No right turn..why not?

[IVORTHE DRIVER]

Hi all,

Driving back from me winter hols (Aviemore) a rest stop was requested at the garden centre near Cumbernauld.

Sounds simple but turns out its not...travelling north you simply turn off at the nearest slip road, coming from the north its not that simple.

From the A80 southbound near Castlecary arches for some reason only buses are allowed to turn right, there is also a barrier across the end of the slip to prevent anyone "sneaking" a right turn, so what do you do?

Answer, same as everybody else...turn left, swing into a wide tarmac gate entrance about 50 yards down the road and U turn to continue in your desired direction.

No signs saying "no u turn" so perfectly legal and the road itself is straight with very good visibilty both directions (and not busy) so anybody have any ideas why right turns might have been blocked?
The slip itself is long enough so even a queue of cars (which is unlikely) would present no safety issues on the busy A80

Still cannot access google earth to show you the juction but it is A80/B816 junction just as you reach the arches coming from Stirling direction.

Look forward to your ideas guys

Ivor

[fungus]

http://maps.google.com/?ll=50.747867,-1.952004&s

You can't see the sign, but when leaving Tesco at Tower Park, Poole, the right turn is only permitted for buses. Other vehicles have to turn left and U turn at a roundabout a couple of hundred yds away Most however ignore the sign and and temporarily become buses.

As far as Poole council is concerned, it's political correctness I'm afraid, they appear to be a rather anti private transport lot

[Big Err]

This was done as part of the M80 DBFO Contract - you'd have noticed it's motorway all the way now instead of Special "A" Road from Castlecary.

I suspect the local authority didn't want traffic accessing Castlecary from that direction? There is a similar arrangement northbound where traffic coming from Castlecary cannot access the M80 northbound, although southbound traffic on the B816 can turn northbound (I think).

No doubt North Lanarkshire Councils Transportation Planning department had an input and this is part of some larger scheme that we are unaware of.

I've never had much reason to use this junction but during the consultation process for the DBFO there was a lot of discussion regarding the bus lane and bus gate (northbound).

[IVORTHE DRIVER]

North Lanarkshire Councils Transportation Planning Department......with a title like that no doubt they nedd a bus lane to themselves

Still seems very odd but then what do mere drivers know, after all we only use the roads

[Ailsa]

What exactly IS a special A road????

[Big Err]

What exactly IS a special A road????

Oh dear - here we go again

Sorry Ailsa this is a regularly debated topic here.

Special Roads are roads with a set of regulations relating to their construction and usage - in most cases they are Motorways and the road traffic regulations for them is mostly contained within the Motorway Traffic Regulations. However, there are cases of A Roads being Special Roads (in Scotland the A1 from Dunbar to the outskirts of Edinburgh and A720 Edinburgh City Bypass are two examples). They have Regulations akin to Motorway Regulations but there are issues with how this information is relayed to the road user (long story). Each Special Road will have a Special Road Regulation Order - a search on google will uncover the A1 Special Road Regulation (1996 and 2004).

[michael769]

What exactly IS a special A road????

At it's most basic it is a road where certain classes of users are permanently banned (most notably pedestrians - it is very difficult to legally permanently ban pedestrians from normal roads). Most roads that are not tunnels or bridges (and even some of those) which have pedestrian bans are special roads.

All motorways are by definition also special roads. But not all special roads are motorways.