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 carried out. We cannot emphasise too strongly the need to ensure that clear and early warning is provided of any obstruction occurring on these high speed roads. This will call for quicker and more informed thought and action than anything that the road traffic authorities in this country are likely to have encountered in the past.

73. We said in our interim report that the full range of signs required would depend on the organisation finally set up to deal with emergencies and the extent to which it was anticipated that traffic would have to be confined on occasions to the use of a single carriageway. Since then your Department have had discussions with representatives of the Chief Constables and County Surveyors concerned with the Preston By- Pass and the first section of the London-Yorkshire Motorway in order to settle the procedure to be adopted.

74. We understand that as soon as the police receive the report of an accident a police vehicle will go to the spot (which will be located by the number of the nearest telephone pillar) and at the same time a radio message will be sent for the appropriate emergency service. The necessary signs, lamps, and first aid equipment will be kept permanently in each police vehicle as well as at the police post, and the first duty of the police on arrival at the scene will be to erect the signs.

75. The Chief Constables, who had been impressed by the emergency signposting arrangements in force on the motorways of North-West Europe, proposed that in this country a series of signs should be used, comprising an initial warning sign some distance in advance of the obstruction, a sign prohibiting overtaking, a sign imposing a speed limit and a series of rubber cones starting about 100 yards from the obstruction, to guide traffic into the proper lane to pass the obstruction. All the signs would be duplicated, one on the nearside verge and one on the central reservation; thus none of them would be sited on the carriageway itself, with the possible exception of the last pair, which might encroach by up to two feet on to the carriageway.

76. So far as road works are concerned, most repairs would be pre-arranged and the signposting would not therefore be an emergency measure but would be a matter for the highway authority or his agents. In emergencies, however, signposting would be the primary responsibility of the police, although in practice it would be carried out by whoever was first on the scene, whether the emergency was a repair job or an accident. The signposting arrangements for road works and accidents would be almost identical-indeed the only difference would be that in the case of repairs the first sign would give an indication of road works ahead.

77. Where it is necessary to close one carriageway completely and operate two-way working on the other the signposting arrangements on the carriageway to be closed would be the same as those described above except that the cones would guide traffic through a gap in the central reservation, and at this point 'Two way traffic' signs would be necessary. On the other carriageway the advance signs would, of course, relate to the point where the opposing traffic leaves it, not where it joins it; the cones would guide traffic into the nearside half of the carriageway and 'Two way traffic' signs would be necessary here too. 'No