{"id":3292,"date":"2020-01-20T03:07:32","date_gmt":"2020-01-19T16:07:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.driverknowledgetests.com\/resources\/?p=3292"},"modified":"2019-10-27T15:32:10","modified_gmt":"2019-10-27T04:32:10","slug":"should-you-take-short-cuts-to-reduce-your-journey-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.driverknowledgetests.com\/resources\/should-you-take-short-cuts-to-reduce-your-journey-time\/","title":{"rendered":"Should you take short cuts to reduce your journey time?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>There are two types of short cuts you can take:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Along a different route, like a side road<\/li><li>Through a private property such as a supermarket car park.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>The purpose of taking a short cut is to reduce your journey time, but do they work and do they make traffic better? In the case of choosing a completely different route, it makes sense if it&#8217;s either:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>quicker for you<\/li><li>uses less fuel<\/li><li>is less dangerous.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>By taking the short cut (or alternative route) you&#8217;ll be removing traffic from one route but adding it to another. Whether it&#8217;s worthwhile depends on the overall level of traffic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>However, if you are shortcutting through private property such as a petrol station forecourt on a corner where there&#8217;s a traffic light, it&#8217;s slightly different. There are some potential advantages:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>You save some time and potentially some fuel through not sitting idling in traffic or crawling slowly<\/li><li>Less idling means less pollution (of course, if your engine automatically shuts off when you are stationary, this argument is moot)<\/li><li>You feel better about your trip<\/li><li>Less traffic on that route does potentially free up the route slightly<\/li><li>If there is another motorist behind you that genuinely wants to enter that private property, e.g. to get fuel, they don&#8217;t have to wait for you to go the longer way around.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>But, there are quite a few disadvantages of taking a shortcut across private property:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Driving unnecessarily through private property creates additional wear and tear that the property owner has to pay for, for example, repainting lines, filling in potholes, etc<\/li><li>Additional unnecessary traffic through car parks increases the chance of a pedestrian\/vehicle collision<\/li><li>Additional traffic in a car park increases congestion for those genuinely using it, which causes frustration that could negatively affect the business owners (i.e. people might avoid those businesses rather than go to them)<\/li><li>Shortcutting that congestion pinch point doesn&#8217;t mean to say that it won&#8217;t just move the congestion slightly further on, causing additional delays to vehicles that don&#8217;t take the short cut<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>These types of shortcuts tend not to save much time &#8211; perhaps 30 seconds at best. Sometimes they don&#8217;t make any difference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Google Maps and other mapping services that monitor traffic are now rendering shortcuts almost obsolete as they will direct you via the shortest route in real time. However, they don&#8217;t know all the little tricks&#8230;yet!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There are two types of short cuts you can take: Along a different route, like a side road Through a private property such as a supermarket car park. The purpose of taking a short cut is to reduce your journey<span class=\"ellipsis\">&hellip;<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.driverknowledgetests.com\/resources\/should-you-take-short-cuts-to-reduce-your-journey-time\/\">Read more &#8250;<\/a><\/div>\n<p><!-- end of .read-more --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3294,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[105],"class_list":["post-3292","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-advice","tag-traffic"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.driverknowledgetests.com\/resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3292","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.driverknowledgetests.com\/resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.driverknowledgetests.com\/resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.driverknowledgetests.com\/resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.driverknowledgetests.com\/resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3292"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.driverknowledgetests.com\/resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3292\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3295,"href":"https:\/\/www.driverknowledgetests.com\/resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3292\/revisions\/3295"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.driverknowledgetests.com\/resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.driverknowledgetests.com\/resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.driverknowledgetests.com\/resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.driverknowledgetests.com\/resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}