Here are two further documents for the reconvened hearing:
- Annex E: Excerpts from TSRGD setting out prescribed uses of the curved arrows, width restriction sign and the BUS GATE road marking
- Revised Synopsis collating material from Harrow's Case Summary with that in the Synopsis of the Appeal, Harrow's Response and the Counter Response
Annex E seeks to demonstrate that Harrow's assertion
signage at the location [is] in accordance with The Traffic Signs Regulations and General Directions (TSRGD) 2016
is false.
The Revised Synopsis sets out the arguments which Harrow deploy, together with my responses seeking to pick them apart. It remains to be seen how these fare before the Adjudicator.
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One general point which I would make is that highway authorities do not have a completely free hand in deciding what traffic signs to place.
First, unless they obtain special permission from DfT, they must use only those signs defined in TSRGD 2016 and only in the ways that it prescribes.
Secondly, when they make a Traffic Regulation Order (which is necessary to impose bus or width restrictions),
Regulation 18 of The Local Authorities' Traffic Order (Procedures) (England and Wales) Regulations 1996 (LATOR) imposes on the authority the duty to secure
(a) … the placing on or near the road of such traffic signs in such positions as the order making authority may consider requisite for securing that adequate information as to the effect of the order is made available to persons using the road.
Thirdly,
section 122 of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 place on highway authorities the duty
to secure the expeditious, convenient and safe movement of vehicular ... traffic ... on the highway
The Department for Transport (DfT) publishes the
Traffic Signs Manual, which offers advice to highway authorities and others on the use of traffic signs on the highway network.
Chapter 1 of the Traffic Signs Manual sets out the principles for signage:
1.3.1. Traffic signs are placed by the traffic authority, through the powers provided by the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984, to provide warnings, information and details of restrictions to road users...
1.3.2. In order to achieve safe and efficient operation of a highway network, it is essential that all signing provided is necessary, clear and unambiguous, and gives its message to road users at the appropriate time. The message must be quickly and easily understood at the point it is needed; neither too soon that the information might be forgotten, nor too late for the safe performance of any necessary manoeuvre.
The Traffic Signs Manual has a similar status to The Highway Code: it isn't the law, but it sets out what you should do and courts look to it as setting a benchmark of how people and organisations should behave. Schemes such as Camrose Avenue tend not to fit well into the framework set out in the various chapters of the Traffic Signs Manual. That's why they catch out so many motorists.
One key legal case concerned with the adequacy of traffic signs is
R (Oxfordshire County Council) v. The Bus Lane Adjudicator [2010] EWHC 894 (Admin). This was a judicial review of an adjudication and so sets precedent for adjudicators. The case turned on two issues: whether the area of road was a bus lane; and the adequacy of the advance signage. In paragraph 65 Mr Justice Beatson (as he then was) found:
If the signs do not in fact provide adequate information no offence is committed; see James v Cavey [1967] 2 QB 676. Such information is a requirement ...
So the main line of attack against these PCNs is that the signs did not provide adequate information, so no contravention occurred. On Camrose Avenue some of the signs are not as prescribed in TSRGD 2016, so are legally void. That helps establish that the signage is inadequate. The other main plank is to argue by analogy with the closest match in the Traffic Signs Manual to whatever is on the road at the site in question. If it's a bus restriction, that's section 9 of
Chapter 5 of the Traffic Signs Manual.
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