Do you drive too slowly climbing out of the Burnley Tunnel?

[Dr Smith]

This email had me laughing...Linkt (tollway operators) are installing a pacemaker in the tunnel...an LED lighting pacemaker that is...(I've linked back to the website source of the email at Linkt).

It seems here in Victoria many drivers on the climb out of the Burnley Tunnel are driving too slowly causing congestion...maybe if we weren't flogged with the threat of speed camera's everywhere and speed limits were set higher on roads built to higher standards all would be ok...

Mind you the email came today and the lights were apparently meant to be turned on back on Monday, so we are really slowing down in Vic.....

Burnley Tunnel nightly lane closures

Hi Dr Smith,

This February, we’re working to prepare for the launch of pacemaker lighting in the Burnley Tunnel. There will be nightly lane closures as part of these works.

To help keep our crews and all road users safe, please drive carefully past lane closures in the Burnley Tunnel. Remember to obey lowered speed limits and on-road signage in our work areas.

What’s changing?
From Monday 6 February, we’ll be switching on new white LED lighting along the tunnel walls and ceiling.

Once we’ve installed all the LED lights, we’ll be ready to test the pacemaker lighting. We’ll give you a heads up before we turn the pacemaker lighting on.

How the pacemaker lighting works
The pacemaker lighting is designed to help you maintain consistent speed and ease congestion through the Burnley Tunnel.



You won’t need to do anything differently; the green band of moving light will simply provide your peripheral (side) vision a marker while you focus ahead, following the speed limit and regular road rules.

This animation shows what the pacemaker lighting will look like.

Why the improvements?
The Burnley Tunnel is quite steep and deep, with drivers descending around 65m below the Yarra River, then coming back up again as they exit. Drivers tend to be slower on the uphill, leading to congestion and creating a backlog of traffic in the tunnel.

The improvements will help create a brighter, more open-looking tunnel, helping drivers maintain a consistent speed to improve congestion.

Traffic and alerts
Keep up to date with the latest travel information at linkt.com.au. You can also switch on road alerts via the Linkt app and get notifications sent to your phone.

Safe travels,

The Linkt Team

https://www.transurban.com/burnleytu...b&utm_content=

[T3rminator]

This will be interesting. Wonder how easy to hack into LED control tower and enable warp speed.

[Franco Cozzo]

The whole of Mexico drives too ****en slowly

[Charliewool]

Not a bad idea imo….

[Dr Smith]

Originally Posted by T3rminator

This will be interesting. Wonder how easy to hack into LED control tower and enable warp speed.

We think alike........ although my van can only manage impulse drive speeds.

[T3rminator]

I'm going to predict there will be quite a few prangs early on as people adjust. Slow drivers will still drive slow. Drivers who don't think will follow the markers regardless of conditions, not leave enough room, and bammmmmm.

Then you'll see how slow the tunnel can really get

[Bossxr8]

Speed cameras and the fixation on busting people for minimal speeding has consequences. This is what you wanted.

[BENT_8]

I just spent weeks in Melbourne doing 10hr driving shifts and barely saw a speed camera, I think youre all delirious over there.
The things that stood out to me was those stupid lights that tell you when to enter the Monash and the number of heavy vehicle accidents between Burnley to Burke rd ramps. In one day saw a B double wearing a small hatchback as a bullbar followed by a semi jacknifed a bit further up the road.
You lot simply couldnt drive a nail into a bar of soap.

[Franco Cozzo]

Originally Posted by BENT_8

I just spent weeks in Melbourne doing 10hr driving shifts and barely saw a speed camera, I think youre all delirious over there.
The things that stood out to me was those stupid lights that tell you when to enter the Monash and the number of heavy vehicle accidents between Burnley to Burke rd ramps. In one day saw a B double wearing a small hatchback as a bullbar followed by a semi jacknifed a bit further up the road.
You lot simply couldnt drive a nail into a bar of soap.

That's the point - you won't see them, the ones on the M80 are hidden under overhead signage and overpasses

Then there's the unsigned mobile camera cars which are new SUVs parked on the side of the road all over the state, usually cheekily placed in safe overtaking areas.

You can really tell the difference between drivers in Melbourne and Sydney - the ones in Sydney drive with purpose like they have somewhere to be, I loved driving there I'm not sure why people worry about it.

Here the light goes green then they start thinking about moving, you don't move the moment the light goes green in Sydney there's 500 people on the horn.

[EBSXR6]

Originally Posted by Franco Cozzo

That's the point - you won't see them, the ones on the M80 are hidden under overhead signage and overpasses

Then there's the unsigned mobile camera cars which are new SUVs parked on the side of the road all over the state, usually cheekily placed in safe overtaking areas.

You can really tell the difference between drivers in Melbourne and Sydney - the ones in Sydney drive with purpose like they have somewhere to be, I loved driving there I'm not sure why people worry about it.

