Guided bus lane

[Bill PhinnParticipant @billphinn90025]

Posted by Martin Kyte on 26/10/2021 14:07:20:He also does not specify if it was rising bollards or just the concrete profiles.

Posted by Bill Dawes on 25/10/2021 23:10:41:

I think it was just a pit, wide enough to catch a car but not a bus. It certainly wasn't visible as I was driving towards the lights…I was 'fortunate' in that my car, a Kia Niro, dropped in and pulled straight out.

Bill D.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

If all else fails … look at some photos :

.

Credit: https://www.simplonpc.co.uk/CambridgeBusway.html

MichaelG.

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Edit: __ See also :  https://www.123rf.com/photo_15970188_the-cambridgeshire-guided-bus-way-linking-st-ives-with-cambridge-is-the-world-s-longest-guided-bus-w.html

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 26/10/2021 15:06:58

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Same as in my link yesterday but with the signs

Street Vie won google maps of where the actual incident happened would be the best place for the OP to look and see if he missed any signage

[pgk pgkParticipant @pgkpgk17461]

Less damaging to vehicles to just superglue a few 'Insulate Britain' folk down…

pgk

[Mike PooleParticipant @mikepoole82104]

Posted by Graham Titman on 26/10/2021 12:36:29:

Mike you missed out the hours wait to get in the hospital disabled carpark section and the charges i have to go there next week and the letter states to allow at least 1hour to park.

I had some experience of the JR hospital in February, I discovered that the barriers are left open after about 4 o clock so if this is still the case check before you pay. I would not have a problem with paying to park if it was to cover the running and provision of the car park but just using the motorist as a cash cow annoys me. Fortunately my visits have not been for myself but to assist or visit relatives. The suggestion to use public transport is utter nonsense for many people. My mother’s cataract surgery a few years ago was scheduled for a 7:30am appointment on a Sunday, I lived 12 miles from my mother who lived about 4 miles from the hospital. As I didn’t even consider using the bus I didn’t check the timetable but it would involve changing buses even if there were buses running at that time of day on a Sunday and take well over an hour to do a journey that takes 15-20mins by car. The car parks luckily don’t have a queue at that time of day. My son lives in Bristol and does not own a car, he and his fiancé both walk to work and live in the centre of town. He hires a car as and when he wants one and mostly uses the train for work related travel and Uber for local journeys with luggage or too far for a reasonable walk.

Mike

[Graham TitmanParticipant @grahamtitman81812]

Hi Mike my appointment is 11am here i live north of Northampton public transport is u/s i would have to leave at 6am . When i was there in May once around the block and then queue for 45 mins and make appointment with two mins to spare for a hospital that serves a very large area parking is very poor .Graham

[Bill DawesParticipant @billdawes]

Michael G, those traps look quite shallow not much worse that potholes these days unless it is an optical illusion, I did not see the one I went in, maybe full of grass/weeds. As I said I feel extremely annoyed with my self but angry with the council for thinking this was an acceptable deterrent, it isn't if you don't see it it cannot deter.

A google report in 2017 said that already had reports of 50 cars suffering same fate on the St. Ives one and that was 4 years ago.

It is a mystery to me, if it's not a deterrent, unless you are a local and know about it and it causes problems with buses being delayed while breakdown trucks are called to pull cars out what is the point of it. I was 'lucky' in that my car fell and hauled itself out, maybe a function of being a hybrid with electric motor and auto gearbox so possibly less easy to stall engine which I guess a conventional IC engine and manual box would have done.

Anyway thanks for notes of support, I await fines to arrive, will have mega whinge about that but no doubt will fall on deaf ears as they must surely have gone through this many times. It makes you feel that you should really raise this issue with some 'Ombudsam' or other but then can I be arsed, been through enough stress with insurance company which is still continuing but that's too protracted to go into on this forum.

Bill D.

[Anonymous]

Posted by Martin Kyte on 26/10/2021 14:07:20:

…….The busses when on the busway are self steering and I would not be at all surprised if they do not enguage cruise control too.

That's the theory. The only time I've used a guided bus (from the railway station to Addenbrookes) it hunted from side to side quite violently. I don't think they have cruise control. The driver was hurtling along! Shortly afterwards there was an accident where a bus crashed off the same bit of the guideway. Intially the driver was hailed as a "hero" for avoiding a cyclist. It turned out that he had been speeding and lost control. Pure luck that the cyclist was knocked out of the way rather than getting squashed.

I'd better not start on South Cambs and the city council or I'll be banned from the forum for bad language!

