This video is quite alarming. Where was the driver looking?? itv.com/news/tyne-tees/2013- … d-workers/
interesting to see they are allowing them to use red lights , sadly working on the road is a dangerous profession
I’m not making excuses for the driver who ran into the back of the vehicle obviously that shouldn’t happen, but it has to be said that it’s hard to see as you go past some of them motorway maintenance vehicles, I don’t see the point of adding more lights if the ones already there are blinding people.
I’ve seen this from both sides. I used to deliver blacktop, and sitting inside those cones while the live traffic flies past is sometimes very frightening, especially when 4 or 5 cones go flying past your ear because someone can’t steer a straight course 
On the other hand I was night trunking down to Bristol last week in the snow and a car transporter had looped onto the verge on the M5 Southbound and there were all sorts of flashing lights there - Police, Hato’s, cone lorries, you name it.I couldn’t see where the live lane was - it turned out there was a snowplough/gritter waiting in the live lane to lead us through - so I did the obvious thing and slowed right down to less thab 15mph and a couple of the vehicles following were hooting and flashing for me to speed up. So as Tachograph says, sometimes there are just too many lights and it’s counterproductive. On the other hand how do you deal with people who just insist on going too fast in bad conditions with an obvious hazard in front.
not a job i’d fancy. seen it to many times of a night, when the workers are setting the roadworks up, plenty of numpties ignore all the warning signs of closed lanes, workforce in road etc.
m1 this week, they were just putting the cones out to close the outside lane. all the relevant signs were in place, leading upto the closure. first sign at a mile, then the 800yd, 600yd, etc, and yet still this car stayed glued in the outside lane.
it was so clear for anyone to see at this point that the works truck was in lane 3, as the lads were setting the cones in place to start the closure.
luckily the lad doing the cones, spotted the car, and was waving his arms like mad, think the car missed him by inches 
i watched all this from the truck at 55 m.p.h, i’d clocked the car in my mirrors, and could see where it was going straight away.
but i bet its a hell of alot more scary if your the bloke standing in the motorway with the cones, and some div in a car is bearing down on you at 70 m.p.h oblivious to the fact your there, despite ALL the prior warnings.
Seagoon:
I’ve seen this from both sides. I used to deliver blacktop, and sitting inside those cones while the live traffic flies past is sometimes very frightening, especially when 4 or 5 cones go flying past your ear because someone can’t steer a straight course
On the other hand I was night trunking down to Bristol last week in the snow and a car transporter had looped onto the verge on the M5 Southbound and there were all sorts of flashing lights there - Police, Hato’s, cone lorries, you name it.I couldn’t see where the live lane was - it turned out there was a snowplough/gritter waiting in the live lane to lead us through - so I did the obvious thing and slowed right down to less thab 15mph and a couple of the vehicles following were hooting and flashing for me to speed up. So as Tachograph says, sometimes there are just too many lights and it’s counterproductive. On the other hand how do you deal with people who just insist on going too fast in bad conditions with an obvious hazard in front.
make the impatient ■■■■■■■■ wait,better than a smashed up front end,sometimes you can be totally blinded in the dark and wet
It’s all very well and clever but at the end of the day you can have as many flashing beacons and lights as you want, if someone isn’t looking at the road ahead then they arnt looking at the road ahead, simple.
What more can you do■■?
Dont they get payed danger money■■? If so they earnt it that night!!!
Wouldent do the Roadworkers job on a regular basis ,having del Roadplanes 360,s ect into coned off areas and then had to sit 6/8 hrs waiting while the machine s did the job those blokes earn there money, closest i had was M6 between junc 12/13 one night about 1am when a car came past inside the coned off section i was stood on the lowloader flat when it passed me on the inside swerved and just avoided running into the back of a tipper waiting to load off the roadplane before taking a load of cones out and rejoining the open section of moterway, how or what the he… it was doing there we never knew but it certainly put the wind up especially the tipper driver who was stood at the side of his moter having a ■■■!
