Traffic officers clamping down on drivers turning at roundabout (From The Oxford Times)
When It Happens Panel Get involved: send your photos, videos, news & views by texting 'OXFORD NEWS' to 80360 or email
Traffic officers clamping down on drivers turning at roundabout
12:00pm Tuesday 23rd October 2012 in News
By Damian Fantato, covering Summertown, Jericho and North Oxford. Call me on 01865 425429
Traffic officials are plotting to halt drivers carrying carrying out a dangerous turn on an Oxford hamburger roundabout.
Officers at Oxfordshire County Council are worried about drivers coming along the A40 London Road from the east and cutting through the centre part of the Green Road “hamburger” to turn right into Barton.
While Rodney Rose, the cabinet member in charge of transport, said it was not illegal, it was dangerous.
Council officials are now putting in place a traffic order that would make it illegal to carry out the manoeuvre, forcing motorists wanting to go into Bayswater Road to use the outer roads of the roundabout.
They hope police would then enforce the new ban and fine motorists flouting it.
Owen Morton, county council spokesman, said: “Performing a right-turn at this location is self-evidently dangerous.
“We’ve been made aware of a number of instances of motorists attempting such a manoeuvre and decided to reinforce the message with signage.”
But Yvonne Lowe, chairman of Risinghurst and Sandhills Parish Council, is concerned about the roundabout because of its current layout and the volume of traffic which uses it.
She said: “As far as I am concerned it seems that every so many years someone tries to change that roundabout.
“I think the roundabout is absolutely absurd and an accident waiting to happen because you have got problems with people coming from Barton, which is an awful turning.
“There has got to be an easier solution.”
County councillor Rodney Rose, cabinet member for transport said: “The hamburger roundabout has proven itself no end as long as people use it properly.
“What we are trying to do is give total legal coverage so police and magistrates can enforce this offence.”
The county council is consulting on the change and any objections can be sent to the authority’s director for environment and economy Huw Jones.
The roundabout is one of two hamburger roundabouts in Oxford – so-called because of the road running straight through the middle of them.
It was the first such roundabout to be created in Oxfordshire, being completed in November 2006. Heyford Hill was completed last autumn.
Comments(13)
Dilligaf2010
says...
1:26pm Tue 23 Oct 12
.........He's obviously not sat in a queue of traffic approaching it, between 4 and 7pm then.
Carfax Cabby
says...
1:56pm Tue 23 Oct 12
Myron Blatz
says...
3:55pm Tue 23 Oct 12
davyboy
says...
4:06pm Tue 23 Oct 12
John Lamb
says...
4:10pm Tue 23 Oct 12
Simon33
says...
4:35pm Tue 23 Oct 12
King Joke
says...
4:46pm Tue 23 Oct 12
davyboy wrote:Surely the issue with manoeuvre is not that people behind expect them to go straight on, but that it brings them into direct conflict with traffic coming onto the roundabout from the Northern Bypass? Are the lights phased in this way?
carfax cabbie, sit there for 5 minutes and just watch. it happens nearly every time the lights change! it is, in fact, illegal, as the road markings indicate ahead only. people do it to avoid sitting at an extra set of lights, but, for anyone following them, expecting them to go straight on, this can cause incidents. bearing in mind the speed of the traffic, these incidents can be fairly major, blocking the roundabout from all directions. it is about time there was a crackdown, and the minimum offence must be driving without due care and attention, rising up to dangerous driving.
iklhik
says...
5:06pm Tue 23 Oct 12
They are now presumably seeking to replace it with what it should have been all along, a no right turn sign. Luckily no accidents have been caused yet as I bet the insurance companies would love suing the inept council and getting an easy win. Nonetheless, I hate to think how much money has been wasted on the wrong signage, and correcting it. All they had to do was copy the hundreds of other hamburger roundabouts across the country but as always the halfwits at the council know best.
Darkforbid
says...
6:51pm Tue 23 Oct 12
colinsfew
says...
11:23pm Tue 23 Oct 12
riman09
says...
2:26am Wed 24 Oct 12
11:23pm Tue 23 Oct 12
It is not about familiarity. I drive in all sorts of unfamiliar places, and it gives all the more reason to read the signage!
It is very plain, just that some drivers do not bother to look, probably through approaching it at too high a speed for their eyesight.
As for the roundabout, I've no idea what this Councillor is proposing. I have seen the traffic there flowing a lot better than it used to without it.
I would go along with a proposal for a left turn into London Road from Barton, as well as a possible left turn into Barton on the Eastbound A40 approach which is not traffic controlled.
Simon33
says...
9:19am Wed 24 Oct 12
Isn't this the same journalist who gave the scare story about the Hamburger subway, and yet no one has broken a bone or died?
bart-on simpson says...
1:24pm Tue 23 Oct 12
Why doesn't Lowe concentrate on the immiment return of the free car park that is Sandhills when Thornhill gets its £3 fee and the Risinghurst pedestrians dodging the vehicles crossing the A40 at the Risinghurst non-turn?