I don’t have a dash cam, so I’ll have to paint a picture with words of what I’ve just witnessed.
M57 north. Light traffic. Good visibility. Roadworks 800 yards ahead; 3 lanes down to 1. Gritter with 5 or 6 cars behind it in front of me. Everybody in the inside lane… apart from a Mondeo in the middle lane matching everybody else’s speed.
Cones with flashing lights on come into view. Mondeo continues in the middle lane. Plenty of room for him/her to slip into the inside lane amongst the other cars. He/she doesn’t.
Cones with flashing lights on begin to cut across the outside lane. Mondeo carries on in the middle lane and is now level with the gritter. Cones with flashing lights on begin to cut across the middle lane. Mondeo carries on next to gritter.
Car behind gritter leaves space for mondeo to merge into inside lane behind gritter and gives a flash. Mondeo carries on oblivious. Mondeo now ploughing through the roadworks. Cones and flashing lights flying everywhere. Mondeo carries on.
Gritter swerves onto the hard shoulder to allow Mondeo into the inside lane. Mondeo begins to realise what is happening. He/she slams on the anchors and skids to a stop half in the inside lane and half in the middle lane. The tyre smoke and flying cones settle. Everybody now stationary. Mondeo speeds off.
Sorry I haven’t got a dash cam. That’s the best I can do.
My question is this: Why are people so [zb]ing stupid?
My best tale was on the M1 in the pouring rain. Similar to the OP there was loads of warning and all the traffic, still jogging along quite well, merging down to one lane.
Sure enough a [zb] in a Jag come hoolying down the outside, only to run out of road and plough into a solid wall of cones - they flew everywhere and we all stopped. I saw a blue flashing light come up behind the Jag and the cop and a suit had a short conversation in the rain. The next thing was that the suit was helping the cop collect the cones and put them back.
Not sure if BillyBigRigg was on the A12 job at Colchester at the time,(Rory had all the tippers on it Billy) when we was digging up the concrete, but we was there for weeks and as the low loader driver (after doing a day shift) we used to turn up drop the machine off at the start of the job, drive to the end of the road works , drop the ramps and get our heads down for our daily rest while the machine worked, the machine operators when finished would drive the machine onto the traiker and go home/digs/van while the tarmac lads laid the new road, all the while we would be blissfully asleep- plan is get up after time off raise ramps , chain machine down and toodle off to the day job, , ready to bring it back next night and do the same- great job as got paid for two shifts even though sleeping for one.
The planers digging up the concrete used to finish about 2 am so was a bit surprised in bed one night to feel them loading it at 11pm- as wasn’t in bed looked out the window to see a motorhome parked on my trailer, not quite what I was expecting- What was even more surprising is they had managed to drive into the roadworks, drive around the road planer (not exactly a small machine) past all the tippers taking away the spoil past the road sweeper, and all the lined up ready to work tarmac gang, and somehow still managed to drive up the ramps of the semi low loader and stop - the only thing surprises me is that they stopped on top of the trailer , because their level of observation of where they were cannot be described in anyway as good
About 2000ish in the wee small hours I did watch 2 paniced Willi Betz do a similar thing though when a transit tipper slapped his flashers on and pulled into the roadworks by Corley
Just kicked off one Sunday night on the M6 s/b from Stoke.
South of J13 road works indicated 1mile warning ,then the 800 metres warning that it’s down to lane 3 only.
Before the 800 warning I’d checked my rear and saw a car passing another truck about half a mile behind.
At the 600 metrre warning I start to move over,indicating of course.
At 200 metres the car is trying to overtake me,I’m committed so I keep coming over.
The car is halfway past me with his o/s wheels running on the central reservation and I/m halfway across lane 3 when he decides to give up.
Not content,he swerves across behind me and guns it down my inside and gets between me and the cones with inches to spare.
Next move? You’ve guessed,puts his ■■■■■■■ anchors on!
What is it with these people,if they have a death wish,FFS do it somewhere else,don’t involve me!