Here the light goes green then they start thinking about moving, you don't move the moment the light goes green in Sydney there's 500 people on the horn.

I agree re Melbourne. Right turn arrows the first car has completed the turn before the richard cranium second in line decides to move.

[mad2]

Originally Posted by Franco Cozzo

The whole of Mexico drives too ****en slowly

no - missus does not like my driving . . . . . .... too 'erratic' n fast for her .....


what a stupid idea re the green 'strobe' .... that was annoying me just watchin the vid, let alone driving in the tunnel!.

[Citroënbender]

Let’s make real life driving feel like a video game… What a stupid idea this is; when it inevitably gets messy (fatalities) the traffic engineers will come out with their chain of documents to show how they recommended against it and someone overruled their expertise.

[T3rminator]

Originally Posted by BENT_8

I just spent weeks in Melbourne doing 10hr driving shifts and barely saw a speed camera, I think youre all delirious over there.
The things that stood out to me was those stupid lights that tell you when to enter the Monash and the number of heavy vehicle accidents between Burnley to Burke rd ramps. In one day saw a B double wearing a small hatchback as a bullbar followed by a semi jacknifed a bit further up the road.
You lot simply couldnt drive a nail into a bar of soap.

They are around, but its not as bad as some make it out to be IMHO. The fixed cameras are pretty well known, so unless you are from out of town, if you get done, then you snooze you lose. Most are well signed. There are a couple of sneaky ones around, as Franco said, the M80 under the sign board is a real doozy, but all the locals know its there. If it wasn't for my Amigo app, I'd probably have been done there.

The mobile cams are ALWAYS in the same spot, or within a 100m of the same area. Again, locals will know what to look out for.

Have recently gone past a couple of mobile ones "a little bit over", was expecting a mail to come through, but never came. So I can only assume they have decent tolerance built in to them.

As for getting done by a hwy patrol....well that depends on the mood of the officer. In my area they usually do blitz during start and end of school runs, which is fair enough IMHO.

Originally Posted by Franco Cozzo

You can really tell the difference between drivers in Melbourne and Sydney - the ones in Sydney drive with purpose like they have somewhere to be, I loved driving there I'm not sure why people worry about it.
.

Think that depends what ethnic area you are in . Take a trip down punt road on a semi congested evening and see. I had a bloke pull up next to me, and asked what the speed limit was on punt road, I said "60 here but 70 from there onwards", he goes "I'm from tassie, and everyone is in a bloody hurry over here its giving me anxiety" lol.

[Franco Cozzo]

Originally Posted by T3rminator

They are around, but its not as bad as some make it out to be IMHO. The fixed cameras are pretty well known, so unless you are from out of town, if you get done, then you snooze you lose. Most are well signed. There are a couple of sneaky ones around, as Franco said, the M80 under the sign board is a real doozy, but all the locals know its there. If it wasn't for my Amigo app, I'd probably have been done there.

The mobile cams are ALWAYS in the same spot, or within a 100m of the same area. Again, locals will know what to look out for.

Have recently gone past a couple of mobile ones "a little bit over", was expecting a mail to come through, but never came. So I can only assume they have decent tolerance built in to them.

As for getting done by a hwy patrol....well that depends on the mood of the officer. In my area they usually do blitz during start and end of school runs, which is fair enough IMHO.



Think that depends what ethnic area you are in . Take a trip down punt road on a semi congested evening and see. I had a bloke pull up next to me, and asked what the speed limit was on punt road, I said "60 here but 70 from there onwards", he goes "I'm from tassie, and everyone is in a bloody hurry over here its giving me anxiety" lol.

Broadmeadows, Meadow Heights and Roxburgh Park it seems traffic lights mean something else, its something like this:

Green - Go
Yellow - Go faster
Red - Slow down, look then go

[BENT_8]

Originally Posted by Franco Cozzo

That's the point - you won't see them, the ones on the M80 are hidden under overhead signage and overpasses

Then there's the unsigned mobile camera cars which are new SUVs parked on the side of the road all over the state, usually cheekily placed in safe overtaking areas.

You can really tell the difference between drivers in Melbourne and Sydney - the ones in Sydney drive with purpose like they have somewhere to be, I loved driving there I'm not sure why people worry about it.

Here the light goes green then they start thinking about moving, you don't move the moment the light goes green in Sydney there's 500 people on the horn.

Actually all 10 of us that went over commented on how horn happy you mob are, you beep at everything and anything, it really is noticeable as its nothing like that here.
As for camera's, considering the 10 of us did between 6 and 11 trips between Burnley/Dandenong and Burnley/Westall via Caulfield, Carnegie, Murrumbeena, Hughesdale, oakleigh, Huntingdale, Chingvale etc. etc. every day yet none of us got fined I still dont see there being any more cameras there than any other city.

