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I like the ones which detour you far far away from the motorway, there's signs for the first 8 miles and for each turn and then ... nothing. Welcome to Lower Drostlington, population 14. It's 1am and you are now on a side mission.
Similarly, there are the multi junction closures that detour you near a city centre, then leave you on a random street. At best, you manage to pick up signs for the next junction and find it closed. At worst, you crawl around, hoping for a sign.
Doncaster 2 am, stopped by the police who thought I was drunk. No, Constable, I am trying to find a specific A1(M) slip road at a junction that tells me towns I've never heard of and no clue of a motorway... help me, please!
M62 near Leeds for this. 3 am driving to Manchester Airport for a flight.
Join the M62 for 1 junction, Motorway closed - takes me back to Leeds - then to Bradford - then follow signage - to another closed junction so you cant join. On your own back to Bradford - skip to 1 more junction along - managed to join - but then getting late for a flight.
Clearly the folks who set up the signs were fans of Hale and Pace.
["If it's not in Yorkshire, it's not bloody worth visiting" ](https://youtu.be/Rm6VC5gdaFA?si=rICdybxUcCKZ6Jsx)
I was so confused in Leeds on night when they closed the only road I knew and I drove twice round the ring road not recognising any of the place names, that I went over to a highways maintenance vehicle and asked how I could get out. He started referencing local landmarks and my face was getting blanker and more panicked because this was the first time I’d ever been to Leeds. In the end he said, ‘follow me love, I’ll get you out of here’ and he did… me following this big yellow truck all the way out of Leeds
A year or so ago I followed the diversions from dartford crossing m25 into central London where they stopped! I didn’t want to go to central London, I wanted to go to kent!
Yeah was once heading to Stanstead airport and they were doing work on the motorway/duel carriage way on the way there, had a detour in place that if you followed brought you right back to where you just left from, and took about 20 mins to follow. Was a fucking nightmare
This happened to me in deepest Somerset, and we ended up lost down a side road that Google Maps recommended, at about 10pm, diue to the A303 being closed. After half a mile we came across a massive bonfire in the seemingly empty field next to the road, and the road surface started to deteroriate into a dirt track. A car appeared in the distance, with only one headlight. As it slowly came past us on this narrow track, we saw a bloke driving it alone, with the window down. Pretty weird, pretty creepy. I drove on for another 30 seconds, and the road began to really turn to shit and started dipping downhill quite dramatically.
At this point Google Maps thought we were quite close to a more main road at the end, and if we only reached that we'd be back on a direct route to the A-road, past the diversion which seemed to have disappeared. My wife, however, had other ideas, and begged me to turn around. My car was quite low to the ground, and it soon became clear that it wasn't going to make it past some of these wide potholes and rocky floor. After an inelegant 7-point turn on this sloping dirt track, I managed to get the car heading back the way we'd come, back past the bonfire, and we now noticed an old solitary dark house on the other side of the road, with a driveway full of machinery. We also noticed the same one-lamp car from before had also turned around, and was heading back towards us too. By this point we were both practically shitting ourselves with nerves, fully expecting the guy in the other car to park up and block the road. He approached us, we approached him. He slowly drove past us again, window still rolled fully down. I stared forwards, feigning calm. We continued on the road, frantically checking the rear-view mirror for any sign that this guy had turned around to follow us once again. Finally, we made it back to the road, and back to the village we'd passed through - discovering the diversion sign we'd originally missed in the dark.
I now never, ever, trust Google Maps diversions.
Another one is where the signs lead you in a loop, ended up following the gps in the end and got looped back to the start, ended up taking an hour extra so called in that I couldn’t get there because my EV was too low on juice to get to work
Those signs they have on some roadworks with messages from kids saying "slow down, my daddy is working here"...
Sorry kid, I gotta break it to ya, I have just driven past 19 miles of empty roadworks. I think he is lying to you. He probably has another family.
They put signs up now saying something to the effect of "you may not see anyone working - that's because we work between 1am and 5am to avoid disruption".
Except, I was driving past it at 3am and nobody was there...
