S2000Si

I believe that part of the problem in Poole is that Siemens Traffic systems are/were based in Poole. The deal apparently was that Poole Borough Council didn't pay much for traffic systems and Siemens got to test on our roads..

On example was one of the first traffic light controlled, traffic volume monitoring roundabouts was Fleetsbridge in Poole. Seems to work well now, but IIRC was rubbish 15 years ago.

Lucky us

MB

Yep one of my mates works for them too Si

Think the camera stuff is seperate though?

I thought Fleets flowed perfectly well before the lights. Think it was only several years ago? Same with the Mountbatten Arms ones. Now all that happens is people get pissed off sitting in massive council controlled queues.

You can now queue for miles down the dorest way as a result. But on the plus side think of all those low speed collisions which have been saved

I'm suprised the environment lot haven't kicked up a fuss tbh.

j8mie

You touch on a interesting point there Mark.

On the one had we have our feckless Government telling us to "be green, recycle and cut down on our car usage". But on the other hand they are more than happy to have us all sit in traffic jams belching out CO2, when most of the time we are only sat in queues due to piss poor traffic management.

The sinic in me thinks the Government would rather we sat in our cars, needlessly using up our petrol, so we can rush out and buy some more to fill the treasuries coffers

Nick Graves

They won't; their discontinuous thinking is that by pissing off motorists, they'll all swich to pubic transport or onto bikes.

Yup, the woman with four kids, the disabled guy, the van driver, the business suit, etc. All on pushbikes.

Hence the "mentalist" in environmentalist.

S2000Si

I've seen more slow speed crashes in stop start traffic on the slow single lane bit of the A338 coming into the LV roundabout in Poole, just after the speed camera, in the last six months than i have ever seen crashes on the rest of the A338 before or after it was resticted to 50 and loaded with cameras.

Heavy slow frustrated traffic causes accidents and creates VAT and employment (feed the conspiracy!)

they definitely started playing with fleetsbridge in late 1994 - i used to have to drive through at about 5 in the morning and suddenly they put in the lights one weekend and by the time they had spotted i was the only car for miles and given me a green, i'd have stopped at the blasted red light

j8mie

That is probably more accurate, and of course central Government doesn't have much say (if any) on local traffic management. One day I fear there will be a "gridlock" situation in our large towns and cities, and the in power party won't be interested in doing anything.

We don't all get in our cars between 8-9am just to be really annoying, we do because we all have places to be. Yes there are plenty of people out there who make needlessly short journeys at those times, but they've paid for the right to use the road network, so who am I to tell them they can't clog up the roads just because they want to drop the kids off at school. They might as well get some use out of their pointless BMW X6M

mikey k

You'd have to be to speed through traffic lights!

B B

..and you could write and email and phone moan and complain for ever more, but I'm sorry but the realistic fact on Planet Reality is that this is ALL you will ever get -a response of fine patronising words but no action or a change of policy.
All the anger and fury and frustration is only going to feed more anger and fury and frustration.
The situation is irreversible and will get worse, so get used to it.

There is a view that if you cannot change a situation then change your attitude to that situation, or it's not the problem itself that's the problem it's how you deal with the problem.

We are all restricted and constricted and yes it's driving many mad to the point of sheer frustration, but if that frustration is not tempered or controlled then many more will die on our roads.
We have to learn to cope and adapt, be patient and tolerant. This is a war that cannot be won, and that's not being defeatist, just realistic.

The coping method is one of mental mature attitude, ignore this and you wil finish up with ulcers, heat attacks and probably be involved in a road accident yourself.

Driving is rarely fun anymore, just an increasingly tiresome method of getting from A to B.
I feel sad for those who have never enjoyed the real freedom and joy of the open road when England was a country worth living in.

I try to allow lots of extra time for a journey, make very early starts, accept that I'm not going to be able to drive very fast ( thus making owning a car able to do 150mph stupid - but having terrific acceleration IS worth it ), try to frive defensively not offensively, have no interest in racing others or proving a point with total strangers, use the time to listen to music, drop the hood unless it's pouring with rain ( you can't be taxed for having the roof folded - yet ! )
Not a fool-proof policy and I am human so get pissed off too, but what is the alternative? I sure ain't going to waste energy whingeing and moaning.

Nick Graves

That may be perfectly true, BB.

But I for one, have a great deal of intellectual difficulty in letting the c unts get away with it. Doing so is precisely why we now live in the gulag archipelago, as you yourself imply!

I KNOW I ought to ignore all laws, rules and become some sort of anarchist and f uck the sodding place, but I just cannot quite bring myself to do it, somehow.

I'm no patriotic fool, but my instinctive pacifism soon reverses if you mess with me! And these pillocks are messing with us all.

MB

Sorry BB, but that is the typical British attitude when it comes to things like this and hence we get ****ed over all the time.

The Frogs wouldn't put up with it.

Look at the fuel strike stuff. It did work for a short time. Not sure why it isn't happening again, but the government needs telling.

I do agree though that nowt will happen...

For me, there are too many do-gooding ****s around supporting initiatives like this