Keep left
April 15th, 2008 Posted in ObservationsYou can’t travel far in the UK without coming across one of these little chaps.
A load of bollards. Picture by James Gray
They’re everywhere and arguably one of the most effective bits of design work on the road network. Durable, inexpensive, and all the electrics are kept underground so, if they are struck by a vehicle, a new hollow plastic bollard can be fitted over the top at minimal cost.
The trouble is that about 90% of them have a ‘keep left’ sign, like the one above. That’s fine when you stick them in the middle of a two-way road, but all too often a ‘keep left’ is used in entirely the wrong place. It’s easy to see why: the majority of bollards do require that ‘keep left’ instruction, so the chances are that a work crew being sent out to replace one will have a van full of ‘keep lefts’ and might not have spares of another kind available.
The thing is, as I understand it, that little blue roundel is a mandatory instruction. When you come to one, you have to keep left.
For at least a year (and probably more), it has been illegal to drive northbound on Waterloo Bridge in London. Every single vehicle that has done so, and there are tens of thousands of them, has broken the law by failing to observe a traffic sign. The innocent-looking bollard placed just on the exit from the Waterloo roundabout at the south end of the bridge, you see, incorrectly carries a ‘keep left’ sign, making it absolutely non-negotiable that all traffic there should be going down the little sliproad to Royal Festival Way and not passing to its right in order to cross the river.
Fortunately, in this case, there shouldn’t be very much traffic being diverted in this way, because another one on the roundabout itself orders all traffic down the York Road exit.
These are just a couple of examples that came to mind quite easily, but there are plenty of them about, and having regularly passed the Waterloo Bridge example I’ve started wondering which bollard is accidentally creating the most lawbreakers. If you have any good examples please do share them.
5 Responses to “Keep left”
By Sam Chew on Apr 17, 2008
I think, rather like the huge DEATH warnings on cigarette packets, these bollards go largely unnoticed by those who drive. They’re useful if you’re really stuck and don’t know the way, but people are quite prepared to ignore them, especially in London, where people are more prepared than usual to ignore most of the rules of the road.
The blue sign might mean a mandatory instruction, but I’m not sure that most drivers understand the colour as that. If one comes across a sign with which one is unfamiliar, one tends to rely upon instinct or emotion to comprehend it, and with that in mind, I don’t think the blue colour helps - I certainly think of blue circles as being more advisory, and red circles as being definite instructions. This might be wrong, but that’s just my immediate reaction.
By Gary Lumley on Apr 23, 2008
I reckon that the “pass both ways” bollard, whilst not exactly ignored by traffic, does tend to be used in the wrong situations. I have one near me that has been installed on the bull-nose of a roundabout, and another that I know of is installed where a few yards further down the road, the two lanes split into opposite directions.
By Toby Speight on Jun 3, 2008
I’ve got a collection of several varieties of traffic bollard: http://bealach-na-ba.fotopic.net/c448772.html
Here’s an example of an offending bollard - try to ‘pass either side’ and watch other drivers’ reactions: http://bealach-na-ba.fotopic.net/p9914603.html
By Simon Davies on Jun 10, 2008
Sam - the blue keep left arrow is mandatory - you should pass to the left of the bollard. Round the back of John Lewis in Oxford Street, London, there is an example where if you followed the instructions to the letter, you’d never move again. Can’t remember the details but it made it impossible to use the only exit from a one-way loop.
What should be used in places where the keep left arrow is wrong, and the ‘pass either side to reach the same destination’ arrows don’t apply is a blank-faced bollard - it identifies that there is an obstruction but doesn’t force you to break the law or provide misleading information.
Cheers,
Simon
By Mark Grindon on Jun 12, 2008
Crawley’s new FastWay bus guideways have been littered with bollards that, in my opinion, are doing nothing but closing the roads to all traffic.
The entrances to the guided, segregated, apartheid bus lanes are marked with bollards to indicate the kerb that has been laid in the middle of the road where no kerb used to be. Nothing unusual there. However the roundels printed on these bollards are “No Entry” signs, presumably to compliment the “No Entry” “Except guided buses” signs on 12 foot poles above them, hanging slightly over the bus lane.
The bollards of course have no supplementary plate so therefore apply to all traffic driving towards it. This technically means that anybody who passes the bollard either side is breaking the law for not observing the “No Entry” restriction.
As far as I can tell these “No Entry” bollards should be placed only on traffic islands that traffic may not pass either side of, for example at traffic lights where the lamps are mounted on an island between two lanes of traffic heading in one direction - nobody may pass in the contraflow direction either side of this bollard.
Therefore (and before we start the arguments that perhaps the empty bus lanes could have been put to better use by making the roads S4, or that the newly reduced 30mph limits down roads that have wide pavements with cycle lanes, pelicon crossings, and pedestrian-inhibiting bumpy pavements to prevent crossing where there is no pedestrian crossing) why are these bollards not simply blanks?
And more to the point why have I written such an essay regarding some illuminated plastic??