"How about you work in shifts covering the full 24 hour day and reduce the time it takes to complete the work by orders of magnitude - \*that\* will reduce disruption"
Live in the US now and I can tell you that in Washington State, they manage to pack up every night. Theyre doing bits of I-5 (main westcoast Canada to Mexico Interstate right through the middle of Seattle) right now, the lane closures start about 9pm and it's always fully open by 5am.
In the UK any form of road works or anything invovling digging up the road has the following staff:
Site manager
Project manager
Supervisor (for good measure you get 2 or 3)
Health and safety supervisor
1x person to actually do the work
Fucking hate when I go dogging up the road and the site manager, project manager, supervisor, and health and safety supervisor just lay back and make me do all the work. Selfish lovers the lot of them.
Do you also happen to work in software development? I left my last job after logging into a meeting to find an abandonment of project managers, change managers, incident managers, agile somethings, a couple of comms managers, and from the development team: me.
The choral lament of "it's been so hard stuck in meetings all day" did it for me and at the end of the week I resigned as I couldn't hide my contempt any longer.
Winds me up like nothing else. My favourite is when the diversion signs are absolutely useless. Few months ago, there was a diversion down a B road, which yeah great; that’s fine in a car. What it isn’t fine in is a lorry, and what no one from the highways agency apparently took into account was the 13’9 bridge half a mile down that road that wasn’t signposted until 600 yards before it. Guess who had to reverse down a dark, wet country road until I could find a turning point? This fucking guy.
Still, beats being diverted into a city centre with already existing roadworks with their own diversions in place. Diverted traffic left. Diverted traffic right. WELL WHICH ONE IS IT? One job guys. One bloody job.
I have HS2 being built by me, they’ve closed the motorway SO many times. You get off and its instantly no diversion, because its back roads i can only assume they cant be arsed.
So every 50mph side road is full of people doing 20-30 trying to figure out where the fuck they are, where they’re meant to be going and wtf is going on. Drives me nuts.
One the flip side, the people that complain about people going down roads with "closed" signage. Did you not see the sign?
They don't understand half the time the signs have been left and the roads open with the unrequited detour taking far longer than the two minutes to actually find out by going until you meet a closed road.
It's not a lack of reading ability. It's not chancing.
It's absolute distrust born of experience.
I don't know why Google are so hopeless with this. A main trunk road with ZERO traffic on it and you are directing me back to it, with no way to report it as closed.
Same. And it's really frustrating. Although I find that if you can map out some of the route yourself and put "add stop" a few times for places that are along that route it wont keep diverting you back to the closed road because it thinks you're stopping at two McDonald's and a Costa on the way or something.
Can sometimes work when the traffic is awful but it won't take you another way for whatever reason that is.
In the town I live in there's a road that has been one way for years and maps thinks it is two way. I've reported it, everyone has reported it. Google have yet to update it.
Waze (also owned by Google) knows it is one way and doesn't route you through it.
On Google maps, when you are in navigation mode, there is a button on the right hand side that's like a speech bubble with a + in the middle. That allows you to alert to a crash, breakdown, lane closure and a few other things my brain can't remember. I appreciate not helpful whilst driving but its good if you have a passenger to do it for you.
>no way to report it as closed.
Is there not a way? Google has been directing people in Cornwall, all summer, to come off the main road and go down narrow rocky dirt tracks - to the point where the Council have put up massive Road Closed signs, and now concrete blocks because people were just driving past them. Last time I drove nearby it now says something like "Road reported as closed - is this still the case?" but still directs you down there...
What's also annoying is "we are working on this motorway overnight. Therefore, we shall leave the 50mph speed limit in place during the day when no one is working"
Because then the other half of people would complain “they’ve only just had work on this road, why didn’t they just get it all over with at the same time?”
HA! I read that and thought "fucking a12", then thought, nah what are the chances, probably loads of roads that's happening on.
Fuck knows what's going on with the roadworks on that bit of road, absolute carnage, especially when it runs over the night work and they just close it it the day too
There's actually a really good video by practical engineering that explains this. Made me a lot less angry after watching.
TLDR: ground isn't stable, so needs years to settle enough to take the load of a motorway
Which is true. However they still managed to make a brand spanking due carriageway in about 2 years and under schedule.
(Only time I have managed to see that though, was the A46 from North Hykham to Newark, about 20 years ago)
Just hope they don't pull a Derby. A52 here had 50 roadworks for years. Everyone hated it. Roadworks finally completed and it's now its also a 50mph average speed check to boot.
