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Road Works- duty to minimise delays ? - RaineMan
Do people carrying out roadworks have any duty to minimise the delays they cause or to set up appropriate diversions? The reason I ask this is that I have been severely delayed on two occasions in the past week.

The first was when half a road was dug up on my side and the traffic going in my direction had to wait for a gap in the traffic or for someone displaying a degree of courtesy. There was no attempt at traffic control and to rub salt in the wound an apology with the added comment 'due to essential works'. I do not imagine there are non-essential works unless people feel bored and decide to dig up a road!

The second occured when I left home to go to a specialist shop at the weekend. It is a twenty mile round trip and there was an hour before the shop closed. A road on route was closed and a diversion signposted. The problem was that the diversion lead to a right turn onto a busy road. This resulted in a horrendous tailback. I eventually gave up as there was no way I was going to make it.

This type of thing seems to be getting worse as if the delay is irrelevant as we are only motorists!
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Road Works- duty to minimise delays ? - bell boy
there was a programme on the tv the other week where durham council was fining services thar dug holes and then abandoned them
maybe a google search
Road Works- duty to minimise delays ? - Lud
I would be tempted to make yet another post on this subject, were it not for the swear filter.
Road Works- duty to minimise delays ? - bell boy
chill man lud :-)
first ever episode of minder in 5 minutes itv4 and it should have that east end dodgy back street garage on
Road Works- duty to minimise delays ? - daveyjp
Having been at the other end of roadworks - actually seeing the work that goes on behind the scenes to get them done, don't have a go until you have been there. Privatisation of utilities has lead to an absolute nightmare for all concerned.

10 years ago the engineer used to visit the local electricity engineers office see staff he knew and sort out the job. Now it's all dealt with on a regional basis, one office has the plans, one has the estimators, one office organises the actual work and these offices are hundreds of miles apart and all work is done through sub contractors who are here one week gone the next. There's competition in the utilities market meaning competitive pricing, but we pay for it in other ways.
Road Works- duty to minimise delays ? - Lud
There's competition in the utilities
market meaning competitive pricing but we pay for it in other ways.


Yes. The work doesn't get done for ages, the roads are obstructed for ages, and the bill is bigger at the end of it all.

In the deepest regions of hell, if I am worthy of them, I expect to make the acquaintance of Mrs Thatcher and that ghastly fellow from Chicago.
Road Works- duty to minimise delays ? - Kevin
So privatisation of utilities is to blame for poor planning, coordination and enforcement by Govt. and local authorities more than ten years later?

That's a good one. How much longer do you think we should we give them to sort it out?

Or is it just that they don't give a hoot, or perhaps even enjoy seeing you or I sat in endless tailbacks surrounded by cones.

Kevin...
Road Works- duty to minimise delays ? - james86
I sat in a long queue last week on the A64 near York, during the day, only to find that the reason part of one lane was coned off was that they were trimming the grass and spraying weed killer on the embankment by the side of the road. Since there was no hard shoulder, their van was parked in the right hand side lane and we were all kept to the left. Hardly essential works!
Road Works- duty to minimise delays ? - movilogo
Few weeks back when I left home in the morning found that some road workers and digging something in front of my house.

When I came home in the evening, I discovered that my lights are out!

A call to British Gas helpline revealed that because of the roadwork, the locality has been cut off from main electricity :(

Waited an hour and finally light came.

No apologies, no warning - nothing.



Road Works- duty to minimise delays ? - RaineMan
>>>Having been at the other end of roadworks - actually seeing the work >>>that goes on behind the scenes to get them done, don't have a go until >>>you have been there.

I am not specifically having a go at any individual but at the system. Next Sunday's plans are now messed up as I now need to repeat the journey and apparently the closure is ongoing. Many hundreds if not thousands of people had they day messed up and it only needed a set of temporary traffic lights or a couple of men with Stop/Go boards. This is not rocket science just common sense!
Road Works- duty to minimise delays ? - Cliff Pope

I refer the honourable member to the reply I gave earlier:

www.honestjohn.co.uk/forum/post/index.htm?t=54862&...e


There is a local and national government conspiracy to maximise traffic delays, to try to force people to use the abominable or non-existant public transport. This is called improvement.
Road Works- duty to minimise delays ? - peterb
"Waited an hour and finally light came."

You were lucky, movilogo. The gas people broke our electricity supply and we had no power for 36 hours. Life without power is REALLY boring!
Road Works- duty to minimise delays ? - madf
Some countries have local databases where ALL service details are kept: details and drawing sof power lines tec...

Here most are so incompetent even the utility suppliers do not know....
(after all when BR was privatised it had no idea what it owned...).
How can you manage anything efficiently like that? Answer: you cannot
madf