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Being Fooled by the Signs

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Over the weekend I made a brief trip to the South East corner of the country to meet my Mum at Heathrow airport and bring a car load of our belongings back with me. I set off from Ladan’s room at just after 6am and enjoyed the wide empty roads before me as the crisp light of dawn arose around me.

When I was about a third of the way down the country a sign above the almost deserted motorway informed me that there was a queue ahead and that I should slow down to 40mph. Sceptically, I started slowing down only to find that the next overhead sign, just around a bend from the first, said “End” meaning that I had passed the congestion.

I wondered, for a moment, what had prompted the sign to flash such an unlikely warning at me, before forgetting about it and pondering more interesting and important facts such as when and where I would get my breakfast. However, it was not to be the only overhead sign to flash nonsense warnings at me during my 14 hours of driving that weekend, I was warned numerous times of imminent danger by overhead signs on the A1(M), the M1 and the M25 and on every single occasion the warning was false.

Motorway Warning Sign

There were a couple of occasions on the M25 where it is possible the traffic conditions had been different a few minutes earlier, but for the most part the warning signs were not just wrong they were verging on the impossible. The last instance of this that I experienced was on my way back where a sign warned of congestion ahead and suggested I slow down to 50mph, doubtful I ignored it and decided that I would only take notice if the next sign repeated the warning and recommended a drop to 40mph… actually the next sign did repeat the warning and suggested 30mph. The road was flowing so well that with all my experience of false signs I merely ensured I wasn’t above the speed limit, then the next sign was blank. Either it wasn’t playing along with the previous signs or it knew that nobody was taking any notice and took a “What’s the point?” attitude to giving any kind of warning. Of course, there were no delays and the next sign said “End”.

I am reminded of the parable of the boy who cried wolf. During my journey I saw a few accidents and delays on the opposite carriageway. One man I saw sent a cloud of smoke across the road as he burned his tyres coming to a sudden stop from over 70mph… had he seen a warning sign about queues ahead or were they only telling lies this weekend, or had he indeed seen so many false warnings that he had decided not to take any notice anymore.

I have no idea why the overhead warning signs were so outrageously wrong this weekend, but it is dangerous for them to be so. The overhead signs are a means of communicating important information to drivers but if the drivers lose their trust in the communications they are receiving then the communication becomes useless and it can no longer be used to improve safety on the road.

 

 


I had intended to get back to the old flat, pack our remaining things and give it a good tidy before collecting my Mum from Heathrow airport. I had forgotten how much stuff was still there and so I didn’t even finish the packing part, though I did pack as much as I would be able to bring back the following day. My Mum is in the country for a few weeks and should be coming up to Newcastle to visit me here soon. On Sunday morning I had the pleasure of seeing my brother Robert, his partner Anne and my nephew Finlay for the first time in over a year. It was a relatively short time before I felt the need to get back on the road but it was really great to see them all. Finlay is so very cute and cheerful.

Unfortunately I will need to make another visit to the flat to get the rest of our things from there, I had hoped this trip (my second quick visit) would be the last so that next time I go south I might just spend my time visiting friends or family rather than packing and loading. Hopefully the next trip will be the last.

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Bumper to Bumper on the M1

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This evening I drove down to Tunbridge Wells from Newcastle and made excellent time. The roads weren’t quiet as such but they were moving very well. When you take a drive of over 300 miles it is inevitable that you will see some dangerous driving along the way, lately it seems very common to find two cars involved in a high speed road rage showdown on the M1, driving bumper to bumper not because of slow traffic but in a tit-for-tat battle between two angry drivers who keep undertaking and cutting in front of each other at speeds of between 90 and 110mph. It is insane, not only do such drivers put themselves at risk through such frivolous driving but they put all other road drivers at risk too, just because they can’t let it go when another driver acts irresponsibly. If a bad driver isn’t going to be reported to the police then it is best to put as much distance between you and them as possible, rather than letting him or her provoke us into being bad drivers too.

Of course these men and woman with their fast cars do benefit from high response breaking systems as well as incredible acceleration, the equally fooolish are those who drive in standard cars and abide by the speed limit but still drive very close to the tail of the car in front. Again, this endangers the passengers in that car, the car in front, and several surrounding cars on the road. If it were possible I would favour removing speed restrictions on motorways in exchange for enforcement of the 3 second distance rule being sctrictly enforced by technology and heavy fines. Today I saw a couple cruising happily just as metre or two behind a large truck, they would not have been able to see what was in front of it, they would probably not have survived if the truck was brought to a sudden halt, and the truck driver wwould probably not have known there was a car so closely tucked behind his truck. Speed may make accidents worse but accidents are caused by careless driving, you’re not driving safely just because you are sticking to the speed limit. The three second rule involes counting three seconds (try “one elephant, two elephant, three elephant “at a moderate pace) from when the car in front passes a particular point and ensuring that you do not pass that same point before the three seconds are counted.

I’ll be on the road again tomorrow, same journey in the opposite direction. My wife has been admitted to hospital in Newcastle because nobody has been able to work out what is causing her intense stomach pains and vomitting… no, she isn’t pregnant. Nobody thinks it is too serious but after two and a half weeks she has barely kept any food down, the doctors best guess at the moment is that the underlying cause is a parasite picked up on our honeymoon in Egypt, but we’ll know more as the tests take place. I’ve come back briefly to grab some things and save the fish from starving.