Yellow lines

Anyone know when double yellows were introduced? OK, I admit it, been watching Heartbeat....

Geoff MacK

Reply to
Geoff Mackenzie
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Next someone will tell us they were introduced by the Yellow Earl(Lonsdale) he painted everything yellow including his cars, of which he had two of each, just in case the first one broke down. Hence the AA and the yellow background.

r
Reply to
Rob

I remember looking this up a while ago and being surprised how long they've been in existence. Trouble is, I can't find the link any more. I think they were introduced on an ad-hoc basis by various local councils, and it was only relatively recently (IIRC) that they were standardised.

Reply to
Halmyre

Yes, they've been with us for about half a century now and I'm still a bit confused about exactly what you are and are not allowed to do on them. I take the Irish approach and treat the single yellow as signifying 'no waiting at all' and the double as 'no waiting at all, at all', which so far has kept me out of trouble.

In Australia, on the other hand, they differentiate between waiting and stopping. . .

Ron Robinson

Reply to
R N Robinson

Very much earlier than you'd think.

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Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

They have actually changed in meaning over the years. When they came in, single ones meant no parking for 'the working day' Times did vary but say

0800-1800. Broken ones less than the working day - you had to look at the signs to see exactly what the restriction was. Double was longer than the working day and again you needed to look to be sure as it might mean no parking ever - or perhaps allowed between 2400 - 0700, etc.

There were similar lines painted on kerbs at right angles to the road to denote loading restrictions. Except that they were one two or three lines

- since they were too short for a 'broken' one. The same 'working day' thing applied.

Few seemed to get their heads round actually reading a sign to see when restrictions applied and thought double lines meant no parking ever. Rather the same as bus lanes - many seem incapable of reading when they apply and simply never use them.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

It's all right for those used to towns, but country bumpkins like me get easily confused.

"I'm not waiting, Mr/Mrs/Ms Traffic Warden. I have merely stopped and am trying to locate a sign which tells me what I am allowed to do. I'm sure I saw one back there somewhere but I couldn't park near it. Can I leave my car here while I go back and take a look?"

Ron Robinson

Reply to
R N Robinson

This was supposed to be Whitby, Yorkshire - not that this will help unless there are any Whitby folk out there with long memories....

Heartbeat itself seems to have been pickled in aspic in 1969.

Geoff MacK

Reply to
Geoff Mackenzie

Tut tut! We do here, too, you know!

That's what the "Urban clearway" signs are for. The red-bordered blue circle with a single red diagonal means no waiting. The one with the red cross (two diagonal reds) means no stopping. Stopping means "allowing passengers on/off".

That's also what the Red Routes in London are for. Rather than just meaning "no waiting" they mean "no stopping".

We also differentiate between "stopping" and "loading/unloading", with the yellow marks on the pavement. I'd have to refer to the highway code to remember the rules.

Michael

Reply to
Michael Kilpatrick

They need to make the restrictions signs big enough and aligned so they can be read as you drive by.

Most bus lane signs are lost and unreadable in the plethora of other directives.

Most ped zone signs with limited vehicular access are too complex to take in without stopping for 5 min while reading them. Like 2 times a day, different on Sat and different again on Sunday.

So what's really needed is active signs that simply says "USE BUS LANE" or "BUS LANE", that says "NO ENTRY" or "ACCESS PERMITTTED" and "PARKING ALLOWED 1hr" (with min count down at end of time) or "NO PARKING" according to program.

Reply to
Peter Hill

Oh but they won't, will they? Too much capital expenditure, too little income generation.

Don't you just hate cynics?

Ron Robinson

Reply to
R N Robinson

Thanks, Dave. I shall be extremely careful when parking my sheep in Yorkshire. Perhaps I should restrict myself to driving them across London Bridge....

Geoff MacK

Reply to
Geoff Mackenzie

Round my way, they took down the large clear readable signs on one major route, which you could see from far enough away to take in at 30mph, and they replaced them with smaller signs with more information on, which you haven't a hope of understanding unless you are stuck in traffic. The man responsible for ordering the new signs goes to work on a bicycle. Why on earth do they let people who don't drive advise on roads and traffic? (The rot started with Barbara Castle, Minister of Transport)

We have a 24-hour bus lane. No buses use that road between 11:30 pm and

7:15 am.

Jim

Reply to
Jim Warren

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember "Geoff Mackenzie" saying something like:

Not that I watch it regularly, but the latest reg no I've seen on it has been H-suffix. Why are their no really s**te old heaps on Heartbeat? From my direct recall, in 1969 there were some utterly awful old bangers around in daily use - not all shiny like the garage queens we see on that.

Reply to
Grimly Curmudgeon

What about Peggy's car?

Reply to
Chris Bolus

Tis true. I knew people who bought a heap for a very few notes, ran it until it either needed something expensive done or it failed an MOT, took it to the scrappie and looked for another of the same ilk.

Unlike the ones in Heartbeat, these would have had rust holes in the bottom of the doors and (often) at the bottom of the front wings, no shine, and very little synchromesh remaining in the gearbox.

Jim

Reply to
Jim Warren

I remember that time very well. A fiver with no MoT or £30 with a decent amount left, irrespective of make or model. And if you didn't mind paying a little more to the MoT testing station there were quite a few locally where you didn't actually need to take the car in....

GMacK

Reply to
Geoff Mackenzie

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