Andrew

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by Bill Dawes on 26/10/2021 19:35:23:

.

Michael G, those traps look quite shallow not much worse that potholes these days unless it is an optical illusion …

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Does this look “better” Bill ?

**LINK**

https://www.alamy.com/car-in-a-car-trap-resulting-from-the-illegal-use-of-a-guided-busway-bus-lane-in-the-cambridgeshire-town-of-st-ives-image376675580.html

MichaelG.

[Howard LewisParticipant @howardlewis46836]

The first time that we used the guided bus (Before the route extended to Peterborough ) we just drove into the Park and Ride car park.

The strange thing was seeing the driver put on his jacket as we drove along; but no hands needed for most of the journey

The signs warn of Car Trap, and do what it says on the post.

Sadly, you appear to have literally fallen into the trap, but less fatal than a head on with a bus travelling at 50+ mph

There have been a couple of instances of buses coming to grief on the busway, but otherwise the journeys have been without incident.

The worst is a slight lurch as the guide wheels align the bus with the busway.

The guided bus saves all the hassle and expense of trying to find parking in Cambridge, and is cost free if you have a bus pass! (One of the few advantages of old age! ).

Howard

[Bill DawesParticipant @billdawes]

Thanks for that Michael, from that view it looks impossibe that you would not see it but from the drivers seat it is not that visible. Amazed even more at how my Kia Niro dealt with it, I guess if the lights are on green some people would have nosedived at a greater speed.

Howard assume you are taliking about Cambridge not St.Ives, we have a similar one in Bristol and I don't think it is likely I would stray onto that one having been on the bus into Bristol most of it that I remember is a dedicated purpose built route separate from a public road, bearing in mind my wife and I were in a state of shock our recollection was that it was just a continuation of an ordinary side road in the town of St.Ives, we were aware it was a bus lane, red tarmac with bus lane writtem on road but I thought going through that bit of a few metres up to the traffic lights at the main road seemed the lesser of two evils, caught in a bus lane or go back down the wrong way of a one way street.

Bill D.

[Howard LewisParticipant @howardlewis46836]

No Bill,

I am quoting the St Ives Park and Ride. en route to Cambridge, before the Bus route was extended to start from Peterborough, to join the Guided Bus way at St Ives.

The buses, usually double deckers, are identifiable by the guide wheels, mounted horizontally immediately behind the front wheels

We just followed the signs into the Park and Ride car park.

En route from St Ives to Cambridge, the busway does not share any public roads, but crosses several roads, with the crossings controlled by traffic lights. The bus slows on the approach, until the change to green for it.

I fear that you inadvertently strayed onto the start of the busway, rather than the entrance to the car park..

In Cambridge you also get bollards that rise out of the road, allowing only certain vehicle tom access certain areas. You cannot fail to see those since, there are at least two in each lane, and are about 100 mm diameter and at least a metre high..

Howard

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Posted by Bill Dawes on 26/10/2021 21:39:21:

…we were aware it was a bus lane, red tarmac with bus lane writtem on road but I thought going through that bit of a few metres up to the traffic lights at the main road seemed the lesser of two evils, caught in a bus lane or go back down the wrong way of a one way street.

Bill D.

Bill gets my sympathy – he's describing a chain of circumstances of the sort that lead to accidents. Bill misses a sign and gets into trouble looking for a car park entrance in a strange town, one of the few in the UK that happens to have a guided bus lane.  He was temporarily distracted.

In this case upsetting rather than serious, but such mistakes can be catastrophic. Many crashes caused by airline pilots losing 'situational awareness' and they're trained to deal with emergencies! It's a big problem.

There but for the grace of god go I…

Dave

Edited By SillyOldDuffer on 27/10/2021 10:18:42

[egaParticipant @ega]

Missed the sign: there was a case not so long ago where a driver accused of disobeying a traffic sign successfully pleaded that at the particular location the plethora of signs amounted to information overload and it was not reasonable to demand compliance.

Drivers in Wales will appreciate the difficulty!

Edited By ega on 27/10/2021 12:05:00

[File HandleParticipant @filehandle]

Reminds me of cars trying to enter bus lanes that had rising bollards. cars being spiked created some entertaining videos.

[Bill DawesParticipant @billdawes]

Thanks for your sympathy Dave. I consider my self a law abiding citizen and I'm not one of those 'Nobody tells me what I can do and where I can go' type of people.

