A Wee Rant About Road Works
I’ll slow down… if there really are road works ahead.
Yes, yes, I know that roads need to be repaired regularly so they stay safe to drive on. I also know that we need to keep the guys and girls working on the roads safe and that we shouldn’t just roar through road works at our usual speed. However, there are times when seeing those “road works ahead” signs up ahead really makes me see red.
I particularly see red when I’m on my pushbike and the road works people have decided the bike lane is the best place to put out their warning signs, forcing me to either nip into the main stream of the traffic or onto the footpath. However, there are times that even when I’m behind the wheel of a car that those road works signs arouse my ire.
Not that I’m complaining about the road works themselves. I don’t mind slowing down when something’s actually going on or there really is something I need to take care with – lots of busy people, a single lane or stacks of loose gravel. If there’s one of those traffic controllers with a stop/go sign on a pole, I’ll give them a friendly smile and wave, or even say hello if I’m close enough – after all, traffic controlling work is one of the most mind-bogglingly boring jobs out there, although it’s probably better than it was 25 years ago, seeing as one could now probably listen to a podcast or audiobook on the smartphone through one ear. And I’d much rather see a real human employed for traffic control duty than one of those temporary traffic lights that keeps going at night and will hold up a huge line of cars for no reason whatsoever thanks to its internal programming.
The problem happens when the road works warning signs are the only type of road works out there.
You know how this scenario goes. You’re travelling along and you see one of those temporary warning signs on the road up ahead of you, so you slow down. However, as you get closer to where the signs are, what do you see? Do you see bulldozers and bitumen mixers? Do you see sweaty guys in high-viz with power tools jackhammering the road surface open? Is there a massive hole in the road or similar amusements?
Nope. The only thing that you can see is maybe a single road cone marking where the road works have been… and beside that sits a tiny little patch of loose gravel over where they’ve repaired a pothole. Alternatively, all you can see is a few spraypainted marks where they’re going to repair something. Or possibly, there’s a half-done kerb on the side of the road that they’re going to finish off when it’s stopped raining or when the weekend is over. Or the road works are taking place on a side road that intersects with the road you’re driving on (but don’t affect the road you’re driving on, except indirectly).
You have to ask yourself sometimes: are the warning signs the first things that they put up before beginning a job and the last things they take away? Honestly, I’m convinced that the road signs go up as soon as they’ve decided to fix something on the road and stay there until they’ve finished the paperwork to sign the job off after it’s done.
And then they wonder why people don’t like to slow down when they see those signs. Haven’t they all heard the fable of the boy who cried wolf? You’d think that they’re trying to condition us to ignore the road signs. I know for one that my reaction upon seeing those road signs is “What road works where?” I’m probably not the only one who gets into the very bad habit of not quite slowing down to the temporary speed limit when seeing these signs.
Dear road workers, us drivers appreciate all your hard work, we really do, and we don’t want to put you in danger. However, you guys need to do your bit. Let’s do a deal: you put the warning signs up when you’re actually working on the road, not three weeks beforehand, take them down when you’re finished and maybe even lay them facedown during the weekend if the road isn’t actually hazardous. It can’t take you that long to put them up and take them down. In return, we’ll pay much more attention to the signs and really will slow down to 80, 50 or 30 as the case may be, and we’ll probably be nicer to you when we drive past.
Particularly annoying road works signs I have seen over the years (with specific locations removed) include:
- The ones on a large chunk of main road that could only be fixed on a sunny day… and the road signs went out in the rainy season when sunny days were few and far between. They stayed there for at least three weeks with no sign of action on the roads before the work began. I’m not sure when they came down, because by that stage, I’d found an alternate route on a minor road.
- The traffic control light that stopped a major highway for ten minutes (I was counting) just so they could set up a line of road cones. Honestly, after having waited that long, I was expecting to see something major going on! Couldn’t they have maybe set them out in small batches rather than letting a long line of traffic build up?
- Not quite so annoying this time: the sign warning that road marking was going on ahead. We’d kind of guessed, as the tank of yellow paint had sprung a leak and there was a thin trail of yellow in the middle of the lane near some very new, very white centre lines.
Right, that’s my rant over. Now it’s your turn. What’s your worst experience with road works and pointless signs? Have a good old grizzle in the comments and let us sympathise with you.
Level 2, 9 Help Street
Megan says:
The day before I wrote this – nearly two weeks ago – they did some work on my street fixing a bust water pipe. The warning signs have sat there ever since without even a glimpse of the crew coming to actually seal the newspaper-sized hole over. Case in point.
December 5th, 2017 at 7:40 am