Had it with poorly managed variable motorway limits
Discussion
I have had it with poorly managed variable speed limit signs on motorways.
Yesterday I was on the M1 southbound, Luton to the M25. I passed about 6 overhead gantries showing a 50 limit, with signage saying "Incident Ahead". Fair enough, down to 50 I go, no bother. Then, without having passed any incident, a gantry shows National Limit signs across it. Brilliant, off we go back up to 70. Then, bang. Next gantry is 50s again, just as everyone is getting up to 70 we're all on the brakes immediately, on a very busy road stuffed with HGVs and the like, at 2.30 in the afternoon on a working day. Sure enough, there was then a traffic queue, in which we sat, stationary, for about 10 minutes, police cars tearing up the hard shoulder throwing dust and stones everywhere. So yeah, some kind of incident, fair enough, it happens.
But why was there one gantry showing National Limit, amongst all gantries displaying 50, giving the impression that the incident is over and normality is returning? I can't think of a single good reason. What am I missing?
I'm finding this sort of irrational signage happening quite frequently on and around the M25 and the various managed motorways feeding it these days. And other oddities like all signs across a gantry showing a reduced limit, except over one lane where there's a National Limit sign showing. Is it human error, or glitches/bugs in software? Either way, it's pretty unacceptable.
Frankly, it's dangerous, especially on such busy, fast, congested roads as are the M25 and surrounding motorways.
If anyone from the agencies who manage these signs is on here, sort it out, please. Please, don't tell me it doesn't/can't happen, I observe irrational signage of this nature pretty much every time I'm on the M25/M4/M1 approaching London.
Yesterday I was on the M1 southbound, Luton to the M25. I passed about 6 overhead gantries showing a 50 limit, with signage saying "Incident Ahead". Fair enough, down to 50 I go, no bother. Then, without having passed any incident, a gantry shows National Limit signs across it. Brilliant, off we go back up to 70. Then, bang. Next gantry is 50s again, just as everyone is getting up to 70 we're all on the brakes immediately, on a very busy road stuffed with HGVs and the like, at 2.30 in the afternoon on a working day. Sure enough, there was then a traffic queue, in which we sat, stationary, for about 10 minutes, police cars tearing up the hard shoulder throwing dust and stones everywhere. So yeah, some kind of incident, fair enough, it happens.
But why was there one gantry showing National Limit, amongst all gantries displaying 50, giving the impression that the incident is over and normality is returning? I can't think of a single good reason. What am I missing?
I'm finding this sort of irrational signage happening quite frequently on and around the M25 and the various managed motorways feeding it these days. And other oddities like all signs across a gantry showing a reduced limit, except over one lane where there's a National Limit sign showing. Is it human error, or glitches/bugs in software? Either way, it's pretty unacceptable.
Frankly, it's dangerous, especially on such busy, fast, congested roads as are the M25 and surrounding motorways.
If anyone from the agencies who manage these signs is on here, sort it out, please. Please, don't tell me it doesn't/can't happen, I observe irrational signage of this nature pretty much every time I'm on the M25/M4/M1 approaching London.
Edited by Skodillac on Thursday 10th April 10:54
BossHogg works Highways as a Traffic Officer and says they cannot see all incidents on cameras, so they have to err on the side of caution and you get signs warning you from 1 million miles away.
Sometimes I drive from Kent to Manchester with 20 Report of Obstruction signs and 50mph speed limits, which turn out to be someone on the hard shoulder. I could understand if they were on a smart motorway.
Sometimes I drive from Kent to Manchester with 20 Report of Obstruction signs and 50mph speed limits, which turn out to be someone on the hard shoulder. I could understand if they were on a smart motorway.
I feel your pain, and agree with what you have said.
What particularly annoys me, is the absolute mess of variable limits mixed in with long stretches of 50 limits in the roadworks, on the M6 around Birmingham. Even as someone who tends to keep their eyes peeled on the motorway, I have often struggled to tell which section I am in, or which bit has just ended, and so on. Awful.
What particularly annoys me, is the absolute mess of variable limits mixed in with long stretches of 50 limits in the roadworks, on the M6 around Birmingham. Even as someone who tends to keep their eyes peeled on the motorway, I have often struggled to tell which section I am in, or which bit has just ended, and so on. Awful.
Another favourite is 50 gantry, 50 gantry, 50 gantry, blank gantry. Oh. What does this blank gantry mean? 50 still, or National Limit is back? Hmm, don't know. Then a 50 gantry again. Oh. Then National Limit, and no sign of anything which would have necessitated a lower limit.
So what does the blank gantry mean in that scenario?
So what does the blank gantry mean in that scenario?
