Thread: Perth's Freeway

Originally Posted by Homestar

Just do what we do in Melbourne when merging - if a gap is more than an inch longer than your vehicle, just veer across into the new lane you wish to occupy. Indicators are optional.

When someone honks their horn or yells at you, act like it was their fault...

Never happens in QLD as the cars trying to merge are all still doing 60kph....
some even stop and give way...

Originally Posted by Pedro_The_Swift

Never happens in QLD as the cars trying to merge are all still doing 60kph....
some even stop and give way...

One of my pet hates.

ACT drivers are bad for that, too.

Because of the lousy design of the freeway in WA you get a mob of vehicles all moving down the ramps at the same time and quite often the idiot at the front has an attack of nerves and brakes rather than accelerate to the same speed as the traffic already on the freeway.
The vehicles behind are all looking (or should be …) to the right and then suddenly it all goes tits up because of the leading nervous Nellie. Of course the road design looks good on their desktop modelling so the road "designers" are quite happy....
All these highly qualified twits have had numerous overseas trips to see how others do it but then ignore all that and modify it for WA conditions.
AlanH.

Originally Posted by ATH

Because of the lousy design of the freeway in WA you get a mob of vehicles all moving down the ramps at the same time and quite often the idiot at the front has an attack of nerves and brakes rather than accelerate to the same speed as the traffic already on the freeway.
The vehicles behind are all looking (or should be …) to the right and then suddenly it all goes tits up because of the leading nervous Nellie. Of course the road design looks good on their desktop modelling so the road "designers" are quite happy....
All these highly qualified twits have had numerous overseas trips to see how others do it but then ignore all that and modify it for WA conditions.
AlanH.

WTF are you talking about? What has the ramp design got to do with poor drivers?

How about you have a think before you comment? Casting insults at road engineering professionals (of which I am one) does you no favours.....

Compared to other countries (and other states in Oz) I have driven in, a thing I noticed about Perth's freeways is we don't always meet the criteria for good onramp design, which is probably due to limitations in location and $$$.

Motorway on-ramp design for effective merging

Another issue is drivers not speeding up to match the freeway traffic until they hit the freeway speed limit sign - which seem to be placed too close to the merge point. I'm sure if the freeway speed sign was put a bit closer to entry point (road design/legal requirements etc. permitting), less people would be trying to merge when still traveling 40kph under the limit. I have recently seen some signage that migrated to a better position (after roadworks were completed), which is encouraging. But you can't always legislate/design roads to fix stupid!

Apart from poor driving or a not entirely ideal road setup (for whatever reason), in WA we suffer from the occasional road blitz where the WA Police target the onramps and book drivers for accelerating too early, and hence you are technically 'speeding' before you got to the 100 sign. It then gets plastered all over the news and social media which probably doesn't help the situation. I drove through one last year where they had 2 motorbikes and a police car booking people on one of the Northern suburbs onramps just before the 100 sign. It seems rather counter-productive to me and I'm sure, contrary to what the road engineers envisaged!

I couldn't give a FF what you think mate, much of the road design leaves a lot to be desired and if you're are part of it, I couldn't care less. The merging lanes are crap although they have lengthened them in recent year instead of making them go straight into the freeway over a very short space. Likewise the stupidity of having speed limits on the on ramps. The speed should be that of the road your joining not something some dickhead in an office reckons is safe.
Take a look back at the shocking design of where the Roe Hwy entered the Kwinana Fwy..... a short merging lane for trucks travelling at 30 or 40 kph. entering a road where the traffic is doing 100. What idiot thought that one up?
At least now it's an extra lane which is what it should have been in the first place.
Now **** off and don't shout abuse at those who dare to make comment about something which is crap.
AlanH.

People can procrastinate all they like , the real problem is bloody bad Drivers who can not or will not drive to conditions . .

Correct in a lot of ways Fatso, but good road design would help as well. Too many different approaches to the same problem whereas they should be standardised as in entrance/exit etc.
AlanH.