I would be interested to hear from anyone who is familiar with this particular car trap in St.Ives to confirm whether or not my wife's memory of it that it was full of grass and/or weeds, I can be certain of one thing I didn't see it, I did see the bus lane signage on the red tarmac strip and would have thought that I would have seen a large hole in the road ahead.

As I said though, such was the shock at what happened, like sitting in your armchair at home minding your own business and the ground explodes beneath you that my senses didn't tell me to stop and have a calm look at what caused it. As we had to stop with car once I had parked it for about 5 hours of very stressful phone calls with AA insurance services and then wait in car park for a taxi after our car was collected we dare not go back to the scene of crime to take stock.

Even when we got back home we had several days of different messages saying where our car would be repaired.

Fortunately I had struck up a good raport with the repairers where the car had been first sent to, Cooper Barnes of Linton, we were providing each other with updates neither of us were getting from the insurers. Cooper Barnes were brilliant and I opted for car to be left there for repair. Already had several updates from them.

To be fair to people at AA I think they were being let down by a totally chaotic system, must be demoralising to work there.

Bill D.

[Bill DawesParticipant @billdawes]

Well my car is still up in Cambridge being repaired, damage to suspension and steering substantial.

Thankfully the repairers have been brilliant, in constant contact with updates, they probably don't need to as AA insurance are their customer not me, but for anyone living around that area I would thoroughly recommend them, based on service to date, Cooper Barnes, Linton Cambs. Even had an email off the MD Matt Cooper apologising for confusion (not of their making I hasten to add)

Bill D.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Good to hear that it's going well for you, Bill

MichaelG.

[Bill DawesParticipant @billdawes]

Thanks Michael, everybody I have related the story to all said 'how on earth do the council get away with that, if I did the same thing on my drive I would be hung drawn and quartered'

Bill D.

[Anonymous]

Posted by Bill Dawes on 17/11/2021 19:42:48:

…..how on earth do the council get away with that….

Because they're South Cambs and are a bunch of ******. An official investigation some years back said they were too busy bullying each other to actually bother about running services.

Andrew

[John HaineParticipant @johnhaine32865]

I hold no brief for SCDC but in fairness I should point out that the Busway was initiated and managed by Cambridgeshire County Council. District councils are not responsible for highways and transport.

[roy entwistleParticipant @royentwistle24699]

The guided busway from Manchester to Leigh has them as well.

Roy

[bernard towersParticipant @bernardtowers37738]

Just on the local news, Cambridge guided busway to close as they have safety concerns.

[Martin ConnellyParticipant @martinconnelly55370]

I have recently been to Stanstead to drop off and subsequently pick up someone who was going on a flight. The drop off only carpark has barriers and automatic number plate recognition systems that have been in use for years and work well. Surely it would have been far more sensible to have a similar system for the guided bus lanes, only open the barrier for registered numbers. That way they would not need the car traps that not only cause damage to straying cars but also effectively close the bus lane until the car is removed. The additional risk to cyclists and pedestrians who may be on it, legally or not, is also something the HSE would take into account. I remember a case where a company was fined when some boys who were on a roof fell and were injured. The company were fined for not preventing the injuries suffered by preventing access to the roof. One of the results of this was that all access ladders to roofs, cranes or platforms where I worked had hinged panels fitted over access ladders. The panels were padlocked shut and the keys held by the plant department.

I looked at the news report and it is a temporary closure to be in place until the HSE are satisfied there is some risk reduction carried out to their satisfaction. They did not state what the risks being looked at are but an uncovered hole where people may be driving, cycling or walking will be a big no no for the HSE.

Martin C

PS I think anyone who ended up driving on the bus lane and ended up with their car in the hole should speak to a lawyer regarding compensation from the relevant operator based on the health and safety failings that are clearly of concern to the HSE.

Edited By Martin Connelly on 23/12/2021 14:51:26

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Interesting : reading a few reports, it appears the Cambridge safety review relates to pedestrians and cyclists being killed, not motor cars getting trapped!

I don't think it's possible to claim for damage to property under Health and Safety Legislation as Martin suggests. There has to be an injury and some form of negligence. Hard to prove negligence here I suspect unless the Bus Lane doesn't have a Safety Case, or it can be shown the Safety requirements were ignored. A civil claim would probably be more fruitful.

Flipping the issue on its head, do motorists take adequate precautions to protect cyclists, pedestrians, asthmatics and bus-lanes? Last time I whizzed the wrong way up a one-way street, I was frantically looking for a parking space, and didn't pay quite enough attention to the road signs!

Dave

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