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.

Absolutely at night.

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

Yes, this is a blooming good idea! Many times work seems to be started at the most illogical times, and I’m sure nobody has considered the upset and frustration that the roadworks will cause. I quite frequently see roadworks that have been abandoned halfway through, because the necessary items have not been ordered? When roadworks are taking place in heavy traffic it MUST be more difficult for the workers themselves and the job may well take longer because of having to cope with the traffic.

With the cost of fuel wasting away in hundreds of road work delays ,this is a good idea.You often find 50 vechicles being delayed by one or two workmen drinking tea!

It’s a shame th AA, RAC and IAM do not fight the motorists corner more, they have got too close to Goverment.

Noise would be an issue in built up areas at night, especially in summer when people have windows open.

Why do road workers not work shifts? They work 8 hours a day and it may take time to travel to site. What about an early and late shift to get it done twice as quick?

They should also be made to monitor temp traffic lights manually to allow traffic to flow better during peak times.

Point is that generally people are selfish: “not in my back yard, not as I try to get work etc”. If you live or commute to and from London you’ll come to understand that essential repairs to the rail network and Tube are undertaken at night and at weekends but inevitably faults do occur during the day. It can be frustrating but so are all delays.

What I find deeply frustrating as a Londoner is utilities companies that continue to carve up a piece of road and then sit on it for weeks seemingly. As with the police it’s rare to see anyone doing any roadworks at all. Bit like NOT seeing a bobby on the beat!

The Highways Agency, local authorities, the GLA and the Department for Transport really need to get their act together. What of the environmental and economic aspect to all of this: more pollution due to vehicles sitting idle in traffic; and with ever rising costs in fuel prices, a greater hit to the purse.

If urgent repairs need to be done and at night then buy a pair of earplugs and some sleeping pills!

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.

All non-emergency road-works should, at least, be STARTED at night-time. Then come morning, if the holes/trenches cannot be safely bridged with temporary thick-steel panels due to their size, then by all means continue with them during the day.