Vocal Voices

The government wants road works on A-roads and motorways limiting to two miles.

According to traffic information company Inrix - there are:

An 18.1-mile stretch of narrow lanes and speed restrictions on the M1 near Chesterfield, between junctions 28 and 31

A 15.5-mile road improvement scheme on the M3, between junction 2 and Fleet Services, near Farnborough

Between junctions 16 and 19 of the M1 near Northampton, 13.7 miles of restrictions

On the M6, 9.2 miles of roadworks between junctions 10a and 13, near Birmingham

That is all well and good, but all it will mean is rolling roadworks up and down the land - there will still be blockages and speed limits of 40 and 50 MPH. According to the signs I see the limits are to protect the workers. So why are the limits still in force when no workers are about? And why not try to protect workers in other ways?

I have driven hundreds of miles through roadworks in France and Germany at 100km/h (60 MPH). How? It is because in those places one whole side of the road is closed and a contra-flow is placed on the other side. The workers are protected by the central reservation. Once one side is done everything swaps over.

The infection has spread.

In France there are a lot of contraflows which are down to 70kph, in Belgium too. Even when there are decent contraflows they never exceed 90kph which is only 6mph over the 50 we have in the UK.

It seems to be EU wide rules. In France on the AutoRoute you used to have sections restricted to 110kph when there was work, with concrete separators between the workers and the road. Now all of those are 90kph.

There must had been an EU safety directive for Elf's.....

I do not get contra-flow speed limits. Some of them on the (reasonably straight) motorways can be down to 40 MPH while the national speed limit on winding single lane A-roads is 60 MPH. Overtaking is also allowed on A-roads.

I've never been able to work that one out. More a case of "because we can" or "if it's slow it's not my fault"....

I wonder if they ever worked out that a head on between a truck and a car at 40mph is an 80mph collision and the car is likely to be a crumpled bit of tin afterwards.

Hopefully they won't think of that or they'll be down to 20.....

To my mind, the most scandalous thing is the length of time the contractors take to carry out these roadworks.

I've already posted elsewhere on these boards about the 55-week roundabout roadworks at the Bagot Arms, Erdington, which involves (a) the resiting of 4 pedestrian crossings (b) widening the approach lanes, but only by around 3 feet (why?) and (c) an (unnecessary) light-controlled pedestrian refuge slap in the middle of a two lane approach road (if they stick bollards on it, I'll give them 48 hours before someone demolishes them). While this has been going on, and it's still not finished, we've had constant coned-off lane closures and frequent tail-backs.

And don't get me started on the Spaghetti Junction closures and knock-on effects, and the M6 roadworks all the way up to Staffordshire ....

Stricter time limits should be imposed on contractors, with punitive fines if the works over-run.