Adventure Bike Rider Forum

Is it me, or actually is it the case that that any minor accident or incident on the motorway is turned into a major deal. With the smart system now telling all to slow down 10 miles back, and causing massive congestion,a stream of Police cars flying past at 100mph to join the other 5 that are already there, and when you drive past the problem there is a lorry having it's tyre changed!! All at a massive cost to business for the delays.

The above is not factual but you know what I mean, I have seen similar. I am NOT having a pop at the Police as I know safety is paramount, but things have changed and the way traffic is managed has a massive effect on, well everything.

I'm not looking for an argument... just an answer.

XR400STUPOT wrote:Is it me, or actually is it the case that that any minor accident or incident on the motorway is turned into a major deal. With the smart system now telling all to slow down 10 miles back, and causing massive congestion,a stream of Police cars flying past at 100mph to join the other 5 that are already there, and when you drive past the problem there is a lorry having it's tyre changed!! All at a massive cost to business for the delays.

The above is not factual but you know what I mean, I have seen similar. I am NOT having a pop at the Police as I know safety is paramount, but things have changed and the way traffic is managed has a massive effect on, well everything.

I'm not looking for an argument... just an answer.

The answer lies in the ' road deaths investigation manual' whereby any potentially life threatening injury must be treated as a crime scene ...just as if someone was shot or stabbed...this means instantky preserving the scene forensically by preventing uncontrolled access...other motorway incidents now also take worker safety to extremes....few people have stood on the hard shoulder during rush hour..its genuinely frightening...deaths of HATOs and AA, RAC patrols and police officers etc has upped the safety ante ....

For anyone interested

http://www.npcc.police.uk/documents/FoI ... idents.pdf

Cheers Gedge for the fast and informative reply. I was playing devils advocate as you know. We all get pissed off sat in traffic jams

XR400STUPOT wrote:Cheers Gedge for the fast and informative reply. I was playing devils advocate as you know. We all get pissed off sat in traffic jams

The guys on the ground also feel the same ..but sometimes their safety and more importantly after a crash, the relatives deserve a full and thorough investigation....they constantly look at new technology ( such as GPS scene mapping ) to speed the process up but sadly sometimes we just have to sit in the queue and thank our lucky stars were werent one of those involved ...

Wow. That's the big picture Gedge. Let's all hope we can have a happy and safe Christmas. Take care all.

Twice in the past month I have driven up the A1. On both occasions the limit dropped to 40 with "Pedestrians in Road" as the reason. On both occasions I passed at least 10, 40 mph limit sigs over about 5 miles.
The next sign was road clear.
Nothing seen both times.
Whilst I of course agree with Gedges info, I do think the system is abused and it would appear I am not the only one that thinks it as most of the rest of the traffic passed me at 70+.

I belive they are used for excessive distances and are not turned of when no longer required. Accidents are of course a completely different matter.

Old Git Ray wrote:Twice in the past month I have driven up the A1. On both occasions the limit dropped to 40 with "Pedestrians in Road" as the reason. On both occasions I passed at least 10, 40 mph limit sigs over about 5 miles.
The next sign was road clear.
Nothing seen both times.
Whilst I of course agree with Gedges info, I do think the system is abused and it would appear I am not the only one that thinks it as most of the rest of the traffic passed me at 70+.

I belive they are used for excessive distances and are not turned of when no longer required. Accidents are of course a completely different matter.

Its supposedly one of the government pledges to restrict the length of any single set of roadworks to try and stop this ...i suspect rather than deliberate abuse of the system its more about the fear of being blamed if something happens that leads project managers to insist on ridiculous lengths of safety zones ..

I can't make it out either. Massive queue slowing traffic down to 40 as someone has broken down or has a flat on the hard shoulder. I think the jams probably increase the risk of an incident. If I had to do a risk assessment I'd say there was a great chance of an accident by slowing all the traffic down and in some cases results in stationary traffic than just allowing things to run normal until a breakdown vehicle could get there. Also the keeping of signs on when the incident has already cleared is adding more risk - you know why ? Because it's happened so often that drivers now ignore them as in the most cases it's a false alarm!

You may have a short memory or just not heard.
It's not that long ago that one of our own suffered life changing injuries
while working on the M6.
That alone answers your question for me.