Joining the Carriageway
Posted: Thu 5 June, 2008 Filed under: Driving 2 Comments »This is another of those posts I’ve been mentally churning over for a while.
On my commute to the most recent contract, there’s a point where you join the A47 directly off a roundabout. The slip road is dual-carriageway (allbeit without a marked centre-line, but you can definitely get two cars abreast up it) and when you get to the main dual-carriageway the access channel is remarkably short, usually resulting in multiple vehicles trying to get on at once.
With doing this piece of road every day, I’ve ended up knowing what will happen, and cutting across the chevronned area to get on to the main dual carriageway. So far as I can tell, in this instance it’s actually OK to do that – because the white lines either side of the chevrons are dashes, rather than a solid line.
According to the Highway Code,
- If the area is bordered by a broken white line, you should not enter the area unless it is necessary and you can see that it is safe to do so
- If the area is marked with chevrons and bordered by solid white lines you MUST NOT enter it except in an emergency
©Crown copyright
So according to that first point, I’m OK to use the area – it’s safe to do so, and actually makes things safer for other people joining the carriageway from the same sliproad.
But would you do it?
I reckon that it depends how bored the traffic police are as to whether they’d pull you over for a little lecture…
If you use the chevroned bit then accelearte heavily, selfishly stopping those who are using the non-chevroned slip-on from entering the A-road normally (and maybe even having to brake rather than filter in one and one), they’d definitely pull you over. They might even do you for inconsiderate driving (although I expect they’d call it something more law-like).
But maybe yours aren’t as bulshy as ours round here…
No, I don’t do that – I go over the chevrons (when it’s clear on the inside lane of the dual carriageway I’m joining) and then usually aim to also get out onto the right-hand lane so I’m not blocking anyone, and am in fact making it easier for others to join the carriageway without my car breathing up their backsides.