Safe Speed Forums

fatboytim wrote:

I have every sympathy for anybody who has to try to repair our overcrowded and overused roads.

I never worked on the roads but occasionally got involved in Bridge jobs that involved working on the railway. Their safety precautions were excellant and there was no problem with trains speeding past. So while the danger was more we felt safer because it was more regimented.

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Shooting is good for you and too good for some people.

As I mentioned in an earlier post escorts /convoys do work well but are pretty frustrating for drivers. This is my second choice for safety after closing the road completely
fatboytim

That's a misread of my intention and I apologise unreservedly for any part that I played in the misunderstanding.

I'm just trying to focus the debate on the important issues. I'd much rather we dealt with facts, analysis and science than feelings and emotions. And the bottom line is that you can't save lives with appeal to emotions.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

Is it my imagination or has a new pack of wolves formed prowling around to work out which part of FBT to attack?

L plate remember? "dangerous crap"? Sorry if I'm out of order here. Yes we want to find the right safety message, but for many reasons we've come to realise that the balance of driving is far more heavily weighted to psychology rather than physics. Fear is in both camps. when unfounded (as PS suggests) it is solely in the psychology domain. However, when founded it is in both.

Just my 2d.

As for why FBT's software is crashing... No idea, sorry. Never had that with phpbb before.

Edit: ooops - L plate's gone, FBT has hit 10

Now the system employed on rail might be a good example to be employed on road - Network rail run their safety courses and all working on either the equivalent of roadworks or closed must have a safety card, showing that they have passed a mimimum safety course [b] - no card - no work .Also this card has to be renewed every few years - to update on hazards etc .Any additional safety skills are retested and assessed yearly .

Mind you - trains don't swerve / change lane but on live line do travel at up to 125, and at 1 mile every 30 s how can you tell which line they're on

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

I hope not.

I think maybe I contributed to a misunderstanding with a 'sub optimal' choice of words which I regret and for which I have already apologised.



Yeah. Those words. You're not out of order.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

If he has to keep on rebooting, sounds like a virus to me.

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Useless laws weaken necessary laws.

I realise that on this site I am 'preaching to the converted'
But out there I have to deal with actions of the inconsiderate, the 40 thru the nsl and thru the village type, mobile phone one hand drivers, high speeders up to the taper and cut in type, apart from the downright criminal ( no tax, ins, mot or licence) as do you all. Do YOU trust their ability or psychology.
Cameras obviously don't work in this situation or 400 wouldn't have been scammed.
Driver education and proper pull over wag the finger policing,

fatboytim

Now if fines were spent exclusivly on education and information (maybe like the signs PS talks about in the roadworker thread).. sorry just thinking...please dont respond to this last comment as I don't have a reasoned arguement to support it, and as a new member, I think I've upset enough existing members for now(not my intention).

SORRY ALL I honestly didn't mean to hijack this thread.

No, really, don't be sorry. Your contributions are more (much more) than welcome.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

Have a great deal of sympathy with fatboytim, but am stumped as to a solution.

We have the CSCS card (general safety) in the construction industry and many contractors are running no card no job, so we have trained competant persons on site (most of the time) but on the fragile site boundary we joe public....

In H&S we use ERICPD as a heirachy of controls

E - Elimination of the risk entirely, we can't eliminate road maintenance or repair.

R - Reduce exposure - Normally a control measure for chemicals, not really relevant as how do you reduce exposure for a roadworker, use twice as many working for half the time ?

I - Isolation from danger(ous substance) - Lots of long term road works use double cones, am surprised that concrete barriers are not used as much as they could be, used a great deal in the states and NZ to great effect, FBT what are the downfalls of using these ? Cost? Any effect on road that needs to be remiediated etc ? Or just tradition (have heard many time we've always done it this way) ?

C - Control measures - Safe systems of works, method statements, permits to work etc, good but again placeing it squarely on contractors head, what about drivers, it's almost like a chemical worker, processing a volatile chemical, whilst a member of the public wanders past smoking, the worker might be doing all the right things but who can rely on joe public not to do something monumentally dum ? The one thing that I suppose could fall into this is the convey vehicles.

P - PPE - Personal Protective Equipment, if anyone does a hard hat that will protect me from a 44ft truck, please let me know !

D - Discipline, this is where cameras and trafpol come in, at one time (long before my time) HA used to let trafpol know works are going on and there used to be a presence, now conspicuous by thier absence. They were an effective deterrent and could act immediately. Cameras delayed response, positioned poorly, near Chelmsford the A12 is being worked on cameras through the works, but two at the end of the works past the cones before NSL signs, seem to be placed to catch drivers getting back up to speed.

To me it seems that we should have more trafpol out at works may not seem sexy or cutting edge but if people knew that a copper was on hand would they be more carefull at road works (and I don't just mean more slowly).

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Gordon Brown saying I got the country into it's current economic mess so I'll get us out of it is the same as Bomber Harris nipping over to Dresden and offering to repair a few windows.

