Highways Agency now highways england
Discussion
I work in the control room and after reading article by Dan Trent and a few other bits thought i would start apost and try and answer some of your queries
any view i express is that of my own not that of highways england.
feel free to ask me and i will answer what i can but you can call the "highways england information line" on 0300 123 5000 24hrs a day
I have sent Dan a tweet offering a guided tour
1) 50 for no reason! this normally set by "midas" which is a queue protection system where sensors detect the amount of, speed and distance apart of the traffic so when there is heavy braking or bunch 50 is set a fair distance before to slow traffic so it doesnt run ito the back of the queue,when it works by the time you get there the queue has gone (hopefully)
2) the most common accident on a motorway is a foreign lorry changing lanes and hitting a small car that he didnt see, normally because the car driver did not think about what a lorry can and cant see and of course the driver is over the other side of the lorry so makes it worse.
3)if you have an accident on the motorway do not assume that your breakdown cover will recover your vehicle,some will but others will tell you it is "breakdown cover" not "accident cover" if you can tellthem your insurance details they will recover vehicle on behalf of the insurance company but id you cant they will charge you (a lot) and you will have to pay yhem beorehand and claim back off your insurance.
always carry copy of your insurance cert or have details on your phone, it speeds whole thing up
4)get a car charger, and have credit on your phone,
5)if you run out of fuel and have no recovery you have 2 hours to sort your self out, we have powers to remove your vehicle at your cost which starts at £150 and we can keep the car till you pay up charging you storage. we do try and exhaust all options first and often people will do a roadside join up to a breakdown company but as you can imagine what they charge you when you are on your laptop at home and what they charge you on the dhardshoulder are drastically different.
people running out of fuel is a huge problem, but why they have to do it in live lane beats me
6) do not stop on the hard shoulder unless you really need to and if you do get out of the car preferably on the passenger side and over the barrier, lorries drift over white line all the time hence its a rumble strip, sadly many people are killed each year on the hard shoulder february 14th on the M1 was particulary tragic
7)motorway speed cameras are run by the police not us and you have the Daily Mail to thank if you have been caught by one, they did freedom of information act request to find out how many and which ones were working on the motorways most were turned off, for example on the m 25 only the ones j6 to j6 were on but after they published article they were all put back on, well done!
(tom tom does free app which tell you which ones are on, and its quite accurate)
8)almost everything you buy and use has been delivered by a lorry, so it makes sense to tell drivers that there is a problem a long way away so they can use a different route, hence signs telling you about problems 100 miles away, think about it?
9) all of our cctv records all of the time , if you have an accident on the motorway your insurance company can request footage from us but the must do it within 7 days.
10) get a dashcam!!
that will do for now, feel free to ask anything but no whining please,
any view i express is that of my own not that of highways england.
feel free to ask me and i will answer what i can but you can call the "highways england information line" on 0300 123 5000 24hrs a day
I have sent Dan a tweet offering a guided tour
1) 50 for no reason! this normally set by "midas" which is a queue protection system where sensors detect the amount of, speed and distance apart of the traffic so when there is heavy braking or bunch 50 is set a fair distance before to slow traffic so it doesnt run ito the back of the queue,when it works by the time you get there the queue has gone (hopefully)
2) the most common accident on a motorway is a foreign lorry changing lanes and hitting a small car that he didnt see, normally because the car driver did not think about what a lorry can and cant see and of course the driver is over the other side of the lorry so makes it worse.
3)if you have an accident on the motorway do not assume that your breakdown cover will recover your vehicle,some will but others will tell you it is "breakdown cover" not "accident cover" if you can tellthem your insurance details they will recover vehicle on behalf of the insurance company but id you cant they will charge you (a lot) and you will have to pay yhem beorehand and claim back off your insurance.
always carry copy of your insurance cert or have details on your phone, it speeds whole thing up
4)get a car charger, and have credit on your phone,
5)if you run out of fuel and have no recovery you have 2 hours to sort your self out, we have powers to remove your vehicle at your cost which starts at £150 and we can keep the car till you pay up charging you storage. we do try and exhaust all options first and often people will do a roadside join up to a breakdown company but as you can imagine what they charge you when you are on your laptop at home and what they charge you on the dhardshoulder are drastically different.
people running out of fuel is a huge problem, but why they have to do it in live lane beats me
6) do not stop on the hard shoulder unless you really need to and if you do get out of the car preferably on the passenger side and over the barrier, lorries drift over white line all the time hence its a rumble strip, sadly many people are killed each year on the hard shoulder february 14th on the M1 was particulary tragic
7)motorway speed cameras are run by the police not us and you have the Daily Mail to thank if you have been caught by one, they did freedom of information act request to find out how many and which ones were working on the motorways most were turned off, for example on the m 25 only the ones j6 to j6 were on but after they published article they were all put back on, well done!
(tom tom does free app which tell you which ones are on, and its quite accurate)
8)almost everything you buy and use has been delivered by a lorry, so it makes sense to tell drivers that there is a problem a long way away so they can use a different route, hence signs telling you about problems 100 miles away, think about it?
9) all of our cctv records all of the time , if you have an accident on the motorway your insurance company can request footage from us but the must do it within 7 days.
10) get a dashcam!!
that will do for now, feel free to ask anything but no whining please,
I should point out i work for the traffic officer service in the control room, we control all the motorways and some of the A roads, there are 7 control centers around the country and each one has several outstations spread around the network where the patrol vehicles are based, we answer the SOS boxes and set all the signals. and deal with anything and everything that happens on the motorway from potholes to fatals
I think this must be the article referred to: http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...
Hi and thanks for the info.
Having worked, a few years ago, for one of the companies that carried out maintenance and improvements in a couple of your "Areas" I can understand your comments and have seen first hand what work on and around the countries road network can be like and also some of the crazy things that the road user may get up to.
On a critical note can I ask, why when the overhead matrix signs show a problem ahead it will say something like "after the A***" Many people I have spoken to and my self have all thought "so where the #### is the A***? Is it before or after where I wish to leave the motorway?" You aren't able to pull over and read a road atlas and not all of us have a sat nav. It would be better to say after "Junction XX" or "after (insert name of large town)". This happens on the A1(M) and a few times I've been left in limbo thinking well i'll just keep going and hope for the best as that was no use at all. Turned out in all cases the problem was over 100 miles away, but I had no idea, in an unfamiliar part of the country, if that road was just after the next junction.
Cheers and keep up the good work
Having worked, a few years ago, for one of the companies that carried out maintenance and improvements in a couple of your "Areas" I can understand your comments and have seen first hand what work on and around the countries road network can be like and also some of the crazy things that the road user may get up to.
On a critical note can I ask, why when the overhead matrix signs show a problem ahead it will say something like "after the A***" Many people I have spoken to and my self have all thought "so where the #### is the A***? Is it before or after where I wish to leave the motorway?" You aren't able to pull over and read a road atlas and not all of us have a sat nav. It would be better to say after "Junction XX" or "after (insert name of large town)". This happens on the A1(M) and a few times I've been left in limbo thinking well i'll just keep going and hope for the best as that was no use at all. Turned out in all cases the problem was over 100 miles away, but I had no idea, in an unfamiliar part of the country, if that road was just after the next junction.
Cheers and keep up the good work
Pints said:
A link to the article you're referring to would have been good.
All the points are sensible, bar the first re. 50. The logic against your argument outweighs the logic in its favour.
Have a read of this, may change your mind... http://www.trafficwaves.org/All the points are sensible, bar the first re. 50. The logic against your argument outweighs the logic in its favour.
duck tippin said:
2) the most common accident on a motorway is a foreign lorry changing lanes and hitting a small car that he didnt see
...and of course the driver is over the other side of the lorry so makes it worse.
While that does apply moving lanes right, that's not the only direction a wagon changes lane, is it? Every time a LHD truck (which may well be UK reg) moves a lane left, he's on the same side of the truck as the lane he's going into. Just as the driver of a RHD truck is on the wrong side when moving lanes left......and of course the driver is over the other side of the lorry so makes it worse.
There is, perhaps, a greater likelihood of a hurried lane change going right, trying to squeeze into a gap, as well as a greater likelihood of a car being in that gap. But I've had RHD trucks pull out on me doing that just as many times as LHD, if not more. I've also had both RHD and LHD trucks change lane left onto me in L1.
Unfortunately the Highways Agency (sorry, England) have cut back on the number of crews and introduced single crewing. They also have introduced a policy where they don't allow single crewed cars to attend many incidents. They bat it off to the Police.
They have however, spent a very large sum of money doing up their regional control centre. The taps and sinks in the toilets are very, very nice. The bean counters now have a very nice place to work.
They have however, spent a very large sum of money doing up their regional control centre. The taps and sinks in the toilets are very, very nice. The bean counters now have a very nice place to work.
TooMany2cvs said:
While that does apply moving lanes right, that's not the only direction a wagon changes lane, is it? Every time a LHD truck (which may well be UK reg) moves a lane left, he's on the same side of the truck as the lane he's going into. Just as the driver of a RHD truck is on the wrong side when moving lanes left...
There is, perhaps, a greater likelihood of a hurried lane change going right, trying to squeeze into a gap, as well as a greater likelihood of a car being in that gap. But I've had RHD trucks pull out on me doing that just as many times as LHD, if not more. I've also had both RHD and LHD trucks change lane left onto me in L1.
"the most common accident on a motorway is a foreign lorry changing lanes and hitting a small car" nearly always the truck is LHD and moving to the right, sometimes it the truckers fault sometimes the drivers, normally minor injury but i have had to deal with 1 fatal one. the most of these type I have had is 8 in one shift across my area. these cause a huge amount of congestion. There is, perhaps, a greater likelihood of a hurried lane change going right, trying to squeeze into a gap, as well as a greater likelihood of a car being in that gap. But I've had RHD trucks pull out on me doing that just as many times as LHD, if not more. I've also had both RHD and LHD trucks change lane left onto me in L1.
how many of you have seen a crumpled car on the hard shoulder sometimes facing the wrong way with a truck further along?
get a dashcam
Elroy Blue said:
Unfortunately the Highways Agency (sorry, England) have cut back on the number of crews and introduced single crewing. They also have introduced a policy where they don't allow single crewed cars to attend many incidents. They bat it off to the Police.
They have however, spent a very large sum of money doing up their regional control centre. The taps and sinks in the toilets are very, very nice. The bean counters now have a very nice place to work.
not true about single crewing and cutting back, we are recruiting on and off road if you are interested, and out place not been refurbed since 2004They have however, spent a very large sum of money doing up their regional control centre. The taps and sinks in the toilets are very, very nice. The bean counters now have a very nice place to work.
This stupid f
king copycat trend of various organisations renaming themselves this England or that England makes me want to 
duck tippin said:
not true about single crewing and cutting back, we are recruiting on and off road if you are interested, and out place not been refurbed since 2004
Hi and thanks for your posts. Is there a web site for applications for on road recruitment? I am in Worcester, so do you know if it's for the Worcester / West Midlands area or Nationwide??
Thanks, Rob
duck tippin said:
not true about single crewing and cutting back, we are recruiting on and off road if you are interested, and out place not been refurbed since 2004
Hi and thanks for your posts. Is there a web site for applications for on road recruitment? I am in Worcester, so do you know if it's for the Worcester / West Midlands area or Nationwide??
Thanks, Rob
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