Climbing Lane

Lynne Murphy M.L.Murphy at SUSSEX.AC.UK
Wed Apr 28 19:31:52 UTC 2004


--On Wednesday, April 28, 2004 3:21 pm -0400 Laurence Horn
<laurence.horn at YALE.EDU> wrote:
>
>>
>> If you look up 'climbing lane' with .za domains in Google, you get about
>> a dozen hits.   One of them says that using a climbing lane involves
>> speed reduction of 10-20 kph.  This means it can't be  a passing lane in
>> the US sense, but a lane to be passed in.  There are three possibilities
>> for what it is, then:
>>
>> - a lane that's added to the left of the main lane (i.e., on the
>> outside--SAns drive on the left--that is, if they're following the
>> traffic laws) for a short distance to alleviate traffic congestion
>>
>> - a short pull-off, as you see on single-track mountain roads
>>
>> - a hard shoulder (it's SAn driving etiquette to drive on the shoulder if
>> the person behind you wants to go faster (which can be signaled by
>> flashing the headlights)
>
> Actually, I'm pretty sure that in the US use it's (always?) a lane
> added on the right, hence one designed for the passee, not the
> passer, in particular for trucks and other vehicles that are somewhat
> upgrade-challenged.  I suppose this could be assimilated in Lynne's
> taxonomy to a "hard shoulder", but I would reserve that term for an
> actual shoulder, not a bona fide (if short-lived) lane.

That would go along with my first option up there--on the left in SA, on
the right in US.  I'm pretty convinced that's the meaning...

Lynne


Dr M Lynne Murphy
Lecturer in Linguistics

Department of Linguistics and English Language
Arts B133
University of Sussex
Falmer
Brighton BN1 9QN
>>From UK:  (01273) 678844
Outside UK: +44-1273-678844



More information about the Ads-l mailing list