I’ve seen similar to the 1st two posts and have come to the conclusion that people are so unaware of what’s going on around them that they actually just sort of switch off. They’re on ‘cruise control’ in their mind. Nice motorway, even speed etc etc and the brain just goes…“and relax”
The best 800 yard marker is on the M1 southbound slip road for the M62 westbound. There is the 4 markers for 800,600, 400 and 200 yards that the outside lane of 2 is closed yet the cones are not as prominent as they are at other lane closures. That coupled with the right hand bend and the off slip for the m62 east seems to have car and van drivers screwed. The don’t think that the 800 yard markers mean anything and then boom, the lane is closing !
We often get the opposite here. You’ll be on a 100Km/h stretch when you see a roadworks sign, speed 80, 60, 40… absolutely stuff all happening, then back 100. Or a sign that tells you that the right lane (as they call them left and right here) is closed. You get yourself into the nearside lane and bang, it’s closed. Then they wonder why so many people take no ■■■■■■■ notice.
I call these people cone surfers. And it happens every hour of every day at every stretch of roadworks on motorways.
People see cones as a hindrance to their journey rather than what they really are, protection for vulnerable road workers. And as you say, some just don’t see them at all. God knows what they’re doing or seeing out their window.
BEST RESULT, its a few years ago now, but I was entering single lane roadworks on the m6 near wigan at night time, usual stuff, 800yds, 600 yds, and so on… so I’m sitting a reasonable distance behind two other artics in lane one,at 200 yds I had a car beside me who just had to be in front for some reason, in doing so he forced me to brake quite hard to miss him, and when i gave him the lights and horn he started showing me how big a pr**k he really was by braking then speeding up, then giving me the fingers… this continued for the rest of the mile of roadworks… I’m thinking to myself " there’s never a police car around when you want one"… So, we get out of the roadworks and he guns it, and the car behind me then also guns it right up behind the idiot , and also puts on all his disco lights, blue ones…straight on the hard shoulder matey, The copper in the unmarked car gave me a little wave as i went past, so i gave him a toot and a wave back…
i have seen numerous cars make new entrances to the roadworks sections on motorways in the UK and also in France
with that in mind, i can whole heartedly confirm, that the cones in France fly better than they do in the UK when hit by a car at speeds well above 60MPh
shuttlespanker:
i have seen numerous cars make new entrances to the roadworks sections on motorways in the UK and also in France
with that in mind, i can whole heartedly confirm, that the cones in France fly better than they do in the UK when hit by a car at speeds well above 60MPh
I concur. French cones fly well into the [zb] who won’t dip his main beam if you flick them just right with the back of the trailer.
I see this all the time when you come off the M4 at Chippenham when the double track goes to single, they do not read the sign and keep going.
The same thing on the A303 near Stonehenge, they all expect you to let them in, when you do not, i get the horn and finger.
I’ve seen most of it. The best was car tanking it down lane 3 didn’t make it to lane 1 in time hit the cones then the big keep left arrow followed by cones followed by 2nd keep left arrow followed by PC plod both cars written off but glad to say no-one badly hurt just a few scratches etc
M1 northbound, about 11pm and traffic medium to light.
3 cranes, 3 cherrypickers, 2 site support trucks and 1 crash truck leave services and join motorway, spread out to leave about 60ft between each vehicle and we’re doing about 40mph, regular headlights on etc
Approach roadworks. Crash truck in front pulls to hard shoulder, lights up everything and we enter roadworks.
One after another switch on roof beacons and strobes. Cranes switch on their side white working lights and the cherrypickers switch on their leg lights. Slow to 20mph and we turn into roadworks that now take up the H/S, lanes one and two.
Having done this all week we stop just inside the roadworks and the safety car pulls off the hard shoulder ahead, still lit up and into L2 whilst the person at the back leaves his vehicle to speak to the numerous drivers that have followed him into the roadworks to get them follow the safety car to leave the roadworks. Their excuse is they didn’t see the flashing lights and were following the car in front.
It might look like a lot of light but the camera’s had about 30 seconds on exposure time there. At night with all the lights it is pretty hard to see that guy under the bridge with all the flashing lights… Oh, and he was the site safety inspector too
