M3 - the new road to hell?

[W12GT]

We went down to the New Forest today and had the pleasure of the M3 50mph specs monitored road works today. Well when I say road works I obviously don't mean actual works: the usual mix of cones and no cones wit some contraflow. In fact I believe circa 25 miles of it in each direction!

Damn nightmare and apparently 'works' ongoing until 2018 - which means we won't be going back to that area of the world for another 2.5yrs unless we really have to.

Can someone in the know explain why such long amounts have to be screwed up - I would mind if it were a rolling programme for one junction to the next but why so much disruption over such long distances?

[W12GT]

zarjaz1991 said:

It has nothing on the M1, which is now so awful I use the A1 instead.

All these huge, massive 50 zones that run for many years, I am half expecting some sort of announcement along the lines of "after monitoring road safety and air quality levels during the road works, we have noticed such a big improvement that the 50 limits will now become permanent"....don't laugh.

The sceptical part of me (which is a big part) is in absolute agreement with you. It's so dangerous - really difficult to maintain a high level of concentration at that speed on such big roads. I have found myself running the B road routes a lot more these days as it is more of a challenge and I don't feel the 'sleep mode' trying to kick in after the first 5seconds'.

I wonder how many families would be broken down (and businesses of course) due to people making the decision not to travel?