London Banter - View Single Post

Someone Somewhere · December 17th 18, 09:57 AM posted to uk.transport.london

On 17/12/2018 09:46, wrote:
On Sun, 16 Dec 2018 14:30:24 -0000
"tim..." wrote:
wrote in message
news
On Fri, 14 Dec 2018 21:05:26 +0000
Robin wrote:
I would be very surprised if anyone who was ignorant of the toll in
advance but asked politely for the number at any of the services on the
M25/M2/M20 - or at the ferry/Eurotunnel terminal - would fail to get it,
if only from a passing member of the public.

Very convenient. Find someone to ask for a number, phone number, faff
around
with endless menus. I mean who wouldn't want to do that compared to just
handing over 2 quid, done, drive off...

And the phone and postal services for the Dart Charge seem quaint and
indulgent compared with the toll roads in eg Sydney where it's
electronic or else - including for visitors in hire cars.

The french peages allow you to use electronic tokens that open the barrier
automaticaly or the option of credit card or cash payments. Theres zero
reason a similar system couldn't have been adopted here.

the French peage are routinely almost empty. The same cannot be said of the

Out in the sticks yes, near big cities not always. Anyway, the northbound
dartfords queues have never been due to the tolls, its always been down to
squeezing one of the busiest motorways in europe 6 lanes down + local feeder
roads into 4 narrow lanes with a de facto speed limit of around 25mph on a
good day.

More to the point, British drivers seem to have forgotten how to merge
efficiently these days so any narrowing of the road consistently causes
massive delays wherever it is.

Same as they have forgotten that the national speed limit is 60 (70
where there are multiple lanes and a central reservation) and not 50.

Also that any maneuver should, as a default, not cause another road user
to have to brake (see my first point on merging, but also the idiots at
motorway junctions who pull out a lane without regard to what is coming
behind them because they think it is the "safer" thing to do, and to
avoid having to merge effectively with traffic entering the motorway)..