The eagle-eyed passing through there will notice that the “barrier” between the lane turning off and the new third lane is just painted on the road. As a result, when the other two lanes are packed, the more enterprising drivers will take the less busy “local traffic” lane and not turn off, gaining a small advantage over those who loyally remain in the two right-hand lanes.
But wait... there's more. The vulture-eyed will have noticed that if you actually take the turn off here, then Gillender Street runs alongside the A12 for a bit before re-joining. Even less people use this than the “third lane shortcut” so you can get a jump on them by heading down that.
Furthermore, Gillender Lane is in fact a two-lane road - but during busy hours one of these lanes is for buses only. After 7pm though, both lanes are open and you can, if you want, skip to the head of Gillender Street past the smallish queue in the non-bus lane.
And so it was, at 7.07pm tonight that I rolled up to the end of Gillender Street having shaved a few minutes off my journey. At this unfortunate point, all us cheeky low-grade scum who've exploited the road design have to re-join the A12 - after first merging the two lanes of Gillender Street into one. For some reason though, the driver to my right and slightly behind is miffed that, although he or she has also skipped past long queues of vehicles, I have apparently skipped past more, including them, and is trying to avoid leaving any gap between themselves and the car in front so I will be blocked from a minor amount of my ill-gotten advantage.
No honour amongst thieves I guess