I once emailed National Highways, querying a set of 60mph limits on the M6 for no apparent reason. They told me it was a "system test" thing and that the test had now concluded, so they reverted the section to national speed limit. I was in a car as a passenger, with a chase car driver, in my trade plate driving days, at the time. He knew about the email I'd sent but not the response, only seeing that the speed limits were removed shortly after I'd sent the email.
Chinese whispers happened and my name became semi-legendary in the trade plate drivers group we were in. Let's say, some of them aren't the brightest sparks. It got to the stage that someone thought I had an app on my phone which could alter the speed limits.
Chinese whispers happened and my name became semi-legendary in the trade plate drivers group we were in. Let's say, some of them aren't the brightest sparks. It got to the stage that someone thought I had an app on my phone which could alter the speed limits.
Skodillac said:
Another favourite is 50 gantry, 50 gantry, 50 gantry, blank gantry. Oh. What does this blank gantry mean? 50 still, or National Limit is back? Hmm, don't know. Then a 50 gantry again. Oh. Then National Limit, and no sign of anything which would have necessitated a lower limit.
So what does the blank gantry mean in that scenario?
Blank would mean stay as you were , unless the signage shows a different speed you would be unwise to assume it means national speed limit .So what does the blank gantry mean in that scenario?
Skodillac said:
I have had it with poorly managed variable speed limit signs on motorways.
Yesterday I was on the M1 southbound, Luton to the M25. I passed about 6 overhead gantries showing a 50 limit, with signage saying "Incident Ahead". Fair enough, down to 50 I go, no bother. Then, without having passed any incident, a gantry shows National Limit signs across it. Brilliant, off we go back up to 70. Then, bang. Next gantry is 50s again, just as everyone is getting up to 70 we're all on the brakes immediately, on a very busy road stuffed with HGVs and the like, at 2.30 in the afternoon on a working day. Sure enough, there was then a traffic queue, in which we sat, stationary, for about 10 minutes, police cars tearing up the hard shoulder throwing dust and stones everywhere. So yeah, some kind of incident, fair enough, it happens.
But why was there one gantry showing National Limit, amongst all gantries displaying 50, giving the impression that the incident is over and normality is returning? I can't think of a single good reason. What am I missing?
I'm finding this sort of irrational signage happening quite frequently on and around the M25 and the various managed motorways feeding it these days. And other oddities like all signs across a gantry showing a reduced limit, except over one lane where there's a National Limit sign showing. Is it human error, or glitches/bugs in software? Either way, it's pretty unacceptable.
Frankly, it's dangerous, especially on such busy, fast, congested roads as are the M25 and surrounding motorways.
If anyone from the agencies who manage these signs is on here, sort it out, please. Please, don't tell me it doesn't/can't happen, I observe irrational signage of this nature pretty much every time I'm on the M25/M4/M1 approaching London.
I live near that stretch of the m1, that up and down speed limit past luton does my head in ! My neighbour told me just a few days ago that she had been told the reduction in speed past luton was a ploy to reduce pollution in the valley , if its true i don’t know .Yesterday I was on the M1 southbound, Luton to the M25. I passed about 6 overhead gantries showing a 50 limit, with signage saying "Incident Ahead". Fair enough, down to 50 I go, no bother. Then, without having passed any incident, a gantry shows National Limit signs across it. Brilliant, off we go back up to 70. Then, bang. Next gantry is 50s again, just as everyone is getting up to 70 we're all on the brakes immediately, on a very busy road stuffed with HGVs and the like, at 2.30 in the afternoon on a working day. Sure enough, there was then a traffic queue, in which we sat, stationary, for about 10 minutes, police cars tearing up the hard shoulder throwing dust and stones everywhere. So yeah, some kind of incident, fair enough, it happens.
But why was there one gantry showing National Limit, amongst all gantries displaying 50, giving the impression that the incident is over and normality is returning? I can't think of a single good reason. What am I missing?
I'm finding this sort of irrational signage happening quite frequently on and around the M25 and the various managed motorways feeding it these days. And other oddities like all signs across a gantry showing a reduced limit, except over one lane where there's a National Limit sign showing. Is it human error, or glitches/bugs in software? Either way, it's pretty unacceptable.
Frankly, it's dangerous, especially on such busy, fast, congested roads as are the M25 and surrounding motorways.
If anyone from the agencies who manage these signs is on here, sort it out, please. Please, don't tell me it doesn't/can't happen, I observe irrational signage of this nature pretty much every time I'm on the M25/M4/M1 approaching London.
