A Nice Little Hatch

 I love seeing the old-fashioned roadsigns that still remain in parts of Britain.

This one is close to my house. It is near a junction with a tight turn.  You can see the road marking is a bit faded.

So they re-did the road markings a month or two ago.

Notice the hatching on the left.

It is because there is a very narrow pavement there that doesn't give people wandering around the corner much room.

Now, according to the UK Government,

"Hatched markings with a single, broken boundary line may be used at the edge of the road or next to the central reservation of a dual carriageway: the diagonal lines always slope towards the direction of travel. You should not enter any hatched area bounded by a broken line unless it is safe to do so."

I always give that area a wide berth when I'm turning left there.

I would be just keeping quiet and not writing this post if it wasn't the case.

But I see lots of others just driving right over the hatches.

Despite them being fresh and bright. 

So I decided to just stand at that junction for a bit and see how many observed the hatching and how many didn't. I stood there for 5 minutes recording every vehicle that made that left turn.

All 18 of them.

What did I learn?

Both Ford Kugas that passed were driven right over the hatching.

But then that is a crossover SUV so I would expect nothing less.

Seven of the vehicles were crossover SUVs. Of these, four were over the line, two were fine and this one is borderline:

There were eight proper cars. So proper cars are still outnumbering cross-overs but only just.

Anyway 5 out of the 8 were over the line so it looks like I can't single out SUV drivers here like I was hoping I'd be able to.

So what does that leave?

Vans.

I wasn't hopeful.

Normally, I find vans being driven very badly on the M53.

But the first two around this junction executed it perfectly.

I was astonished. 

Then this one came round:

So, roadsigns may have changed.

And vehicle types are changing.

But you can still rely on a van driver to be a tit.