Closed
Road markings are dangerously incorrect on A41 Graven Hill roundabout at Bicester
Reported in the Road Markings category anonymously at 15:01, Sat 16 November 2019
Sent to Oxfordshire County Council 4 minutes later
When approaching this roundabout on A41 heading east, the road markings clearly indicate the outside 2 lanes are for A41E. Halfway round the roundabout the outside lane becomes a right turn for Graven Hill only. This forces drivers to move across into the left hand lane at short or no notice, regardless of whether vehicles are correctly alongside. I know of 2 significant collisions because of this and have witnessed numerous near misses. The lane markings need to be reviewed urgently before someone is seriously hurt.
Council ref: ENQ19847852
Updates
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Thank you for your enquiry. This issue has been passed onto the relevant team for investigation.
State changed to: Investigating
Posted by Oxfordshire County Council at 15:05, Sat 16 November 2019
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Thank you for your report. Please see response below from ur Road Agreements officer -
Thank you for contacting OCC. As the officer responsible for working with the developer to deliver their planning obligations, I understand the concerns with the lane markings at the re-designed Rodney House Roundabout. I carried out your manoeuvre myself yesterday on a site visit to Graven Hill and it was quite tight to get in the correct lane. This is not made easier if you have to stop at the lights although the signals are absolutely necessary to facilitate the eventual flows of traffic and pedestrians coming out of Graven Hill.The original lane marking design was approved by OCC as it was not ‘wrong’ as such but it clearly did not work effectively in practice. Hence, following an independent Road Safety Audit earlier this year and subsequent discussions with the developer’s designer team, the Police Traffic Liaison officer, local County Councillor and OCC Traffic Safety team members, we persuaded the developer to re-design the markings and implement them. This has clearly worked much better. However, a relatively small signalised 5-arm roundabout is notoriously difficult to mark in order to accommodate all the potential movements and flows and so there is no absolute correct layout for the lane markings.
I am struggling to see how the markings can be changed to make your manoeuvre any clearer – the only thing I can think of, picking up on your comment about staying in the middle lane and indicating, is to add “G/Hill” officially to the middle lane. The reason we took that off the original design was that there is only a single exit off to G hill so the Road Safety Auditor did not recommend 2 lanes going into 1 ideally. There is a bit of space there for 2 cars to merge in side by side but we were nervous about formalising it.
I hope this response doesn’t sound too vague or dismissive but I’m not sure there is much more that can be done to clarify the movements. If you think that the additional marking in the middle lane would help and could be negotiated with 2 cars merging into the single exit and the appropriate defensive driving (which is pretty much the best way to negotiate most roundabouts in truth) then let us know via response and I will discuss that option with the relevant safety officers as well as with the developer.
kind regards.State changed to: Investigation complete
Posted by Oxfordshire County Council at 15:00, Wed 20 November 2019
This report is now closed to updates from the public. You can make a new report in the same location.