Edited by Skodillac on Thursday 10th April 10:54
I don't mind the changing limits so much but I do mind the broken physical blue signs, indicating that the hard shoulder is closed, when just beyond those (broken) signs you can clearly see the lane is open with a speed limit being displayed above it.
This causes numerous numpties to change lanes unnecessarily. Some have a yellow 'sign not in use' sign on them and some don't, but people ignore the not in use signs anyway. There are a few around the Luton stretch like this. Also annoying, when it's crawling stop/start, and 'they' haven't opened a perfectly clear hard shoulder (and nothing stopped in the refuge areas) to take some of this traffic. That's not great for air quality.
This causes numerous numpties to change lanes unnecessarily. Some have a yellow 'sign not in use' sign on them and some don't, but people ignore the not in use signs anyway. There are a few around the Luton stretch like this. Also annoying, when it's crawling stop/start, and 'they' haven't opened a perfectly clear hard shoulder (and nothing stopped in the refuge areas) to take some of this traffic. That's not great for air quality.
Skodillac said:
I have had it with poorly managed variable speed limit signs on motorways.
Yesterday I was on the M1 southbound, Luton to the M25. I passed about 6 overhead gantries showing a 50 limit, with signage saying "Incident Ahead". Fair enough, down to 50 I go, no bother. Then, without having passed any incident, a gantry shows National Limit signs across it. Brilliant, off we go back up to 70. Then, bang. Next gantry is 50s again, just as everyone is getting up to 70 we're all on the brakes immediately, on a very busy road stuffed with HGVs and the like, at 2.30 in the afternoon on a working day. Sure enough, there was then a traffic queue, in which we sat, stationary, for about 10 minutes, police cars tearing up the hard shoulder throwing dust and stones everywhere. So yeah, some kind of incident, fair enough, it happens.
But why was there one gantry showing National Limit, amongst all gantries displaying 50, giving the impression that the incident is over and normality is returning? I can't think of a single good reason. What am I missing?
I'm finding this sort of irrational signage happening quite frequently on and around the M25 and the various managed motorways feeding it these days. And other oddities like all signs across a gantry showing a reduced limit, except over one lane where there's a National Limit sign showing. Is it human error, or glitches/bugs in software? Either way, it's pretty unacceptable.
Frankly, it's dangerous, especially on such busy, fast, congested roads as are the M25 and surrounding motorways.
If anyone from the agencies who manage these signs is on here, sort it out, please. Please, don't tell me it doesn't/can't happen, I observe irrational signage of this nature pretty much every time I'm on the M25/M4/M1 approaching London.
Could be a couple of things. Yesterday I was on the M1 southbound, Luton to the M25. I passed about 6 overhead gantries showing a 50 limit, with signage saying "Incident Ahead". Fair enough, down to 50 I go, no bother. Then, without having passed any incident, a gantry shows National Limit signs across it. Brilliant, off we go back up to 70. Then, bang. Next gantry is 50s again, just as everyone is getting up to 70 we're all on the brakes immediately, on a very busy road stuffed with HGVs and the like, at 2.30 in the afternoon on a working day. Sure enough, there was then a traffic queue, in which we sat, stationary, for about 10 minutes, police cars tearing up the hard shoulder throwing dust and stones everywhere. So yeah, some kind of incident, fair enough, it happens.
But why was there one gantry showing National Limit, amongst all gantries displaying 50, giving the impression that the incident is over and normality is returning? I can't think of a single good reason. What am I missing?
I'm finding this sort of irrational signage happening quite frequently on and around the M25 and the various managed motorways feeding it these days. And other oddities like all signs across a gantry showing a reduced limit, except over one lane where there's a National Limit sign showing. Is it human error, or glitches/bugs in software? Either way, it's pretty unacceptable.
Frankly, it's dangerous, especially on such busy, fast, congested roads as are the M25 and surrounding motorways.
If anyone from the agencies who manage these signs is on here, sort it out, please. Please, don't tell me it doesn't/can't happen, I observe irrational signage of this nature pretty much every time I'm on the M25/M4/M1 approaching London.
Edited by Skodillac on Thursday 10th April 10:54
The first signs you might have seen could have been a generic catch all blanket set as an incident was reported in that stretch but not confirmed yet, but you'd usually expect 60's in that case. (unless traffic speed volume gets the computer to automatically reduce it to 50 to try and keep traffic moving)
As you continued up the signs may have been adjusted to be more accurate to the location, leading to the NSL you saw before getting closer to the actual job where you'd see the incident signs again
May have been a fault, or someone cocked up the manual setting, honestly it's difficult to actually give the 'answer' without knowing the details of the job, and it's not my patch to look at it properly.
You can of course email Highways and ask for a response, might not be fast but you should get a better answer than us guessing.