Seems unreal how someone could miss seeing one of those huh ■■
At least those guys were lucky enough to jump clear, plenty haven’t sadly 
Sometimes there are too many flashing lights and signs and you nust blank them. I think miles of cones with nothing going on doesn’t help as people just think “sod 'em”. In other cases, all the signs in the world still wouldn’t be seen by some numpties.
Only once have I had a near miss with a roadworker and that was one numptie chucking cones into a local road without looking. Threw a cone under my nearside wheel which I reshaped and gave back.
Don’t know how anyone could miss one of those road work trucks ,you can see the lights from miles away .However the road work false alarms are getting more frequent imo .Many times i have gone past signs saying “workforce in road” and signs closing a lane off only to still be waiting for the lane closure and still trying to spot the workforce a few miles later and never seeing any workforce or lane closures .Maybe drivers are becoming so used to seeing road work signs where there are no road works they are starting to ignore the signs
martyh:
Don’t know how anyone could miss one of those road work trucks ,
You’re supposed to miss it. 
Too many lights, working lights pointing in the towards the driving direction, giving the false sense that the work is on the other side of the barrier.
On the continent they use “rumble” strips a couple of 100 yards before, laid across the closed of section, gives the driver an wake up call and the workers an audible warning.
Worked on the motorway with a Hiab putting signs onto the gantries, no much fun if they drive that close that they hit you with their wing mirrors.
Make your knees shudder for quite a while.
Need 6 pairs of eyes, and good mates who look out for you, no much space for a laugh or some kidding on.
I like the idea of temporary rumble strips, a bit like placing detonators on a railway track.
Only done this type of road working (junction alteration) for 2 months and hated it. And I was only a engineer, not a grafter on the cones or against the barrier 
I was usually set up against the central reservation or the nearside barrier usually looking back into the direction of flow ironically on the total station.
So I was an extra set of eys covering, but some people’s driving and that includes lorry driver’s put the wind up me that I’d false call out. The older guys used to rip the pee out of me, but nearly every night, I’d get a thank you at the end of the night from people individually about watching over them.
I was fortunate that I only ever saw cones as casualities and boy do those things fly out again at speed after being run over, but I suppose better them than a road worker.
caledoniandream:
Need 6 pairs of eyes, and good mates who look out for you, no much space for a laugh or some kidding on.
Never a truer word said on that matter I reckon I aged 10 years through stress during those two months.
I was glad to be sent on the worst work we could be given for H&S/hours and general hassle…LU work, it was way more safer dealing with live electric and in confined spaces in my opinion
Muckaway:
Post by Muckaway » Sun Jan 27, 2013 4:38 pm
I like the idea of temporary rumble strips, a bit like placing detonators on a railway track.
Or how about some taliban detonators laid prior to the road works just enough to blow the vehicle’s axle off when they are at the 100 yards marker before the cones start, that’ll slow them down and get everyone concentrating a bit more on what they are playing at
caledoniandream:
Too many lights, working lights pointing in the towards the driving direction, giving the false sense that the work is on the other side of the barrier.
On the continent they use “rumble” strips a couple of 100 yards before, laid across the closed of section, gives the driver an wake up call and the workers an audible warning.
If you cant differentiate between vehicles working on one side of the barrier or the other then i think its time to hang up your keys.
You can add as many lights etc as you want, they get run into not because they don’t see you but because they aren’t concentrating, same with the hard shoulder, light up all you want but the vehicle that hits you shouldn’t be there plane and simple.
Scary job that and watching that video, he deffo wasn’t looking at the road ahead for a good while , maxed out at 56
Drivers for years have moaned about traffic lights and convoy systems at roadworks.Safety of the workforce is paramount.
Having worked extensively on the railways for 20 odd years, I can tell you 1 day with a highways inspector on the M6 & M62 was far more dangerous, scary and stressful. Give me trains running at 125mph any day.