TBH just about all of the above is c*ck. The signs are set and cleared extremely quickly. They only remain illuminated if the conditions persist. The software forces operators to pay attention to the signs and to review the need for the signs to be present. They have to log the decision to leave the signs illuminated and justify the reason that they were left on.
The problem is that most motorists are unobservant fuckwits who wouldn't recognise a hazard even if it had been living in their front room for the past six years and had married their daughter in a celebrity wedding at Westminster Cathedral with the world's press in attendance.
Thus spake ARWadsworth ( snipped-for-privacy@blueyonder.co.uk) unto the assembled multitudes:
The domestic cat is not a native wild animal and it's an unnatural part of the food chain, put there by humans. It doesn't need to kill birds to survive, but it's doing what cats are compelled to do by instinct. It's not the cat's fault, but to regard it as a natural part of the food chain is wrong.
I completely agree with your comments on the inability of many drivers to recognise hazards. I spent 25 years investigating and handling insurance claims and my wife is a health and safety professional and carries out health and safety audits for a county council.
I do however stand by my comments about the warning signs on motorways. With the number of cameras covering motorways I can see no reason other than technical failure for so many warnings when the motorway is clear of queues, broken down vehicles, animals and everything else.
Depends what you call natural. Most animals have probably come from somewhere else at some stage. I don't see why cats should be excluded. They might taste nice. Anyone know?
I can only say that the procedure clearly doesn't work (although if that's a full description of the procedure, then you haven't described a procedure which would work).
Likewise with much of the "wildlife" in your garden.
Not to mention the native wild cats in this country through to around the 16th century until man killed them all in the mistaken belief they eat grain (whereas they actually eat the animals which eat the grain).
Yes, I hear it over and over again. It's not true. What is true is that something about getting into a car makes a driver both impatient and unobservant in the extreme. I've had people make complaints exactly like yours to me. I've investigated them. It's easy to do since all aspects of the system both human and machine-generated are logged in excruciatingly minute detail.
And in every single case that I have investigated the complaining motorist(s) have been wrong. I can even recall the ultimate expression of this. A drivercalling in on his mobile phone to say that the signs had been illuminated for "five miles", it was actually for 3km slightly less than two miles, and he couldn't see a problem so why weren't the signs switched off. Followed by a squealing of brakes and a bang as he ran into the queue of cars ahead stopped for the accident in question.
Just because you can't see a hazard doesn't mean that there is no hazard. And you were talking drivel earlier when you said talked about "up to the second" accuracy. A driver simply cannot make use of "up to the second" information. For example signals have to be slowed down to change no faster than five seconds from the preceding setting, and up to three minutes from the preceding setting to permit drivers time to react to the change.
Believe me, you wouldn't want "up to the second" changes in signage.
Oh FFS, who, in their right mind, would publish a full description of police procedure on Usenet?
Sorry, it is true and plain for all to see. It's very common when I go around the M25 around midnight to find signs such as "Queue after junction", "Queue Ahead" which look to be stuck from the rush hour, when there's absolutely nothing on the road. Often I'll see these on the live HA website before I set off, and think to myself "Oh bugger, I'm in for a wait". I get there half an hour later, motorway has vehicles spaced at one to two vehicles every 1/4 mile, all doing NSL or more, and the signs all still say Queueing. Clearly bollocks. It's very often wrong in more busy times, but it's difficult to be sure situation hadn't just changed.
So if I want to report a wrong sign, what am I supposed to do? Must admit that the thought that I could do so never occured. (Although the reason for my midnight runs around the M25 has pretty much come to an end, although I still pick this time to travel given the choice.)
I studied this sort of misinformation in a completely different context. If I map the findings across to this context, what I would expect is that each time a motorist sees an incorrect warning sign, they will not trust such warnings for a given period of time afterwards (let's guess 3 months). So if the signage is such that you see a wrong one every 3 months (or more frequently), your window of acceptance of such warnings has closed up to nothing, and the benefit of any correct warnings becomes largely lost.
No, they're not "stuck from the rush hour" this is an urban myth. They are on because an automatic safety system has been triggered. Sometime after you pass the same signals and signs will be cleared, again automatically. Just because you don't see them clear doesn't mean that they won't clear.
They are triggered by stationary or slow moving traffic. From time to time they are activated by crawling vehicles such as slow moving trucks, vehicles that have stopped on the hard shoulder then move into the lve lane without building up adequate speed, contractor vehicles, JCBs being moved into position for roadworks (etc.)
The motorist hysteria over these signs is risible.
TBH, if it were up to me, I'd tell you to f*ck off and get a life if you called me to discuss such a thing. Because AFAICS it's on the same level as compulsive picture straightening. If you're that anal, you can call HAIL and let them know - 08457 50 40 30.
Yes, because it frequently has queueing traffic on the slip road. And also because before the safety system in question was implemented rear end shunts on the slip roads caused by drivers unable to judge their speed were common.
That's bollocks. The sensors for the queue do not exend half a mile down that (or indeed any) slip road.
Umm no, because that would guarantee false triggering.
It's not "untrue" there is a queue, even by your account.
I've just measured both the "J" and the "L" slips roads at J31. Those are the two off-ramps, so you must have been referring to one of them. One is 0.2 miles long, the other 0.3 miles long. I'm therefore bemused how any queue could be "half a mile off the motorway".
Perhaps you can understand why I say that motorists are almost always unobservant when they report these issues?
When I was working, over ten years ago now, I used to drive North on the M6 and pass one of those signs between the barriers in the middle of the road and it read 'END' for well over 18 months.
The highway agency has spent millions putting gantry signs at the side of motorways to tell us 'DON'T DRINK AND DRIVE' or SPRAY ON ROAD, SLOW DOWN'. Another I come across is '10 MINUTES TO JUNCTION 12'. And I don't even know where junction 12 is, or where it goes to.
You are not wrong here. I have been ignoring them since I saw the END sign lit for 18 months.
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