[BENT_8]

Originally Posted by T3rminator

They are around, but its not as bad as some make it out to be IMHO. The fixed cameras are pretty well known, so unless you are from out of town, if you get done, then you snooze you lose. Most are well signed. There are a couple of sneaky ones around, as Franco said, the M80 under the sign board is a real doozy, but all the locals know its there. If it wasn't for my Amigo app, I'd probably have been done there.

The mobile cams are ALWAYS in the same spot, or within a 100m of the same area. Again, locals will know what to look out for.

Have recently gone past a couple of mobile ones "a little bit over", was expecting a mail to come through, but never came. So I can only assume they have decent tolerance built in to them.

As for getting done by a hwy patrol....well that depends on the mood of the officer. In my area they usually do blitz during start and end of school runs, which is fair enough IMHO.



Think that depends what ethnic area you are in . Take a trip down punt road on a semi congested evening and see. I had a bloke pull up next to me, and asked what the speed limit was on punt road, I said "60 here but 70 from there onwards", he goes "I'm from tassie, and everyone is in a bloody hurry over here its giving me anxiety" lol.

The local who trained us on the route pointed out one of those mobile camera suv's, a Kia Sportage I believe, was the only one I saw the whole time I was there.
They could have made a fortune out of us between Centre rd and Clayton station as there is no sign posted limit heading towards the city, is on the way out, 50, we we're all flying through there until one of us noticed the 50 sign on the wooden stobie pole.
Another spot they could have cleaned up on us was the 40k zones through Huntingdale and Hughesdale after 7am, by then we we're on our 3rd run, eyes hanging out of our heads from sleep deprivation and zero attention to time or speed restrictions.

Cost the Vic Gov 25k/week to have us 10 there, could have reclaimed that in a couple of days if they really wanted to.

[GT1533]

Living in a hilly part of Melbourne, this has long been a pet peeve of mine - people not compensating for an incline and just slowing down. FFS, are people that disconnected from the task of driving that they can’t sense the car slowing down.

[GT1533]

Originally Posted by Franco Cozzo

You can really tell the difference between drivers in Melbourne and Sydney - the ones in Sydney drive with purpose like they have somewhere to be…

Melbourne used to be like that. Time was money. Then a whole bunch of things changed.

- speed cameras
- overzealous policing
- culture of safety is paramount
- slower cars - increasingly with fewer and fewer Falcons and Commodores
- Kids are all driven to school in Mummy’s SUV
- (politely) new arrivals bringing different driving styles

The last four are common to Sydney and Melbourne, so I assume it must be the first two that has screwed up Melbourne’s traffic flow.

[Franco Cozzo]

Originally Posted by BENT_8

Actually all 10 of us that went over commented on how horn happy you mob are, you beep at everything and anything, it really is noticeable as its nothing like that here.
As for camera's, considering the 10 of us did between 6 and 11 trips between Burnley/Dandenong and Burnley/Westall via Caulfield, Carnegie, Murrumbeena, Hughesdale, oakleigh, Huntingdale, Chingvale etc. etc. every day yet none of us got fined I still dont see there being any more cameras there than any other city.

We're not horn happy, nor are we in a rush, we're some of the slowest drivers on the roads nationally - you've just driven through parts of city where its metropolitan area alone has 2.8x the entire population of South Australia so there's just more flogs in a much smaller area

You only drove in a small corridor of the South Eastern suburbs, so really you did barely any driving in Melbourne on your last jaunt here.

There's 2000 approved mobile camera locations, 250 fixed cameras and 175 red light cameras in Victoria and the fixed cameras alone doll out over 200,000 fines in a 3 month period, and thats only for offences under 10km/h over - its over 300,000 fines per quarter combined.

https://www.camerassavelives.vic.gov...ety/statistics

Just quietly I don't think those 200,000 fines per quarter are 'saving lives' if they're handed out for minor offences like under 10 over the limit, absolute farce.

Mind you in my 12 years of driving like a douche before I lost my licence, I've never been caught by a mobile or fixed camera because I knew where they were on my commute.

[Trevor 57]

you blokes should follow my lead for never getting a speeding fine, don't speed. My last one was December 1999 and even then it was a dodgy one, copper standing on the side of the road (back then) in Wodonga with the camera set and he was talking to someone. I challenged but lost (no surprise)

[Tassie f100]

Originally Posted by Franco Cozzo

We're not horn happy, nor are we in a rush, we're some of the slowest drivers on the roads nationally - you've just driven through parts of city where its metropolitan area alone has 2.8x the entire population of South Australia so there's just more flogs in a much smaller area

You only drove in a small corridor of the South Eastern suburbs, so really you did barely any driving in Melbourne on your last jaunt here.

