"Pedestrians in the road" on the motorway, does anyone care?

[mnkiboy]

Do you work out of the building in Newton-le-Willows? I can almost see you from my house!

[Ray Luxury-Yacht]

Many times, these messages turn out to be superfluous, with nothing remotely like what is being advertised, I agree.

However, and with the explainations given above - there might be an occasion when it is relevent.


I can give a very recent example.

Travelling eastbound up the M3 from Southampton, at night on Monday, I got a 'debris in road' message.

As I always do, erring on the side of being better to be safe than sorry, I stayed in lane 1, reduced my speed to about 50, and dropped back from the traffic in front so I had a massive gap with lots of visibility.

Sure enough, about half a mile later, I came across a complete HGV's curtain strap, with it's metal hooks and clamping mechanism, lying in a snake-like fashion on the white line and incurring into lanes 1 and 2.

I was able to slow some more with no drama, and steer halfway onto the hard shoulder to miss it.

I would imagine that hitting it at 70 mph would be exciting - at best the metal mechanism would fly up and damage the underside of a car - at worst it would wrap around suspension components or even a wheel or drive shaft, and cause a nasty failure or even a locked wheel, with consequences to match


So, I was happy for the sign!

[VinceM]

These signs I can deal with, what I find inexcusable, is the miles and miles of roadworks, cones, contraflow, and only one tiny section being worked on at a time. M25 J5-J7, this means you.

[Gafferjim]

VinceM said:

These signs I can deal with, what I find inexcusable, is the miles and miles of roadworks, cones, contraflow, and only one tiny section being worked on at a time. M25 J5-J7, this means you.

Well I'm afraid you're going to have to get used to it for the next few years, as more & more "Managed motorways" come into being.
We have two lots of this about to happen in our region very shortly and I can't say that I'm looking forward to the problems whilst they're being built. I do however realise the reason for them.
One of the sections will be the M6 from J19 (I think?) down to J17 (unsure?) for anyone who travels this during the day-time will know what it's like, it's stop start with constant Ghost queues for no reason.
There's no money to add new lanes (new bridges etc as well) not to mention the usual kickback against taking land off people to add lanes, that's why they're going for managed motorways (H/S running) If you like them or not, it's been proved to work on the M42 for some time now, and there's also a couple of sections now around Birmingham (with more being altered right now) and the M62 in Yorkshire has recently opened a patch of MM.
I've not been fully converted yet, I'll sit on the fence for now, but a friend of mine that travels the M62 bit in Yorkshire says "It's brilliant! has completely changed his drive to work and back"


mnkiboy -yes

Edited by Gafferjim on Wednesday 4th September 22:11

[Ray Luxury-Yacht]

Gafferjim said:

VinceM said:

These signs I can deal with, what I find inexcusable, is the miles and miles of roadworks, cones, contraflow, and only one tiny section being worked on at a time. M25 J5-J7, this means you.

Well I'm afraid you're going to have to get used to it for the next few years, as more & more "Managed motorways" come into being.
We have two lots of this about to happen in our region very shortly and I can't say that I'm looking forward to the problems whilst they're being built. I do however realise the reason for them.
One of the sections will be the M6 from J19 (I think?) down to J17 (unsure?) for anyone who travels this during the day-time will know what it's like, it's stop start with constant Ghost queues for no reason.
There's no money to add new lanes (new bridges etc as well) not to mention the usual kickback against taking land off people to add lanes, that's why they're going for managed motorways (H/S running) If you like them or not, it's been proved to work on the M42 for some time now, and there's also a couple of sections now around Birmingham (with more being altered right now) and the M62 in Yorkshire has recently opened a patch of MM.
I've not been fully converted yet, I'll sit on the fence for now, but a friend of mine that travels the M62 bit in Yorkshire says "It's brilliant! has completely changed his drive to work and back"


mnkiboy -yes

For what it's worth - I have to say that 'managed motorways' with variable speed limits work well in my experience.

I am able, with the studious use of anticipation and the Mk. 1 eyeball, to generally avoid the 'ripple effect' of congestion, with people accelerating and then braking hard. But it seems everyone else is happy to plough on into it, with all the tiring driving thereof.

Managed motorways now make the mongs with the frontal vision and spatial awareness of an insect actually behave in a manner which smooths out all the tailgating and stop-start.

