Share Lanes In The UK?

A new scheme that is being piloted on some roads in parts of the UK had a boost this week with the development of a camera to help police proposed share lanes on the UK motorways.

Share lanes are thought to help reduce congestion on busy roads during rush hours. The proposed plans are to introduce share lanes to all of the UK's motorways in an attempt to get traffic moving during busy periods.

The scheme has been a huge success in other parts of the world such as the USA where "car pool" lanes have been in use for years.

The basic principle is to reduce the amount of cars on the road by designating a lane on the motorway that can be only used by cars with more than one occupant. This will encourage workers travelling on the motorway to share cars in order to gain permission to use the free flowing share lanes.

The only problem is that it can be hard to police these lanes and it was thought the scheme may be scraped over the cost of policing the new lanes. However a new camera designed in the UK has breathed life back into the scheme. The camera is designed to use infared to detect if the car travelling in the share lane does indeed have more than one occupant. This means that drivers abusing the scheme can be easily caught and fined with minimal physical policing involved.

So is the scheme a good idea? Well we will have to reserve judgement but the scheme works very efficiently in the USA. The fact is that with road charging looking immanent car shares may be the only way to keep motoring costs such as petrol costs and cheap performance car insurance down in the future.