"Motorway Maintenance"

[dredge]

Why do vehicles have MOTORWAY MAINTENANCE written on them, anyway?

Surely either they are a) doing maintenance on the motorway, in which case it's entirely superfluous or b) not doing so, in which case it's irrelevant and, in fact, wrong. I suppose they might be on their way to do motorway maintenance, but is that really a useful piece of information for a following motorist to know?

[cuprabob]

To give the impression that they give a feck and will fill all those pot holes

[Eggman]

I suspect there is an entirely mundane explanation, for example to show they are authorised to be driving around in roadworks.

[Higgs boson]

It's a legal requirement.

[poing]

It's a secret government scheme to keep the huge British sign writing industry working.

[0a]

The best student summertime job I ever had was "casual highway inspector", we had to walk 20 miles a day inspecting roads around our county, got given a rented Citroen berlingo van and so on.

The best bit was a yellow beacon and a "motorway maintenance" sign.

In answer to the OP it means you can park where you like when you rock upto the pub as your council manager bunks off as early as you instead of checking you're working!

[anonymous-user]

Higgs boson said:

It's a legal requirement.

This. It is supposed to show that the vehicle/driver is trained and authorised to stop on the motorway, and to tell other motorists to expect the beacons etc to go off. Generally, "Motorway Maintenance" only applies to M- class roads, otherwise "Highway(s) Maintenance" is the correct sign. I'm surprised it hasn't been out phased by now but on roadworks sites, the (civilian) traffic officers still get stty if you haven't got one.

And the s use them to make it look like they're authorised to be on site when they're actually carrying out their own cute protected ethnic tinkering diesel-stealing, machine-stealing, scrap-robbing ways.

[vdp1]

I was told about 20 years ago that vehicles that just trundle up and down roadworks didn't need tax so they had motorway maitenance on them. I suppose a bit like a tractor.

This was the reason for all the pie and key type chaps having them on their tippers.

Don't know if it was ever true though.

[andym1603]

We have them on the backs of vans etc up here in the Highlands. Trouble is the nearest
motorway is over a hundred miles away.

[0a]

We were working for our local authority and were told to display them, despite the fact none of our routes were on a motorway (I believe they are maintained by the highways agency).