Altitude said:
Could be a couple of things.
The first signs you might have seen could have been a generic catch all blanket set as an incident was reported in that stretch but not confirmed yet, but you'd usually expect 60's in that case. (unless traffic speed volume gets the computer to automatically reduce it to 50 to try and keep traffic moving)
As you continued up the signs may have been adjusted to be more accurate to the location, leading to the NSL you saw before getting closer to the actual job where you'd see the incident signs again
May have been a fault, or someone cocked up the manual setting, honestly it's difficult to actually give the 'answer' without knowing the details of the job, and it's not my patch to look at it properly.
You can of course email Highways and ask for a response, might not be fast but you should get a better answer than us guessing.
Or, as Stafford admitted, they just set it at 50 and left it there because 'emissions'The first signs you might have seen could have been a generic catch all blanket set as an incident was reported in that stretch but not confirmed yet, but you'd usually expect 60's in that case. (unless traffic speed volume gets the computer to automatically reduce it to 50 to try and keep traffic moving)
As you continued up the signs may have been adjusted to be more accurate to the location, leading to the NSL you saw before getting closer to the actual job where you'd see the incident signs again
May have been a fault, or someone cocked up the manual setting, honestly it's difficult to actually give the 'answer' without knowing the details of the job, and it's not my patch to look at it properly.
You can of course email Highways and ask for a response, might not be fast but you should get a better answer than us guessing.
Gary C said:
Or, as Stafford admitted, they just set it at 50 and left it there because 'emissions'
IIRC that would have been 60's with signs stating speed limit for air quality or something similar. And I think only certain times of the day, not had them on my area so memory is a bit fuzzy. Again, emailing them directly for an answer would clear that up
[quote=SkodillacNext gantry is 50s again, just as everyone is getting up to 70 we're all on the brakes immediately,
[/quote]
What, you really needed to get "on the brakes immediately" for a sign probably 1/4 to 1/2 mile ahead?
Perhaps refer to my previous answer with a slight edit.
Just stay off motorways.
[/quote]
What, you really needed to get "on the brakes immediately" for a sign probably 1/4 to 1/2 mile ahead?
Perhaps refer to my previous answer with a slight edit.
Just stay off motorways.
Ah, here come the smart-arse, 'you're doing it wrong' answers.
I'm perfectly capable of managing these situations thanks very much, my contention is that they are unnecessary and that there is poor management of signage. That's the topic under discussion. Sadly a lot of other drivers aren't as attentive and their behaviours are outside of my control, so I'd like better management of these situations by the authorities, as I can clearly see that greater risks than are necessary are being caused, especially on roads like the M1 Luton-M25 section, which is very congested and has a high level of poor driving behaviours like tailgating, close passing, lack of indication and cutting in, and also a high HGV count - vehicles with notoriously poor side and rearwards visibility.
When you've been through several 50 signs, followed by an NSL gantry, it's not unreasonable to think that the situation requiring the 50 has ended, but to then be faced with another 50 immediately after is causing that infamous "Mexican wave" effect, which is both dangerous and detrimental to good traffic flow.
I want the authorities and those managing these variable limits to work with us drivers, not seemingly against us. It's surely not too much to ask.
I'm perfectly capable of managing these situations thanks very much, my contention is that they are unnecessary and that there is poor management of signage. That's the topic under discussion. Sadly a lot of other drivers aren't as attentive and their behaviours are outside of my control, so I'd like better management of these situations by the authorities, as I can clearly see that greater risks than are necessary are being caused, especially on roads like the M1 Luton-M25 section, which is very congested and has a high level of poor driving behaviours like tailgating, close passing, lack of indication and cutting in, and also a high HGV count - vehicles with notoriously poor side and rearwards visibility.
When you've been through several 50 signs, followed by an NSL gantry, it's not unreasonable to think that the situation requiring the 50 has ended, but to then be faced with another 50 immediately after is causing that infamous "Mexican wave" effect, which is both dangerous and detrimental to good traffic flow.
I want the authorities and those managing these variable limits to work with us drivers, not seemingly against us. It's surely not too much to ask.
bimsb6 said:
Skodillac said:
Another favourite is 50 gantry, 50 gantry, 50 gantry, blank gantry. Oh. What does this blank gantry mean? 50 still, or National Limit is back? Hmm, don't know. Then a 50 gantry again. Oh. Then National Limit, and no sign of anything which would have necessitated a lower limit.
So what does the blank gantry mean in that scenario?
Blank would mean stay as you were , unless the signage shows a different speed you would be unwise to assume it means national speed limit .So what does the blank gantry mean in that scenario?
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