One Way Streets

[GridGirl]

The office where I work is based upon a one way street. Its basically one of the exits off Five Ways island in Birmingham city centre, so its fairly busy with other exits being Broad Street etc. Anyway, I was leaving work yesterday at about 5.45, I pulled out the gates to be confronted with a spoon in an Astra turning right out of the car park of the private school opposite and be heading straight towards me going the wrong way down the aforementioned one way street.

I would normally have booted it out of the office, but as the lights at the end of the road were already on red I didn't bother and was going pretty slowly. The guy in the Astra on the other hand seemed oblivious to me in my lane which he was now heading down, or the other two lanes of quite heavy trafic which he's managed to cross without hitting anything that were now heading towards him. Only after a good 10-15 second blast on my horn did the guy realise what he was doing and pull into the pavement/carpark of one other the other buildings on the road by which time I was getting extremely worried that he wouldn't be able to stop in time.

I got into work today and one of my colleages who I was following out of the car park asked if I'd hit the idiot. He's narrowly missed him and told me they guy had ignored his waving and flashing of lights trying to point out what he was about to do.

So has anyone else driven the wrong way up a one way street? Was it in rush hour and full of cars? I can't say that I've ever done it but it scared me enough even though it wouldn't of been my fault if we'd of crashed.

[Drew]

It was in the news that a couple of people (at different times) had driven on the local dual carriageway the wrong way.

Unfortunetly one wasn't so lucky, drove straight into the path of an oncoming car. It was released that there was a person in their 30s and an old age couple involved. On the local paper's website, who did everybody automatically blame? Yup, the old couple. In fact it was a lady in her 30s.

I'm completely confused how she managed to actually drive onto the dual carriageway, then to ignore the signs that say no entry and dual carriageway.

[Mark]

I did encounter someone going the wrong way on a dual carriageway a few months ago. They joined in front of me on a standard slip road type arrangement, then proceeded to turn right and come towards me :s .

At least he was on the left hand side of the carriageway when I passed him.

In his slight defence the junction is confusing, the slip roads turn back on themselves, so in order to go right you have to take the slip road on the left etc.

[GridGirl]

I still cant quite understand how he didn't notice it was a one way street while he was waiting for a gap to pull out. He would of been there a while at that time of day. :s

[Mark]

Where there signs on the exit pointing out it was a one way street?

Personally I found Birmingham quite confusing, it seemed to go half a mile you had to drive about 20 miles because every time you wanted to go in a particular direction you were greeted with no right turn or no entry signs.

[GridGirl]

I made a point of looking this morning and there are plenty of one way signs all along the road on each lampost and there are signs on both entrances to the road. I wouldn't say it was a road where you could easily get confused at all. :s

[Dave B]

I've not only driven down a one-way street the wrong way, but it was (at the time) open to busses and taxis only.

Ooops..... :erm:

[Caroline]

It happens where I work all the time. I pull out of the car park and the along a road on to a one way High Street. In the Summer months the tourists are usually doing frantic three point turns with pedestrians stopping to look and 'helpfully' point at the one way signs.