HC Deb 10 April 1957 vol 568 cc1118-9
14. Mr. Gresham Cooke

asked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation if he will consider adopting the On-No system of road traffic regulation on three-lane highways over bridges and at other places where vision is obscured.

Mr. Watkinson

I do not think the system has any advantages over the double white-line system, familiar on the Continent and in America, with which I am now experimenting on the Portsmouth and Dover Roads.

Mr. Gresham Cooke

As we are very short of road space in this country and as the squeezing of three lanes into two at wide bends—leaving out of account bridges—is unsatisfatcory, would it not be of advantage to the traffic flow to keep the three lanes of traffic going round wide-sweep bends by means of this rather ingenious system?

Mr. Watkinson

I do not think that my hon. Friend has quite studied the present double white-line plan. If he had he would see that it also enables the operation of three lines of traffic on a bend as well.

Mr. G. R. Strauss

While I tend to agree with the view expresed by the right hon. Gentleman, I think that the On-No suggestion nevertheless seems attractive in some ways. Is it not at least worth while asking the Road Research Laboratory to have a look at it?

Mr. Watkinson

I have already had some discussion with the experts, though not with the Road Research Laboratory, and I am advised that the On-No plan is much more likely to lead to head-on collisions at bends than the system with which we are experimenting.