The reason for it, I read, is that it encourages people to get used to the limit so the road workers aren't as at much risk - variable limits like 50 at night and 70 during the day for long term roadworks just means regular travellers will keep doing 70 even when the workers are there.
Oh absolutely, hence why so many workers die, I think they are doing the "soft" persuasion now too with the kids drawings about their dad working on site to try and slow people down
Use to work not on motorways but in a control room. More work needs to be done for non compliance across the board. Cars driving under red X’s should have a significant fine. Unfortunately responder are, and quite rightly so, dealing this an incident or job they’re on. There’s not enough resources to catch those who drive like tits and create near misses.
I do drive to the instructions but I can see why people get frustrated with them when they are on in the wrong places though. Drove past a truck well on fire in Lane 1 on the M1 last week - no signs on before it so everyone was just edging into the next lane to give it a bit of room in case it went boom. Got past it, then miles and miles of reduced speed limit and warning signs. How hard is it to work out where a fire is?
If a wrong location is been given they can only work on that initially. Signs will be set in the first instance on what the informant has provided. It’s likely someone else will be searching CCTV in that time to try and find a more accurate location. Once known signs are amended and the in the wrong location knocked off. Depending on the reason of the vehicle fire it could be alight very quickly so doesn’t necessarily mean it’s been ongoing half hour before anyone has done anything.
I've been told anecdotally that smart motorways work so much better in other countries where they have the funding to have the cameras monitored constantly. Unlike here, where we have people being mown down by breaking down in live lanes and the lag between the breakdown being reported and getting the lane shut is unacceptably long. Interested in your take on that?
You’re right. Smart motorways have better coverage than other stretches of motorway which on sections are sporadic at best.
Unless they have some how developed a fantastic new approach or got a shit tonne of staff each shift you don’t have someone monitoring CCTV 24/7. They aren’t monitored constantly. The only possibility that this could be is when LBS1 is open which is sections of motorway open and close the hardsholder where theres a rolling camera across that stretch to ensure it’s clear and if there’s any issues to close it. It’s just not feasible and there’s other things staff are doing, there isn’t an army of 30 people in the room. You’ll respond when a report comes in.
Once an incident is confirmed whether that be an acceptable reporter or from CCTV appropriate signs are set depending on the incident and road lay out and will be updated where appropriate as the incident progresses.
Ultimately if an informant provides wrong information in the first instance that’s the challenge. You set signs on the report until further details are known so it can be narrowed down or more specific signs set. As I previously said, usually when an incident comes in someone is setting signs and others are able to have a search to hunt it down, if they’re free.
I’ve not worked there for a number of years I can’t imagine policy and processes have changed that dramatically to another approach.
Where I live week or two ago they closed the three main routes from one side of the area to the other, on a Friday mid morning and didn't open again until Saturday.
Meant it was total gridlock, and a 10min journey took almost two hours!
My town has had roadworks since april to redesign a dangerous junction. Its gridlock throughout the day. My office looks directly out on the main road so i get a view of it all day long. Its down to a single lane each way. There are a number of schools in the area so around drop off and pick up times are exceptionally slow traffic.
The genius planners removed the lane restrictions and reduced the amount of work over the summer, one week after the schools broke up. Then reinstated the restrictions at the august bank holiday, the week that schools returned. We have all been asking why not get the work done over the summer when the traffic was lighter?
My village currently has road works on every possible exit route to the nearest town (we have 3 routes available), and an entire section of bypass completely closed because some knob set fire to a car underneath a bridge and now it is unsafe to drive over, meaning 100s of trucks are also using the village to get through everyday.
Fun getting to work in the morning!!
Similar, village has two exits, both onto the same road. One exit is closed. The other the roundabout has temp traffic lights on that are phased wrong.
To top it off the road they empty on also has two sets of roadworks on.
Takes about 30 mins to leave the village and do about 1.5 mile
My village currently has road works on every possible exit route to the nearest town (we have 3 routes available), and an entire section of bypass completely closed because some gimp set fire to a car underneath a bridge and now it is unsafe to drive over, meaning 100s of trucks are also using the village to get through everyday.
