ROG:
I tend to agree - no information is better than incorrect information.
Slightly off the main thread, but in addition Rog’s comment, don’t we have the same problem with traffic info from the radio stations?
How many times do they say M…or A… closed northbound, your at the same point going the other way and nothing there Not even wreckage on the hard shoulder
It comes down to a lack of current up to date info which, with the communication system we have in the UK, should not happen so I can only put it down to the lack of will (or money) to make it so.
75% of the time the info they display on the road your traveling on is either duff, out of date.
The info they display about delays/ accidents ect on other roads is quite often irrelevant to you. I’ve seen M25 closed jct X on North bound carrigways of the M6 for instance. Or in other words they are telling you about a problem on a Mway over 100 miles away that you are heading away from.
My biggest gripe is the so called journey time & “useful” messages they display.
How long has the powers that be been banging on about saving energy & constantly hiking taxes ?
Imagine the power these things consume / cost of leccy / carbon emissions just to tell you M5 J8 is 10 mins away or “Dont Drink & Drive”.
Total useless info. What difference will it make to you knowing M5 J8 is 10 mins away ? & if you are a drink driver, then a message on a matrix sign wont stop you!!!
I’ve even seen portable ones plugged into their own generator telling me a road would be close for 24hours three days ago!
Some weeks ago I was travelling on the M62,and on to the southbound M6. From Rilsey all the way to coventry, every matrix sign was flashing telling me that there was a problem on the A14. Now, Ok, good for earlt information, but why did it need every sign to be displying this message. The Goverment goes on about being green, and conserving energy, so lead by example, and turn some of them off. You only really need the first one after every junction.
My other pet hate at the moment, concerns the traffic police, who seem to let every motorist with only one headlamp carry one driving. It seems there are more cars every day running around like this.
Sign setting is a very big,and frustrating,problem for us.
After a junction closure,one crew had to ask three times to remove the red X’s above the slip road.The closure cannot be removed until the Xs are,because its an offence to drive under them.The red Xs on the opposite slip road were removed before the crew were on scene to remove the closure.
Friday night,i asked for ‘LONG DELAYS J9-8’ to be displayed between J10-9,due to single lane running in the roadworks.I was told these signs were displaying ‘GRITTING IN PROGRESS’ so could not be removed
Got them altered eventually.
extrucker:
Friday night,i asked for ‘LONG DELAYS J9-8’ to be displayed between J10-9,due to single lane running in the roadworks.I was told these signs were displaying ‘GRITTING IN PROGRESS’ so could not be removed
Got them altered eventually.
Now there’s a good one Do we really need to be told that the gritters are out doing what they are supposed to be doing If they were small vehicles that you might blink and miss, then I would understand, but they are lit up like flashing beacons. Seems to be another waste of Matrix time, like the time to … messages, as mentioned before.
The Highway Man:
These long range signs are set by the NTCC (National Traffic Control Centre), we usually have nothing to do with setting them UNLESS there is a major incident in our area, we will ask our control centre to contact them and get vital information displayed on them. The Highways Agency runs the NTCC, but the signs are nothing to do with HATO’s we are are a just a small department of a large government agency
Perhaps somebody from the NTCC would like to come on Trucknet and explain why they can not operate these Matrix signs to good effect.
Only problem is you cant see the sign properly because of the FOG so you end up spending more time trying to look at what the sign is saying than consentrating on the road…then wonder
“oh i wondered what i was driving through, thanks for that”
Slighty OT but still relevant
Can the tc’s do you if they got out the wrong side of bed that morning when the signs flash “40” (when road is clear) and everyone still seems to be doing 70 and they drive past you??
DaiDap:
Yeah the M42 ones make my blood boil. Do they really think it takes 4 mile to slow down from 56 to 40? So you gotta sit there on an empty motorway at 2am trundling along cos you don’t know which signs have the camera, watching the odd chancer flying past and wondering why he doesn’t get flashed, and thinking what does he know that i don’t? Only to find that there’s just one wheelbarrow in the middle of half a mile of roadworks and no bloody work force! Grr. And to top it off there’s another sign which says ‘Distance to M40, 8 miles - 7 minutes’ Yeah right, not at this rate pal.
Here is a useful tip…
The gantrys.
Look at the gantry on the opposite side.If the gantry has cameras on it then the gantry you are about to go under has cameras as well.
If the opposite gantry has no cameras , then guess what !!
However cameras or not I refuse to go down to 20mph when 3 lanes are still available.We have had this discussion before.I emailed the highways asking for an explanation onto this ludicrous use of the variable limits and have yet to receive an answer.I,m not holding my breath.
the maoster:
I personally would like to see something like “recipe of the day” displayed on these signs.
Obviously it would need to be spread over three or four signs to give me chance to write it down accurately, after all I’d be travelling at 70 or 80 with my fuse out and watching my dvd, so I’d hate to miss a vital ingredient 'cos that’d be a disaster at my next dinner party.
the answer rog might be to let an organisation with at least 2 braincells to rub together administer them, rather than the HA
they have a 50 mph limit for a tyre fitter that fitted the tyre 3 hours ago - who updates them anyway?
Sometimes this happens if there’s a fault on the system and they can’t be cancelled. Biffo will be able to answer this better with him being a control room operator. We normally aim at getting the matrix cancelled within 3 minutes of our incident clearing.
when was the last time you saw fog when the sign said “slow fog patches” they never say “turn those stupid fog lights off” for those idiots who leave them on all day.
Sometimes this happens if there’s a fault on the system and they can’t be cancelled. Biffo will be able to answer this better with him being a control room operator. We normally aim at getting the matrix cancelled within 3 minutes of our incident clearing. :wink
Further to my earlier post about the M42.I left Stoke at 02.40 a couple of Saturdays ago on my Brighton run,as soon as I hit the M6 at J15 the matrix signs said,“M42 closed J5 to J1”.OK,that is an adequate warning.
No indication of N/B or S/B so I was not able to have the choice of going M6 M42,or M6,M5 and M42 to get on the M40.
With my destination being Brighton,if I can’t get to the M40,then the M1,M25 is only 5 miles further anyway.
After J11 there were no more warnings,so I continued on the M6,and by J 4A had seen no more warnings so I took the chance and took the M42 sliproad.
Result?,nothing at all on the M42,not even the usual speed limits for non existant road works!
The one matrix sign that IS a waste of time is the one that reads,"Bikers,save your speed for the track!"ha ha.What a laugh.have you ever seen any biker take notice?
What it should read is,“Go on bikers,the country needs more organ donors!”
I refuse to drop to 20 mph for the couple of hundred yards as well - I would cause more danger doing that than sticking to the 40 mph previously signposted. If it ever comes to it I would happily go to court to explain that one.
Not even wreckage on the hard shoulder
