lots of cars today

[sjpt]

Just been for a very pleasant pootle on the small roads around Winchester. There were lots more cars than usual; on roads we usually just see one or two (or none) there were ten or more; and on slightly busier (still very minor) roads there were mini-streams of cars. I guess it's the sudden good weather, and maybe the apparently very bad state of the M3.

The standard of politeness of all the drivers and willingness to give way when they should was remarkably high. The ride was still very enjoyable. Has anybody else noticed this sudden increase?

(Very quiet on here this morning. I hope this is because everybody else is out enjoying a good ride.)

 

[flecc]

The standard of politeness of all the drivers and willingness to give way when they should was remarkably high. The ride was still very enjoyable. Has anybody else noticed this sudden increase?

Certainly in my area and for some distance around the courtesy of a large proportion of drivers is very much higher now. There seems to be increasing patience and consideration for others. Drivers quite often going to some lengths to accomodate cyclists, often stopping at non-pedestrian crossing points to allow vulnerable pedestrians to cross rather than be forced to wait for long periods, letting other drivers out from side roads and willingly pausing to allow bus drivers to get back into the traffic stream from bus stops.

This has been a gradual process of improvement over a long time around here though in my South London borough and surrounding area. So I'm inclined to believe it's due to more drivers finally getting resigned to the fact that the sheer weight of traffic means progress is bound to be slow so one might as well relax and accept it. It's now more a case of sharing the road space than fighting for it.
.

 

[grldtnr]

Certainly in my area and for some distance around the courtesy of a large proportion of drivers is very much higher now. There seems to be increasing patience and consideration for others. Drivers quite often going to some lengths to accomodate cyclists, often stopping at non-pedestrian crossing points to allow vulnerable pedestrians to cross rather than be forced to wait for long periods, letting other drivers out from side roads and willingly pausing to allow bus drivers to get back into the traffic stream from bus stops.

This has been a gradual process of improvement over a long time around here though in my South London borough and surrounding area. So I'm inclined to believe it's due to more drivers finally getting resigned to the fact that the sheer weight of traffic means progress is bound to be slow so one might as well relax and accept it. It's now more a case of sharing the road space than fighting for it.
.

Traffic calming , if you like, I don't believe the answer is building more roads, or trying to'engineer'a way out of too much traffic.
In my local area, a lot of money , time & inconvenience had been spent on trying to create more road space to allow traffic to speed through junctions at intersections, essentially creating an extra lane by stealing away some of the verge on both sides of carriageway, it soon disappear's back to 2 lanes, hence 300 meters on you are fighting to get 3 back to 2 lanes.
Madness!

 

[sjpt]

Turns out part of it was due to the motorway issue.
Officers are currently dealing with "a large diesel spill across the carriageway", which is expected to take several hours to clear.
Even some of the smaller roads we were on the traffic could have been people trying to work out how to get from M3 onto A34; I might have tried the same had I been in a car.

In a way I am even more (pleasantly) surprised how good the driving was; conditions like that can quickly lead to impatience at best.