Highways agency (big rant)

[Station]

I do the M6 a lot. I've been using it since they started amending the hard shoulders for 'managed motorways' (a process that started in late 2011 and is yet to be finished), and found them to be worse now, and the M6 was bad. A guy was pulled over in the 'emergency' area, was out of the car and on the verge, and speed limit was set to 40. The traffic was gridlocked, with a strobe like effect of brake lights ahead of me, with the typical Audi's/BMW's vying to get in front of one another. I watched those overhead speed things go from 40, then to 60 and then back to 40.

FFS, just leave them alone, you're pissing everyone off.

[NorfolkNWeigh]

I use the M1/M25 managed motorways every day, usually 2 or 3 return trips from M1j14 to M25 j14.

When the hard shoulder thing was first mooted I thought it was the most stupid idea ever,and do you know what?

I WAS WRONG! It works,so much so I use the M1 at times I would have taken another route in the past. Even leaving Milton Keynes at 08.00am I now use the M1, before the hard shoulder running that just wouldn't have been an option.

The biggest potential problem is idiots ,usually in 40tonne wagons driving along the hard shoulder just after Toddington services where it goes from 4 lanes to 3. I've seen this at least 10 or 12 times, always at night when there are great big red crosses above them,must be engrossed in a film/cooking dinner/having a wank or all three. I do know if I ever break down on that section of M1 I'll be out of the car and up the bank pretty smartish.

[Vin]

Loose horses on the M18 one morning, boxed in by 3 lorry drivers to stop them causing a proper accident, big lump of wood causing everyone to stop drive around it again on the M18, I stopped and dragged that to the side of the road myself... waste of space.

 

I saw that. When I approached all I saw was the 3 or 4 wagons all in lanes 2 and 3 round the central reservation and it looked like they'd all piled into each other. I then realised they were all intact and there were two horses stood in the outside lane...with the wagons 'corralling' them in. Never seen ought like it before and thought it a good effort all round. Except for all traffic having to go round them of course...The horses looked like the sort you often see tied up on grass verges, if you know what I mean...

 

Highways Agency dropped a massive bollock a few weeks ago when they shut the east bound M180 for nearly a week for resurfacing. Not contraflows or lane closures, the whole thing. They reckoned it would be 15 minutes extra on journeys sending everyone along the A18 via Scunthorpe. Thing is the diversion goes over Keadby Bridge as other than the motorway that is the only way to cross the River Trent in the area. Trucks can only really cross it one at a time as there is a really tight bend at one end of the bridge. As a great proportion of the traffic is trucks to Immingham and Grimsby there were delays of 3 hours plus. This all spilled over to the north bank of the humber as people used the humber bridge instead. The toll booth created a bottleneck that spread out to miles of tailbacks on the the A63. The only way to clear it was to suspend bridge tolls for about 4 days while they resurfaced the M180. A big HA fuck up really...

[Parky]

Very worried about the M25 tolls at Dartford. The tolls are being replaced with an electronic system which is brilliant and only 10 years late but what concerns me is the work required.....

 

1) 30 or so reinforced concrete toll booths need removing

2) as the road splits from 4 into 15 lanes on the run to the tolls, the road will need remarking to prevent everyone breaking into 15 lanes and immediately compressing back into four lanes

 

In Japan the road would be closed for three hours whilst 200 professionals attacked the problem with vim and vigour. Here we will erect millions of cones and one man will stand around and watch the traffic for six months. At the moment there are megajams there every day (by megajam I mean my wife takes five hours to drive 15 miles) because HA are erecting signs warning us that disruption may be expected when the work starts in October. Yeah, wait until the weather turns shit and then commence a major infrastructure project. Good thinking!

[Station]

I can't wait for them to finish the M6, it's meant to be done next year, I haven't seen them working at night though. It has been a massive pain in the BAWLS over the past three years, every Friday, same thing. I try the a41 but it's the same again when a lorry decides he want to take the scenic route. It's unsuitable for HGVs!