Unbelievable!!
Since January there have been road works on the motorway between the small market town where I live and The City.
When I returned to work after my week off I was surprised to discover that the speed restrictions had been lifted. It has taken a while to get back to driving at normal speed along this stretch of the motorway. I guess us drivers have become conditioned to drive at 50mph for that stretch of road. But now I am finding that the rushour traffic is moving along better. Not long after I had passed the main junction for my town the one where the road works had begun, I noticed that the fourth lane is now open and we are merrily speeding towards the city.
But someone must be having a joke at our expense. No sooner have we begun to enjoy the freedom of not only having 4 lanes to spread across but no speed restrictions when bam!!!
Brake lights flash on and stay on as car after car, van and lorry after van and lorry skids almost to a stop. The new found freedom of 4 lanes has been taken away from us already. Four lanes are condensing to 3 lanes again, with traffic trying to shift from one lane to another.
To my horror this is not occurring on my left but on my right. It is the fast lane that comes to an end. So there we are the two 'fast' lanes crawling along to acommodate two files of vehicles in one lane, whilst the two 'slower' lanes are speeding past us.
Whose lunatic idea was that!!!
Who wants to cause accidents on top of a hill midway between two very busy junctions. Is this some mad man's idea of traffic calming?
I don't know how long it will be before there is an horrific accident................. Not long I shouldn't think.
My bet is that the person who dreampt up this scheme received a pat on the back and a big payout as a reward. What he should have got was a straight jacket and a padded cell.
How many deaths will there be on that stretch of road. Ok so we have done the drive once now and tomorrow we will be better prepared, but that is only those of us who travel that road regularly, what happens when a speed freak from out of the area goes bombing along and has to brake suddenly because they run out of road.
Going back home I had another surprise. For months there has been one sign before the start of the westward roadworks announcing that a climbing lane will open in Autumn 2008. Now I may not be the brightest button in the tin but to me climbing lane means a lane for the really slow vehicles going up the hill. The slow lane, am I right or am I right. Ok so I am driving along at between 70 and 80mph uphill, still only three lanes all the way until near the top a fourth lane opens out .................on my right!!! the fast lane just became the fasr lane and the extra fast lane. But what is this ?
Oh yes they have brought us back down to 3 lanes again after just a couple of hundred yards, what was the point?
We have endured months of disruption while they widen the road to four lanes for a couple of hundred yards and not even as you go up the hill, where a slow lane is needed but when you are near the top and starting to level out again.
I think I am going to be sticking to the middle lane from now on, no more using the fast lane for over taking , I shall be too worried about running out of road before I manage to get back across.
Does anyone know of similar road schemes and if so how have they worked out?
I don't predict my journey to and from work will improve. If anything I feel it will get worse.
Oh and why do they need a climbing lane for the traffic going down hill, not only that but the extra lane is on the flatter part of the hill???
Rant over
