Bring on hefty fines for rush hour roadworks

No road works on major trunk roads or motorways should be allowed in school holidays unless the road can be proved to be in a dangerous condition.
Otherwise all repairs and utility works should be done at night between the hours of 8pm and 5am, especially in urban areas.
In the event that works have to be done in rush hours they should be accompanied by a heavy fine on the operators.
If the rules were made clear there would be no hardship as they would be adhered to from scratch.

Why not at Night then.
Because of the number of complaints from residents whose sleep is disturbed. Non emergency night time road works has been virtually illegal in urban areas for years.

During weekends.
Messing up our leisure time.

During the day.
Interferes with rush hour traffic and day to day working.

This is why the majority of roadworks (in towns) takes place during school hours, this attracts the least number of complaints.

No matter when these works are scheduled, there are those who will complain

Doing the work at night time is obviously a good idea in theory but, in practice, what would happen – as now – would be that the parts of the roads which are to be worked on would remain coned off, thereby creating delays for traffic whether the work was actually happening at that moment or not.

What about the increased costs of carrying out work at night? Presumably those who are in favour would be happy with an increase in fuel tax and/or vehicle excise duty. It would be interesting to see comparative costs of day and night work for the same task and also a comparison of the number of accidents.

By all means try to avoid rush hour but I think we need to be realistic and not expect all repairs to be carried out at night.

Road Works at night, is this going far enough ?

Disturbed sleep, limited hours to do the works means temporary closures (of the works – if the carrigeway can be made useable by traffic), extra cost of labour working unsociable hours – it’ll end up on YOUR utility bill ! Encouraging utilities to get on to and off roads quicker has been the source of a lot of thinking since the demise of the Public Utilities Street Works Act of 1956. The best we can do is (purportedly) to ‘hit them in the pocket’ (see my comment above – we, the consumer will pick up the bill). Lane Rental (as much as much as I don’t like the idea) is the way forward PROVIDED all utilities, local authorities and any other similar organisations work together to plan and execute street works simultaneously. Yes, apportioning costs of trenching, reinstatement and guaranteeing the works etc. will be complicated but it’s not rocket science. Planning the works by the various undertakers can be computerised (a lot of information is gathered by the highway authorities now) and cost apportionment needs the meeting of minds that want the system to succeed. Emergency works will always be required at unsociable / uneconomic times but then we don’t live in an ideal world.

Why is it that the default solution to problems like this is to slap a fine on the offending party?
In reality the value of the fine always ends up coming from us the public at large. The offending company just increases prices to whoever (usually us) to pay this fine.
So at the end of the day the victim ends up indirectly paying the fine. How is that helping anything?
The only way is to make those who actually manage these cockups personally responsible, and they should personally pay the fine.

Then it might actually do some good.
Think of the managers of energy supply companies and banks who could have been personally been stung, proper justice and much to the delight of us all.

Surely the importnat thing is to ensure roadwaorks are completed in the shortest possible time. To do that then utilitiy companies should have to pay for the road they are closing at a goodly rate depending on the amont of traffic inconvenienced. If time was costly then maybe it would pay them to get on wiht the job. Seing roadwoarks with nobody evenm on site is not good enoutgh. Staring work at 9 or 9.30, stoppinhg for lunch and tea breaks, then going off the job at 4 pm is not good enough. Traffic interuptions cost us all in many ways so if the utilities have to pass on the costs so be it we all pay one way or another and congsetion is very expensive.