Fake Road Closures

[BrilloPad]

Health and safety?

Sometimes it is while tarmac dries.

[OwlHoot]

Where I live the motorways are all being 'upgraded' to 'smart' motorways - which means in the future we'll all have the benefit of the traffic being slowed to 50 if there happens to be more than 5 cars on the motorway at any time.

But look on the bright side: Once all cars on motorways must be self-driving, the "smart" motorways will be able to reduce vehicles' speeds to 150 MPH if there happen to be more than 50 of them on a quarter of a mile stretch at any one time!

[xoggoth]

So often you get a "road closed ahead" sign and no info on which road they are referring to. It often isn't the road you are actually on, but one leading off it.

Then there's the road closed/diversion ahead signs left there for days after the work has finished and the road is clear.

[greenlake]

Then there's the road closed/diversion ahead signs left there for days after the work has finished and the road is clear.

You want honest signs....?

[woohoo]

Your sat nav wanted to take you on a detour and you are blaming the French road network, not your sat nav? Um...



Again, why is the fault of the road network that you took a wrong turn - were you following your sat nav? :

Oh yes, but its all the fault of the EU...

The road was advertised as closed, you can then select an alt route on sat nav. We choose to ignore the alt route and see if the where diversions sign posted. Ended up that one lane was open.

The getting lost cost 40 euros for literally a few mins on the road. Why we paid the toll coming off the motorway and then going back on it is nuts.

I forget I'm dealing with prize dicks like you.

[northernladyuk]

Surely closing fake roads is a good thing.

[Pip in a Poke]

Encountered another example this morning.

I don't know if any of you are familiar with the A4174 Bristol ring road but it's notoriously bad at peak hours.

Well it's even worse now since the numerous bottlenecks along this route have now been compounded by "Essential maintenance to the Bromley Heath Viaduct" - and how long is this going to take?

52 weeks, that's how long.

It makes me bloody furious - the Chinese could build a railway from one side of their country to the other in that amount of time .

It's just symptomatic of the way any British civil engineering / construction project is hamstrung by HASAW zealots, labyrinthine planning legislation and, above and beyond all, a lazy and incompetent workforce more concerned with defining the bare minimum they can get away with rather than taking pride in a quality, well executed project.

Do you know something, there are times when I can't help feeling that we would benefit from a short period of military dictatorship.

Let me tell you a little story.

Recently I was undertaking a walk along a stretch of the Jurassic Coast from Weymouth to Burton Bradstock.

I don't know if any of you know that stretch of coast but just as one is beginning the stretch from the eastern end of Chesil Beach, following the landward side of the Fleet, the terrain is pretty flat and one can see for miles.

Well ahead of me, in the distance, was an army camp and it was sufficiently within visible range for me to discern a convoy of 4 ton trucks converging on said camp. The platoon that descended from these trucks proceeded to scurry about like an army of ants but as I got closer I could see they were carrying various materials and were in the act of constructing some kind of wooden building. They worked efficiently like a well oiled machine and by the time they were fading from view after I had gone past them, the building was complete.

Impressive stuff and it got me wondering how long that task would have taken one of our sclerotic councils and the useless contractors to whom such projects are farmed out.

[xoggoth]

Can't see why roads can't be built/replaced by huge machines. They did it in an episode of Sponge Bob Squarepants, looked very credible.

[Pip in a Poke]

Oh and it's not just the roads that are the target of my ire at the moment.

Customer service on the railways is another bugbear of mine.

Why? It took me 3 1/2 hours to get from Chippenham to Worcester last Saturday all because I was late arriving for my connecting service thanks to FGW. But the way I was treated as an annoying inconvenience and dismissed in an offhand manner by the jobsworth BR guy on the train made me bloody furious.

Read a transcript of the conversation & see if wouldn't have been bloody furious.

It went something like this:

Jobsworth BR guy: Tickets please

The Gal: Why are we running late?

Jobsworth BR guy: We had to detrain an undesirable at Oldfield Park

The Gal: Inneresting, I'm sure but owing to the late running of this service, I am likely to miss my connection at Bristol Temple Meads. What do you intend doing to help me out of this dilemma?

Jobsworth BR guy: Where are you going?

The Gal: Worcester Shrub Hill

Jobsworth BR guy: That's Virgin Trains - it's a different TOC

The Gal: So?

Jobsworth BR guy: Nothing to do with us , love.

The Gal: Can you not at least phone ahead and ask for the station to hold the train since there are a number of passengers for that service on board this train?

Jobsworth BR guy: They won't do that, they've got targets, y'know...

The Gal: What about the target to do with letters of complaint from disgruntled customers?

Jobsworth BR guy: As I said, nothing to do with us, love.

The Gal: So what do you suggest I do?

(and this is the comment that made me absolutely apoplectic)

Jobsworth BR guy: Just go with the flow, love


Go with the flow?? In what other business in a free market economy would that individual still have a job? Seriously.... :tantrum

[woohoo]

Can't see why roads can't be built/replaced by huge machines. They did it in an episode of Sponge Bob Squarepants, looked very credible.

I've wondered for a while why they can't have roads made up of tiles or squares. You just pull up and replace the bits that need replacing. As you suggested you could use a big huge machine.

I know the cost would be astronomical but it would be cool. A hover car would be even better. Or spider cars that could traverse even the most bumpy road.