Traffic accident and the Parsons Chain island

Traffic was at a standstill on the Worcester Road last night, I got out of my turn (thanks to the kind soul who let me out) and joined the queue. There was very few vehicles travelling back the other way and a few were sounding their horns, was the road blocked, were we in for a repeat of when a lorry turned over on Gilgal and the police simply blocked the left turn at the Parsons Chain island and watched the traffic build-up along both roads? Sort of, when we finally reached the beginning of the queue we were greeted by two police cars and an ambulance parked outside of OGL facing away from the island.

As I approached they appeared to be putting someone into the back of the ambulance, between this and the northerly police car was a downed motorcycle with a cop taking notes. Nothing else present, so a single accident or hit-and-run? I don't know. We might or might not find out what happened, nothing on the Shuttle, the Express & Star nor The Birmingham Mail's site yet.

Okay damn this is going to seem callous, but it's a pet peeve of mine, car headlights. Here's how it goes - sit in your car, can you see? If the answer's yes you don't need your headlights on, however if the conditions are bad then you might want your sidelights on; headlights are for seeing, sidelights for being seen; it's not difficult people. This is actually emphasized in law, if you're driving down a lighted street at night then as a minimum you need your sidelights on; minimum! This is particularly aimed at those who switch their full headlights on when it's raining or when it's getting dark, to be honest if you can't see where you're going in these conditions without your full lights on then I don't think you should be driving.
Okay so why the potential callousness, because both of the northerly emergency vehicles were parked with both their headlights and dome lights on. Now I don't know about you, but I find it damn difficult to make out much background detail when I've a light shining in my face particularly a strobing one too, taking into account that traffic from the island will be attempting to overtake using the right-hand turn lane it would be nice to be able to see what they're trying to do.

While I'm on the subject, and I've the picture up, take a look at the road markings as you approach the island, the road was resurfaced and the lines repainted some time ago. Now originally it went one lane-width out; cross over, then one lane-width out again. This meant that the middle right-turn lane was slightly narrower. Not a problem it's barely used, however when they repainted them it appears they went one lane out then one lane out again, this means the road heading from the island is narrower; not good when you're coming out of a turn.

Now it's not really wide enough for three lanes anyway so the solution is simple, not have three lanes. The justification for them is non-existent, the theory goes that if (more like when) the left-turn traffic is blocked up then the right-turn is still free. Great except that when it gets blocked up, in 90% of the cases it extends beyond the lane split; this then encourages cars to overtake the queue along the wrong side of the road in order to turn. If the queue doesn't extend that far then the wait would be a petty amount of time.

It also has a knock-on effect on the Mitton Street entrance to the west, cars in the left or right-hand turn only lanes don't indicate, there's no straight on so they must be turning, but the only means of determining whether they have right-of way is by their position. When you have a larger vehicle turning left it obscures the view of the right-turn lane, forcing the Mitton Street side to slow or stop regardless of whether they have to or not. This in turn tails back up Gilgal, Vale Road/Minister Road, High Street and Bridge Street. As you can imagine it's also fun at night.

This is the only entrance to the island that has a split lane despite heavy traffic down the Hartlebury Road, why?