Road Traffic Problems in Devon
| Date | 01 August 1963 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X6303600803 |
| Author | R. B. Greenwood |
| Published date | 01 August 1963 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
LT.-COL.
R. B.
GREENWOOD,
O.B.E.
Chief Constable
of
Devon
Lt.-Col. Greenwood's survey and assessment
of
Devon's road traffic
problems is
of
the utmost interest to all police officers, in their double
capacity as public guardian and private motorist.
ROAD
TRAFFI~
PROBLEMS
IN
DEVON
"A
Western Canute.
If
there is one
job
I would not have, it is
that of the Chief Constable of Devon. His summer traffic problem
is
appalling."-The
Autocar, August 1962.
I.
THE
ROAD SYSTEM
The Statistics
Official statistics indicate that, in 1950, the number
of
motor
vehicles registered in the United Kingdom was 4,409,223 and, by
1959, the figure had risen to 8,604,980, from which it may very
simply be deduced that traffic is doubling in quantity every 10 years.
Within the administrative county
of
Devon, 145,000 motor
vehicles,
of
all descriptions, are registered at this moment. The
resident population
of
the administrative county is 500,000 and,
during the holiday months, this figure is said to be doubled. On
the deduction that there is within the United Kingdom one motor
vehicle for every five
of
the population, a conservative estimate
of
motor vehicles circulating at the peak
of
the summer season within
this county is 200,000. To this figure must be added an imponderable,
but undoubtedly very large, number
of
vehicles passing through
Devon to and from Cornwall.
It
seems, therefore, that future planning for holiday traffic in
Devon must be on the basis that, well within the next decade, haIf-
a-million vehicles will be seeking to move about Devon, and even
then the ceiling will have been by no means reached.
The County Roads
The total mileage of all classes of roads in the county amounts to
6,800, but it is the trunk, class 1 and class 2 roads that form the main
arteries and with which this report is chiefly concerned. There are
191
miles
of
trunk road, 511 miles of class 1
and
456 miles
of
class 2
roads. There are no motorways in Devon, and the aggregate length
of
all dual carriageway in the county is no more than 3'6 miles.
August 1963 372
Although the 700
odd
miles
of
trunk
and
class I road enjoy an
Aclassification, the two principal ones, the A.30
and
A.38, cer-
tainly do
not
justify this rating on many sections, if compared with
the general standard
of
Aroads in other parts
of
the country. With
a few notable exceptions less important roads in the county should,
by comparison, be correspondingly down-graded, mainly on the
score
of
narrowness without verges, and the tortuous nature
of
the
route determined long ago by the need to find the easiest way
for
horse-drawn vehicles.
The Present Traffic Pattern
A few years ago, it could be said with truth that traffic congestion
became apparent on only about 12 summer weekends in the year,
and it is still true to say
that
the same 12 weekends produce peak
conditions. The difference is, however,
that
the peaks are becoming
steadily higher and longer in the sense that motorists, in an endeavour
to avoid the worst, are gradually extending
their"
weekends"
from
Friday to Monday inclusive,
and
even beyond. They are also
extending their travel into the night.
For
example, a check on the
traffic flow on the Exeter by-pass on a Friday night/Saturday morn-
ing in August revealed the following movement of vehicles:
12 m.n.]i a.m. 3a.m.la a.m. 6a.m.]l a.m.
D3
3~
~7
and
this proved to be a night
of
only moderate traffic movement.
It
is obviously desirable
that
this spreadover should be encour-
aged,
but
there are clearly limiting
and
some dangerous factors which
will be discussed later in this article. Meanwhile, it is worth examin-
ing, in some detail, the experience on the heaviest day of traffic last
year, namely Saturday, July 28.
At Barnstaple, queues
of
traffic up to two miles in length were
reported at the approaches to the town, and traffic junctions, nor-
mally controlled by traffic lights,
had
to be taken over manually by
the police. Similarly, at Bideford, equally long queues necessitated
the traffic lights being switched off, in favour of manual control.
At the approach to Okehampton, there was a queue
of
traffic
heading in the Cornwall direction seven miles in length, and, in the
opposite direction, a queue
of
two miles approaching the town. On
the diversionary route from Tiverton, aqueue
of
traffic two miles in
length was observed, moving at peak at the rate
of
three miles in
Ii
hours.
Approaching Cullompton from Taunton, there was, at one
period, a two-mile queue
of
traffic and, on the diversionary holiday
route, a queue
of
similar length extending back from Tiverton.
At Honiton, the traffic commenced to build up at 9.30 a.m. and,
by 11.30 a.m., there was a queue, possibly four miles in length, on
373 August 1963
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