It’s very unlike a driver to admit that they almost had an accident, but that is exactly what I – someone trained in advanced, defensive and offensive driving since the age of 13 – am about to do, because this is getting out of control and I feel that if someone with advanced driving experience, who is actively looking out for hazards can come so close to having a fatal accident involving a pedestrian, entirely due to the health and safety regime that exists within this country, something needs to change. Badly.
I’m sure you’ve all been there, travelling around the M25 or along some other motorway in the middle of the night, when from no-where you meet a sudden speed limit reduction, and a closure of all but 1 lane of the motorway. As you approach the closure, a myriad of cones appears, closing in from all sides and creating a wash of reflective orange and silver, usually paired with flashing lights on the top of some of the cones, just in case you missed them. The signs you need to pay attention to increase by an order of magnitude, and you spend the following countless number of miles switching your attention between the blinding flashes of orange light, overhead signage, road-side signage, variable speed limit signage and whatever variety of speed readout your vehicle possesses, while doing your best to vary the throttle to maintain exactly 50 miles per hour.
As a means of comparison, let us look quickly at the European system for dealing with road works on major roads; depending on what exactly the purpose of the work is, they range from the very basic overhead sign letting you know to be vigilant for a maintenance vehicle stopped in the road with men working near it, and a general speed reduction. There are no average speed cameras and no amassing of cones, just two or three vehicles, the last of which has a giant sign with a flashing orange arrow indicating the direction that is opposite to where the people are working. You take note of this, and move to the most extreme lane in this direction, pass the obstruction, and put your foot back to the floor to continue your journey.
In the case of extensive road works, that too is simple, the temporary cones that go down are not blinding, and are not blighted by one million flashing lights. The people working on the roads wear reflective clothing that does not seamlessly blend into a wash of sensory overload, and all of this is quickly replaced by steel armco style barriers separating the works from the road, at which point the cones are removed. Europe is much more behind placing the responsibility of life onto the people working on the roads, and the drivers passing them, as opposed to wrapping everyone in a protective bubble that ultimately leads to situations I found myself in on our return to London.
So, what happened exactly? Quite simply, we were driving around the M25, just north of the Dartford Crossing, when a closure of all but one lane was announced and a 50mph limit was implemented. The cones, as is their way, gradually cut off lane 3, lane 2 and the hard shoulder, and the entire expanse of road became illuminated by a distracting and blinding orange wash of flashing lights. This continued for a few miles, gradually destroying my night-vision and resulting in something akin to temporary night blindness. Sodium orange is not a color that is conducive to seeing well, and in large quantities results in some very strange visual aberrations occurring. At the end of this deserted stretch of cones was the vehicle placing the cones, illuminated like someone’s over-eager entry into most-power-hungry Christmas decorated house, with the theme of orange, and positioned on the hard shoulder. At this point, anything in the distance was indistinguishable from the sea of orange light, working to ruin my ability to pick out obstructions and hazards while I attempted to maintain the correct speed and not meet a rogue average speed camera. Everything is orange. It’s by design, I think.
As I approached the end of the cones, blinded by the light, I made out two shadows on the left of the road; people… dressed up in their orange ‘reflective’ uniforms, that failed entirely to be distinguishable from the rest of the orange mess that had presented itself. One of these figures was standing 2 feet inside the lane I was travelling, and at 50mph and less than 50 yards away I rapidly swerved to the right to give him space, directly into the path of the 3rd figure who was at the edge of my lane, obfuscated by the flashing flourescent cone next to him. Again, I changed direction to avoid an incident, missing all 3 of them, and driving into the sudden black having left the cones behind.
That situation stood out to me as something that could so easily have been avoided, had they been the only thing on the road that I’d needed to pay attention to, and if a sea of orange color and flashing lights hadn’t been burned into my retinas for the past several miles. I feel that had I not been trained from such a young age in good car control, at least one of those road-workers would be dead or in critical condition; entirely because of the ridiculous system that has been designed to “protect” them.
Health & Safety, cones, orange lights, average speed cameras… it’s become out of hand, and is a gauntlet of things that add up to create an unsafe environment for both drivers and workers alike. Drivers are so busy attempting to see through a wash of orange light, while paying more attention to their speed than what’s in front of them that I’m quite honestly surprised that there aren’t more accidents involving road works these days.
Driving at night is already difficult without introducing a flood of light designed to blind and distract; we need to take a leaf out of the book of the Europeans and reduce the distraction presented to drivers if we seriously want to have a safe environment for the people working on the roads.
I almost suggested that perhaps our roads would be in a better state of repair if we implemented some of the European ways of handling road works, but that is sheer folly given how little work actually takes place in coned-off areas on British roads; perhaps we should just sell the entirety of the road network to the companies that run the French Autoroutes and have them bring in French workers to turn it all around. Of course, if we did that, there’d be tolls to pay for it, and the British people would be up in arms, but until we do something about the quality of roads and the problems inherent with the British way of doing road repairs, our motorways will be no better than a French D road that just happens to be dual or triple carriageway in terms of quality, design and maintenance.
What are your thoughts about road works? Have you ever had a near miss that left you thinking about it for days? Are average speed cameras and seas of distraction the way forward, or just an inept ‘solution’ dreamt up by a politician who has never driven before? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