Works well.

[otolith]

I'm not moving the goalposts. Fact is that usually the information on the boards is unhelpful. You blamed that on how MIDAS works, so fixing that would seem a good start.

[mybrainhurts]

otolith said:

The problem with motorway matrix warnings is that they cry wolf more than half the time.

Half? More like 99.99999%.

Two days last week, M1 and M25, late morning, cloudless blue skies, 24degC.....FOG PATCHES, SLOW DOWN



The one that said SLOW 30 ONCOMING VEHICLE did grab my attention but, as usual, no sign of an oncoming vehicle.

[Elroy Blue]

Whoever came up with 'managed motorways' have never tried to get emergency vehicles through four lanes of standing traffic, with no hard shoulder to bypass it.

There are also constant problems with spurious speed limit settings thanks to MIDAS (as already mentioned). Personally ( as someone who works on them every day) , I think they're a massive pain in the arse.

[talksthetorque]

Anyone else find it Ironic that GafferJim keeps having his posts triple posted?

[infradig]

I travel on the 'managed' section of the M1 everyday at different times, I have grave concerns about the number of vehicles, usually foreign lorries using the hard shoulder when they shouldn't be. Are the cameras monitored as closely when the lane is supposedly not in use?
Incidentally my favourite ever idiot sign was a few years ago on the M25, it read FIRE SERVICE ON STRIKE,DRIVE WITH EXTRA CARE. Brilliant! Don't remember seeing one telling us it was ok to drive like fking idiots again after the strike.

[Leptons]

I'd like to thank gafferjim for posting. Makes a change from all the usual guff people most. Very informative

[mybrainhurts]

Ray Luxury-Yacht said:

For what it's worth - I have to say that 'managed motorways' with variable speed limits work well in my experience.

I am able, with the studious use of anticipation and the Mk. 1 eyeball, to generally avoid the 'ripple effect' of congestion, with people accelerating and then braking hard. But it seems everyone else is happy to plough on into it, with all the tiring driving thereof.

Managed motorways now make the mongs with the frontal vision and spatial awareness of an insect actually behave in a manner which smooths out all the tailgating and stop-start.

Works well.

The new hard shoulder running section north of Luton certainly does not work well.

50s and 60s seem to come on at pre-determined times for rush hour traffic, regardless of the volume of traffic. They come on with very light traffic but heavy traffic often has the hard shoulder closed when it needs to be open.

Then there's the overnight roadworks, where we get 40, several miles before the road works, with no traffic in sight.

As I don't know which gantries carry cameras, I can't risk any of them.

This brings a further problem when 40 pops up and I have to slow unexpectedly and there's a local lorry behind me who does know there's no camera on that gantry and, if I don't speed up, he's going to sit on my arse and burn my paint off with his battery of spot lights.

This system is downright bloody dangerous.

[DervVW]

mybrainhurts said:

Ray Luxury-Yacht said:

For what it's worth - I have to say that 'managed motorways' with variable speed limits work well in my experience.

I am able, with the studious use of anticipation and the Mk. 1 eyeball, to generally avoid the 'ripple effect' of congestion, with people accelerating and then braking hard. But it seems everyone else is happy to plough on into it, with all the tiring driving thereof.

Managed motorways now make the mongs with the frontal vision and spatial awareness of an insect actually behave in a manner which smooths out all the tailgating and stop-start.

Works well.

The new hard shoulder running section north of Luton certainly does not work well.

50s and 60s seem to come on at pre-determined times for rush hour traffic, regardless of the volume of traffic. They come on with very light traffic but heavy traffic often has the hard shoulder closed when it needs to be open.

Then there's the overnight roadworks, where we get 40, several miles before the road works, with no traffic in sight.

As I don't know which gantries carry cameras, I can't risk any of them.

This brings a further problem when 40 pops up and I have to slow unexpectedly and there's a local lorry behind me who does know there's no camera on that gantry and, if I don't speed up, he's going to sit on my arse and burn my paint off with his battery of spot lights.

This system is downright bloody dangerous.

