When we asked the good people of St Albans (via Facebook) what their driving questions and gripes were in St Albans, the most frequent reply was “the box junctions” – especially the one between Victoria Street, Alma Road and Beaconsfield Road – near the station.
This junction, dreaded by many a learner driver, desperately hoping they wouldn’t have to negotiate it their test and many experienced drivers who still wince at the prospect of attempting to turn right during rush hour, caused so much discussion – what to do, what the law is and generally how you’re supposed to turn right through the junction – safely.
Although we’re not technically in London, we thought we’d share with you a short video made by Transport for London about the yellow box junctions – rather than just quote bits of the Highway Code at you. Once you’ve got through the first rather scripted bit (it’s not long, we promise) they’ve explained exactly how to negotiate a box junction – safely and legally.
What we have to realise though, is not everyone who is driving has watched this video and real life driving is a bit different to having Mariella Frostrup coach you through the process. So we asked Mark Quamina – a local driving instructor with the Bell Driving School what we should do.
Mark negotiates the junction several times a day with his pupils and although the fact that you can enter the box junction to turn right is clear, the size of the junction often makes it difficult to decide whether you should turn ‘nearside to nearside’ or ‘offside to offside’.
First of all then, we need to explain what ‘nearside to nearside’ and ‘offside to offside’ means. Nearside, in the UK, is the side nearest the curb. Offside, in the UK, is the drivers side.
So – if you’re turning nearside to nearside – which is what you generally don’t do when turning right, you turn in front of the car coming towards you. If you’re turning behind the car coming towards you – what we usually do, that’s offside to offside.
So – what do you do at this junction? Mark’s answer…
Turn the safest way
Even though we know how we should do it, we can’t control other drivers on the road so if they go to turn in front of you – turn in front of them – especially if driving past them would cause more hazards to other road users. It involves looking at the big picture – not just the confines of those yellow boxes. If you’re wanting to turn right but have a car in front of you in the box waiting to turn and can see a long queue of traffic coming towards you – don’t enter the box. If you’re wanting to travel straight on or turn left – keep an eye for people needing to turn right. It’s basic road sense.
There are also two box junctions on Holywell Hill and one in St Peter’s Street. These are there for safety reasons – on Holwell Hill to allow access to the Cathedral and to people’s houses. If you block these and people need to turn to go home, the knock on effect in the other direction can be monumental. These junctions just apply the basic rules of box junctions to be applied – if you can’t get through the box and get all of your car through it and out the other side – wait until you can.
The one in St Peter’s Street is to allow the taxis to exit their rank and get onto the main road. The taxi’s themselves should not block the junction (we know what you’re thinking…) but it is there to keep the traffic moving – but it’s made difficult by the pedestrian crossing.
So – there you go – a guide to box junctions in St Albans – have we missed any?