I asked this guy if that were little pebbles or big rocks, then he thought I was crazy...

They were referring to this well known brand of beer  ;D

(http://www.brewerschoice.net.au/images/u.k/stones%20bitter.JPG)

Well? You are aren't you??  :-*

Its so that foreign lorry drivers crash into low bridges, and we can claim a new one on their insurance.

Bring back the rod, pole or perch  16.5 feet. 

The rod was phased out as a unit of measurement that could legally be used in the United Kingdom as part of a ten year metrication process that began on 24 May 1965. In old English, the term lug is also used.

Ok we should have gone metric 30 years ago

Can I have my weight in Stones......... better still Leffe!

Petra, Essex was mentioned. Without being a MCP or a wisecracker etc, etc, are you a blonde from that part of the country?  

Point taken Del

C perhaps

Del

I always find petrol station forecourts amusing especially driving my works motor A Volvo 42 tonne globetrotter. How they very nicely put all the measurements of canopy hight in metres when the in cab telling how big it is in feet and inches

The thing that I find a tad stupid.  My car will tell me how much fuel I've used since I filled up.  It tells me in Gallons.  However, You can only buy fuel by the Litre.
So I have no idea how much fuel is left.  So it's a waste of time.   I supose I could do a calculation but surely the whole idea is so you don't need to calculate these things.



t.

As mentioned before, it would be handy if those bridges were in metres and centimetres as well. Or put a sign at every port of entry into the UK, stating what 4.0 metres in feet, toes and nails actually is. Why 4.0 metres? As it's per "continental" law trucks aren't allowed to be higher. I believe 4.0 is equivilant to 13.6 ft, which I found out "en route" through the UK halfway in the nineties.

By the way, nastiest thing I ever came across was a hired trailer without any height mentioned (temping work in the UK). Went south bound through the Blackwall to unload at a supermarket in the south of London. Came back through that same Blackwall tunnel, only to find out the steel barrier was a little too low for my trailer (which is quite an ear distructive sound!). Drove in the "middle lane" all the way through the tunnel (http://forum.drinkingforholland.com/images/smiles/icon_embarrassed.gif)

You think that the Blackwall tunnel is bad.  I was taking a coachload of tourists around London, and had a friend do the Canary Wharf area.  Well, he'd always gone there by taxi, and when we got to the Rotherhithe tunnel, the bus driver slammed the brakes on, as a taxi is a tight squeeze, and this was a high deck luxury coach

Then he saw Albert! :P

Especially as (IIRC) you drive a French Car?

My car tells me how many miles I have left, quick its the Kms. The motor is 12 yrs old.

I would sugest buying an old Beemer.

Come on Albert, show us your face.

From the Department of Transport website:

Driver information signs.  These have been introduced at regular intervals along many motorways and some other roads so that, in the event of a vehicle breakdown or other emergency, the exact location can be identified quickly.  They show the motorway or road number, the carriageway identifier and a distance reference.

ANORAK alert

The information on the signs just copies the information on the white marker posts that have always marked the distance from the start of any motorway. Because these have been based on the distances from each post they have always referred to the basic 100 meter unit. If I remember the one at the junction of the M6 and M1 was something like 196.5 and the M6 numbering carried on the sequence so that it showed the distance from the start of the M1 in that London as 196 (maybe km!) and as the fifth post in that sequence. 200.0 comes somewhere near Wednesbury.

I have an extensive collection of dayglo anoraks from my days when I worked for a certain motoring organisation and was responsible for annoting all these numbers into our database so we could find lost members as quickly as possible.

markers from the start of  the motorway are numbered  as 1234A to show (we always said!) that it was AWAY from the start and 1234B to show it as being BACK to the beginning.

SO we did all that research and filling up a huge database to discover that people wouldnt get out of their car to look at the number for us so we can find  them straight off (only 50 yards away any direction, max!) and then within a couple of years it all went titsupp when Global Positioning data was released into the satnav systems...


Now shall I waffle about phone boxes on the motorways?

No, begger that!

Del, you summise correctly.

Legally, they are the same as the plastic markers but more prominent and easily viewed at high speed by the Emergency Services.

A note to Perdu, marker posts are at 100m, have you measured them? They vary between 80-120m generally, although on the Stafford section of M6 J12-15, there are some 150+m apart (I know, I put them there!!). Over 200 miles the maximmum 'creep' can be about a kilometer, sorry, 5/8ths of a mile.

When these were introduced, the location was governed by a point on the central reserve and then transpossed to either side of the motorway so it could form a cross-section.

The 'gap' would enlarge and reduce depending on the horizontal curvature and side of the carriageway.

It is very rare to set these out with a measuring wheel nowadays. These days you have the element of an additional 'measurement creep' as everything is 'set out' horizontally and not catering for gradients.

I sorta knew from my anoraky time that they were 100m and that as all they do is give datum data they were outside Legislative dooberryness

And now, wow, at last I find someone else who knows about these things

The ones up by Stafford were noticed, I thought the "doer" must have been piddled when he done them...

Now of course I takes it all back

:angel:

If I had still been in the employ of my old people I would have been much happier with the new versions

But idiot people broken down would still be refusing to walk a short step to get the number so we could find tham and HELP them

People are their own worst enemy aint they...