There's 2000 approved mobile camera locations, 250 fixed cameras and 175 red light cameras in Victoria and the fixed cameras alone doll out over 200,000 fines in a 3 month period, and thats only for offences under 10km/h over - its over 300,000 fines per quarter combined.

https://www.camerassavelives.vic.gov...ety/statistics

Just quietly I don't think those 200,000 fines per quarter are 'saving lives' if they're handed out for minor offences like under 10 over the limit, absolute farce.

Mind you in my 12 years of driving like a douche before I lost my licence, I've never been caught by a mobile or fixed camera because I knew where they were on my commute.

Yes you can make a pretty sizeable bet that not one of those 700,000 + booked for less than 10 km/h were going to be involved in a fatal crash

[BENT_8]

Originally Posted by Trevor 57

you blokes should follow my lead for never getting a speeding fine, don't speed. My last one was December 1999 and even then it was a dodgy one, copper standing on the side of the road (back then) in Wodonga with the camera set and he was talking to someone. I challenged but lost (no surprise)

Same here Trev, no fines since late 90's.
I havent done the k's you'd have traveled but I've done a bit driving trucks and coaches and seem to keep under the radar.

[EBSXR6]

[QUOTE=Franco Cozzo;6783832]

There's 2000 approved mobile camera locations, 250 fixed cameras and 175 red light cameras in Victoria and the fixed cameras alone doll out over 200,000 fines in a 3 month period, and thats only for offences under 10km/h over - its over 300,000 fines per quarter combined.

https://www.camerassavelives.vic.gov...ety/statistics

The fixed film cameras have been replaced by digital cameras.

[Vesper Martini]

I got stuck in the tunnel Tuesday night for 35 mins after the RHCP concert. all they had to do was delay the works for an hour to let every one out of the city.. loads of scissor lifts setup but nobody on them. muppets.

speed limit was set to 40kph one lane, there were people still doing 40 on the exit as they hadn't figured out they could speed up, probably for fear of doing 5kph over with the ingrained VIC Roads message.

once out of the tunnel you are presented with 4 lanes I think, but after midnight they still have the speed set to 80kph, it used to be 100 but since they put the variable speed on ive never seen it put to 100?



On the exit there are also trucks that simply cannot reach 80kph on the climb out if they have been at a stand still at the bottom.. they should have known this was going to happen when they built it..

[XRtowcar]

If you do 180 through the tunnel do they turn flashy flashy red?

[kevino]

Originally Posted by BENT_8

Actually all 10 of us that went over commented on how horn happy you mob are, you beep at everything and anything, it really is noticeable as its nothing like that here.
As for camera's, considering the 10 of us did between 6 and 11 trips between Burnley/Dandenong and Burnley/Westall via Caulfield, Carnegie, Murrumbeena, Hughesdale, oakleigh, Huntingdale, Chingvale etc. etc. every day yet none of us got fined I still dont see there being any more cameras there than any other city.

What were you doing?
Bus replacement for trains due to line works?

[BENT_8]

Originally Posted by kevino

What were you doing?
Bus replacement for trains due to line works?

Yep, the Cranbourne/Pakenham lines we're down from the city to Dandenong until mid January and then city to Westall until late January.

[kevino]

Originally Posted by BENT_8

Yep, the Cranbourne/Pakenham lines we're down from the city to Dandenong until mid January and then city to Westall until late January.

Nice bit of variety for you and a bit of solid earnings with the consistent ten hour days.
It’s interesting what turns up
On rail replacement buses in Bris/Gc.
Last year I got on a rail replacement bus sat in the front seat. What ! It’s got a clutch. The bus was an MCD with a Cummins and seven speed spicer crash box. The driver was smooth as. We flew down the motorway Bris/ Gc fifty percent of the time in the fast lane sailing past everyone.

[MITCHAY]

There is a magical device that every car has called a speedometer. Given how slow Mexicans drive around here you'd think they watch it constantly. It's like they think if they go over by 1k they will die and/or get fined

[Franco Cozzo]

Originally Posted by MITCHAY

There is a magical device that every car has called a speedometer. Given how slow Mexicans drive around here you'd think they watch it constantly. It's like they think if they go over by 1k they will die and/or get fined

I was on the Pacific Freeway out of Sydney doing 3 over the limit by GPS and I was getting chopped by ****s everywhere, even people with caravans and those small Jap trucks were putting in an effort to keep up with traffic. Seems like on NSW freeways its speed limit + 10km/h as the minimum

Those Jap trucks here in Mexico, you're lucky if they're doing 20 under the limit with how they pootle along the joint.

The one time I pulled out to chop some fool on the Pacific Freeway was just after Nambucca Heads servo, I pull into the right lane and I see a Chrysler 300 SRT headlight peaking out of the bushes in the middle of the road.