Chaos, panic and disorder - my work here is done.

http://www.wildcrafts.co.uk

Recent works on the A590 were well signed, well publicised, and suspended at peak times - This worked to the benefit of drivers and workers alike.
Admittedly the work (replacing catseyes in a set of narrow tight bends) allowed for stop/start at short notice, but at least it showed the regime to be desirable, AND effective.

The French model is to get the job done as quickly as possible. To this end, a stretch of road will be worked on over a long distance, with multiple start points, and large numbers of men, materials and vehicles, and work is completed very quickly.
On single carriageway roads, it will often be shut for three to five days (depending on the work being done) and the job finished in good time using the above technique)

Are these barriers of any use? They are used widely in France rather than just cones.


Their advanced warnings are extensive too, and always seem in better order than ones you see here. These preceded a closure of lane 2 for crash barrier repairs.

The biggest difference is that drivers take heed of the warnings, and pull over in good time, and slow appropriately. I dont recall seeing a temporary limit, although they may be implied in similar manner to town/village name signs colour coded, indicating the speed limit.


I dont recall anyone saying you dont do any work, only that in some roadworks, you go home at night, and some PRAT leaves a GATSO or SPECS camera running!!

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Time to take responsibility for our actions.. and don't be afraid of speaking out!

At the bottom of the driver quality scale here are a lot of risky behaviours, but we're really talking about the worst 5% or 10% at most. This group have all sorts of bad behaviour; drunk, reckless, careless, sleepy, inattentive and so on. The only option, if we want to deal with them is effective roads policing.

But the other 90%+, most of us, need good information and encouragement. We'd respond to carrots better than sticks. we don't want to crash and we'll use experience to make a fair fist of not crashing most of the time.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

Good thread.
Excellent comments.
FatBoyTim, welcome, I like your attitude and appreciate your evident mature professionalty.

I'm no expert on the regulations or behind-the-scenes procedures and work practices, but I would like to add some constructive suggestions (Paul was, I believe, encouraging some dialogue on workable improvements).
Earnest contributed a very good post about barriers and warnings in France, good stuff, I think that this is a good avenue to explore. Someone else (sorry, forgot who ) referred to the French arranging things to get the job done "quick-in, quick-out", also a sensible approach IMO.

While I think that the Dutch are often very slow in executing their major motorway work, I do also regularly see "quick-in, quick-out" work taking place here late at night, and these jobs (e.g. crash barrier stuff and some resurfacing I have noticed) are definitely planned to cause minimal impact to the normal road users - i.e. all lanes are usually open again before the next day's rush hour starts. Not very nice to come across a traffic jam on the motorway at 01:00 in the morning when driving back from visiting friends admittedly, but this is of course far better than closing off the lanes during daytime.

I believe someone thought that road workers were doing one of the most risky jobs available. I've been googling for real data on this and so far have found this:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/2195847.stm

Most dangerous jobs

1. Fishermen
2. Merchant seafarers
3. Aircraft flight deck officers
4. Railway lengthmen
5. Scaffolders
6. Roofers and glaziers
7. Forestry workers
8. Quarry and other mine workers
9. Dockers and stevedores
10. Lorry drivers

If anyone has better data (more recent or more detail) please post it up.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

http://www.hse.gov.uk/research/rrpdf/rr139.pdf is interesting background information.

With no population or risk values it's of limited value in the context of this thread.

It does tell us that 11 road workers died out of ~1,000 reports, but without having some idea of how many roadworkers were employed relative to other groups we can make no judgement about relative safety.

And it does not distinguish between road workers killed by traffic and those killed in the normal course of their work. My guess is that most of the deaths were due to their usual work.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

Rereading it I would agree.

I think what is most obvious to me is not the way that the French put up barriers, and get things done quickly, but the attitude of the people as a whole.
Drivers simply seem to show more respect towards road workers, and the work being carried out.
It's as if they can see the rewards at the end of the day!
Those pictures I put up were taken in December 2003. Work on the service area and slip road which was the reason for the barriers were not evident in August of the same year - including the footbridge!

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Time to take responsibility for our actions.. and don't be afraid of speaking out!

Given that we do everything on the roads to a shoestring budget, and we are in some places 12 years behind on 'routine maintenance I doubt if the same could be said here.'

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Gordon Brown saying I got the country into it's current economic mess so I'll get us out of it is the same as Bomber Harris nipping over to Dresden and offering to repair a few windows.

Chaos, panic and disorder - my work here is done.

http://www.wildcrafts.co.uk

Even that is a 'cultural influence'. The low priority given to roads maintenence and roads development is due to beliefs that 'cars are bad'.

So it's just one way that the wrong culture damages road safety.

I don't think 'cars are bad', but obviously it's a matter of opinion. However, irrespective of what anyone thinks about cars we still have to live with them for the forseable future and we should make appropriate efforts to live with them as safely as reasonably possible.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety