Car queue jumping

Regular readers (or just locals) will be aware of the lane switching that occurs on Vale Road and Gilgal. The default rule for driving is, of course, that you stay in lane until told otherwise. On these two roads if you know where you're going most switch lanes earlier if they need to which leads to the halting at the entrances for each of them (that and the fact they you can't merge into a queue). For those who don't know their way it's a case of looking for the signs.

For Vale Road the sign appears half-way along it; so if you're following the signs for Hartlebury from Stourport you'll be tootling along in lane 1 and suddenly be told to get into lane 3... which is a solid queue of traffic. As such you need to 'break' into it. It's not a regular occurrence but it's worth watching people who seem to suddenly start indicating once they reach the half-way point.

Likewise in Gilgal the signs are two-thirds of the way down and again you'll be in lane 2 and find you need to break into lane 1. Have pity on these poor people trying to negotiate this stupid system.

On the other hand you also get those who move up the empty lane and then try to break in; logically they're doing the right thing by using the empty lane, or at least it would be if they did so correctly. What they should do is move into the empty lane, indicate, and then slowly keep moving forward until someone let's them in. What they do instead is charge up the empty lane until they can go no further and then start to indicate - leave them there.

What's prompted this entry is the disparity between two vehicles this morning. Car One seemed to be a non-local; moved over from lane 1 into lane 2 at the sign and then indicated to move into lane 3; likewise did Car Two a little later. What differentiated them was their actions into Gilgal. Car One stopped, Car Two continued around without indicating and then starting indicating once they'd reached the sign.

Car Two most likely a non-local; Car One knew they wanted to be in lane 1 of Gilgal and stopped. Even with GPS the advice would be to merge so Car One gave themselves away by stopping.

Just an observation.