El Deano:
When I spotted them they were between an exit slip and a bridge, that narrowed it down to about a quarter of a mile stretch.When I checked the highways england website, being the nosey [zb] that I am, only two sets of signals were showing pedestrians in road.
that means that whoever called it in (& sometimes you do get several calls) either did so from a SOS phone, or the peds were found on CCTV, so signals could be amended to what’s required, not for miles & miles between junctions.