I've only experience of the m42 and m6 ones.
M42 is not that effective because you have to move every time you pass a junction so the extra lane is that that utalised IMO and this does not help all that much. But as Ray above said the effect does smooth out the rapid brakers so its not quite as stop start.
Now on the M6 between 8 -10a its much improved, because you can use 4 lanes it is much smoother, i'd rather travel at 50/60 constant than 70 -0 stop start and thats what you seem to have now.

Oh and thanks for the insight into the signs. I too found it funny that the posts are triplicated. Oh and I agree there are plenty of signs that dont need to be there. "Fog patches" really like when I was struggling to make out what that said through the fog, so glad you told me...

[slippery]

Gafferjim said:

PS. This is the youtube of the Swedish women on the M6. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdiISQdjwd0

Wow. I'm utterly dumbstruck by that.

[thecremeegg]

My issue is not so much with the signs but the speed limit ones. Go round the m25 at 70 happily, sign pops up saying 50 after which the traffic is queuing. Trundle along for a few miles in a queue then the signs say national speed limit again and everyone speeds up, queue vanishes. Rinse and repeat...can someone explain how that aids traffic flow?

[Cunning Punt]

Elroy Blue said:

Whoever came up with 'managed motorways' have never tried to get emergency vehicles through four lanes of standing traffic, with no hard shoulder to bypass it.

They sound like a bloody menace to me.

Bit off-topic, and maybe it's already been done (don't know, haven't lived in UK for a long time) but I wonder if the emergency services have considered putting "front-runner" paramedics on motorcycles to counteract this. They'd (perhaps) be surplus to requirements when the hard shoulder is open, and obviously unable to carry much equipment, but I think if I found myself lying on the hard shoulder bleeding out from a knackered artery I'd be greatly relieved to know that competent help genuinely was on its way, and not stuck behind the four-lane two-mile gridlock I'd created with my accident.

Leptons said:

I'd like to thank gafferjim for posting. Makes a change from all the usual guff people most. Very informative

Very interesting stuff, and good to get traffic control's perspective.

2 questions for Gafferjim if he doesn't mind:


1) To what extent would you say the traffic density feature in Google Maps (presumably fed by Android phones providing their GPS locations) corresponds to the traffic density you see on your screens?

2) Given a scenario where you receive a report of some incident - debris, pedestrian in road, whatever - but you don't get any more precise location information than say, "between J12 and J14", it makes sense that you have to set signals using what little data you have, so they might show for miles more than necessary. Makes sense, yes, but we've seen on this thread that there's a problem with people ignoring them, because they assume the signs were "crying wolf" if the incident is more than a mile or so away. Now, if road users (passengers, not drivers I suppose) were to call in with more precise information (e.g. marker posts, direction of travel) that narrowed down the area, would that allow you to turn off redundant signals? Or would they have to remain lit regardless until the entire area was checked by police/HATO?

Edited by Cunning Punt on Thursday 5th September 00:16

[baldy1926]

I saw 2 last year on the m11 within a week of each other.
The first was northbound approaching stanstead there was a back packer casually walking on the hard shoulder at least this was daylight.
The second was a dark winter evening a man was on the hard shoulder all in black waking southbound towards the m25.
It must be something with the m11 I've also seen a large dog running on the hard shoulder and a mad guy standing in lane 1 trying to stop cars.
None of these had matrix signs

[Atrevetetete]

Can I just say that this is a (very nerdy yet) very informative and interesting thread! Credit to you GafferJim for answering so candidly how this all works!

My (no doubt utterly retarded) question is why is it, for example, ''10 miles to Junction 8, 12 minutes'' if it is set at 70mph (or no higher) as you mentioned earlier? Surely the time should be lower than the mileage on a completely clear road?

I appreciate this is probably more a maths/physics fail on my part more than anything but I'm still curious!

[Birdster]

Baryonyx said:

Best take heed of these notices, they are there for a reason! Better to proceed with caution than to disregard the sign and end up knocking someone over.

Agreed. I always slow down to the suggested speed and then get someone driving up chuff. And no - I'm not sitting in lane three. I'll be in lane one. Better to slow down for nothing, rather than maintain speed. You just never know.

[Funkateer]

Cumbria Scamera Partnership used fatalities involving pedestrians on the M6 to help justify their deployment of Scamera vans on the M6, so any heads up is beneficial!

Having said that, I don't recall ever seeing pedestrians in the road when I've seen messages like that.