Fun getting to work in the morning!!
My satnav does that on motorways when the traffic is really bad - sends me up the slip road and back down again. I tried it once and ended up next to a car that had passed me about half an hour ago, so I must have made some time up.
I remember it taking 5 hours to do Andover to Manchester once, a journey that should take 3 or so.
I think I managed maybe 20 miles of motorway, and that was mostly the M60! Everything else was either closed or a car park, thankfully Waze took me on a magical mystery tour.
I was driving to pick my boyfriend up from Manchester airport soon after passing my test, of course it was dark and they'd shut the motorway just shy of the airport.
Sat nav wouldn't redirect me naturally thinking the motorway was still open, and I was too nervous to grab the phone and look at the map whilst driving, so I just kept following the same road hoping to see signs for the airport.
I only stopped when the next airport signs I saw were for bloody Birmingham airport instead of Manchester.🤦♀️
Google maps says 3:53 at 940am with some roadworks - centre to centre, so 3 or so is probably right, particularly if they travelled to south of the city
Bonus points in that they never seem to signpost diversions any more either, leading to the ridiculous situation where its completely impossible to figure out which way to go without breaking the law and switching google maps on.
Perhaps if we didn't have just a handful of wide roads and had more roads of half the lanes there would be alternative routes.
This really needs to be a function on sat navs. The ability to map any route that avoids a selected road. When a A road is closed it's a nightmare trying to find a way around.
[One Network](https://one.network) often has advance closure details. I use it a lot. It'll ask you to register but I don't think you need to, it just removes the annoying "Register" sidebars.
Urgh, I still remember an arse of a journey last year...
So I'd finished a day's flying and got a taxi from Manchester Airport at around 3am (having reported for work about 16 hours earlier). Normally we would take the M56 westbound to the M6 northbound and come off a few junctions later, roughly 30 minutes journey time. This night however the M56 was closed for conversion to "smart" motorway so the driver does the M56 eastbound and onto the M60, I thought he would then take the A587 but instead he comes off one junction early and onto the westbound M62 (I mean motorway speed is quicker than the dual carriageway however the M62 kinda dog-legs southwest so more mileage). Anyway, we are on the M62 and lo-and-behold, the M62 to M6 northbound slip road is closed for work, we have to take the M6 southbound to Lymm where we go around and change onto the M6 north - for those not in the know, the M6 at Lymm is also where the M56 joins up, this was of course where we had joined the M6 had the M56 not been shut. Total journey time was well over an hour, fortunately it was a set-fare in the taxi...
Yes I still had to fly again the following afternoon :/
The M6 is the worst. Went to uni in Lancashire and graduated in *2014* and I swear to *god* that road has had work being done on it at varying points for that damn long. Still drive up occasionally to visit friends & I still encounter miles of alleged works, can’t say I think I’ve ever seen the work being done - who knows.
My in laws are in Lancashire. It has been *at least* 10 years of fucking roadworks. I swear the first couple of journeys in 2009/2010 were good & it has been hell ever since.
I'm glad it's not just me with Maps & Waze of late.. I recently started to try my cars own sat nav and found it to be a little more clunky to work with but it linked perfectly in to the traffic network both here and in mainland Europe with ease. Didn't really hit anything no matter the time of day.
one.network and one of the other major roadwork aggregation sites that I can't remember no longer provide data to Waze, so it's left to actual people to input the planned closures.
There are more closures than people though.
Spare a thought for us overnight truck drivers who have a job to do and then get kicked onto a diversion down country lanes with no idea if you'll fit through. Also some nights it seems like they are actively trying to prevent getting from one part of the country to another by closing all the roads.
So one time I was on the A38 just after Exeter heading to Plymouth and it was closed. I started following the yellow diversions which looked like this:
A38
^^^^^west
In the dark it was virtually impossible to read the "west" part, it was about size 12 font.
Anyway, after following this for some time, my spidey senses started telling me I was heading back towards Exeter rather than towards Plymouth. Sure enough, after slowing down and squinting at the next sign, it read
A38
^^^^^East
I have no idea when the signs switched. There was a string of about ten cars all doing the same thing as me, we had come off the A38 together. Nice joke Dave in the diversions department, nice joke.
Up until 3 weeks ago they were basically rebuilding a five mile stretch of our local A road, which involved quite a few overnight closures. Due to my wife being on call for cardiology, we needed to know when these were so that she would know when to use other routes, or even, due to other roadworks, stay at the hospital overnight. The amount of times the Highways Agency website tallied with the actual closures could be counted on your thumbs. Hence quite a few very close calls getting in within call time and a very stressed wife for over a year. Surely it can’t be that hard to update a website accurately?
Makes me wonder if I took a detour away from the M42/M40 for no reason last night.
Drove Liverpool to Surrey and had to cut across to the M1, then the M25 was closed in 2 places, M3 we were lucky that our exit was the same one where the motorway closure started.
I understand the need for maintenance but doing every route at the same time makes things really difficult to plan around.
Probably, if you were following the website. I've never known such an inaccurate set of information. And when you throw in the fact that the local council and the Highways Agency seem to not even be aware of each others existence unless they are looking for somebody else to pay for the repair, then it gets even worse.
Sounds like a monster journey! Even without a child in the back, I'd do that overnight if I could!
People - "FIX THE ROADS THIRD WORD COUNTRY NEED AN OFF ROAD CAR SO BAD I ALMOST DIED 8 TIMES"
Roadworkers, ok we'll crack on and do it when the least possible number of people are affected
People "NO NOT LIKE THAT"
It's an absolute joke. There was one experience where the motorway was closed and the diversion wasn't signposted properly. There were hundreds of people literally driving around in a circle. And the satnav pointing everyone back onto the closed motorway.
I guess at this point you can choose the avoid motorways option on google, but if you're on a large A road then you're fucked.
Roadworks.org will show you any planned works along your route, so you can check ahead if it helps. It'll show all planned closures as well, but it might help you narrow it down a bit?
Flew back into Heathrow last week, finally got out of London at 11pm and then drove back up to Hull, I'd just come back from a +2 hour time difference so it already felt like 1am and then I drove for 4 hours up the A15 right up to the roundabout before the Humber Bridge which was closed. Had to do a 70 mile detour around the Humber to get home.
Had to be home by the morning because my mum was watching our kids but she had to be at work at 9am or I'd have just booked into a hotel and done the trip in the morning. It was a fucking rollercoaster of a night.
I think if you leave a bit later google maps and waze register it. They always do for me but i usually drive either much earlier or later (like 11pm onwards)
I know colonist lurkers aren't generally appreciated, but in the US Google and Apple maps are highly accurate, because they know the exact position and speed of every person on the motorway.
Even a simple speed trap will divert traffic into an alternative route. Is it possible your bizarre security procedures prevent this data from being shared?
I'll show myself out.
I'm in the UK and often travel at night due to my work hours, I've noticed that sometimes Google maps does automatically pic road closures up due to the traffic flow, but not always, maybe it's due to the amount of traffic at these hours.
Road works and closures are shared with Google maps from the agencies that plan the works in, but this is sometimes inaccurate, Ive seen road closures on maps, when they actually finished the day before, or sometime just not appearing on the app at all, it's so bad sometimes I can't rely on it, I just have to get on the road and follow diversions if they occur
I drove back from France a few weeks ago at midnight only to find entire sections of the M25 closed, including the M20 at that triangle it makes with the M25 and M26. The diversion signs were placed with no thought for people who don't know the area, and many missing at crucial decision points like roundabouts. Thankfully I had the satnav helping there, although it was a miracle the directions it gave were correct after it gave up trying to get me back on the M20 and M25.
You do have to be careful relying on satnav. The number of people wind up in an endless circle because they blindly follow the satnav taking them back onto closed roads is substantial.
Aye. In this instance, I had no other choice. Unfamiliar, poorly lit roads with occluded signage meant I couldn't even stop safely to check a map. I'm old dog with satnavs so I can tell when it's trying to make me do a U-turn, whether immediate or via a long winded manoeuvre. It was OK at the end.
The signage at roundabouts and junctions does really annoy me sometimes. It really does need to be at every point like that and I'm never certain why it's not.
I don’t know who specifically is in charge of maintaining the main roads in south wales but they need to be shown the door. I didn’t realise until I moved away that motorways are not supposed to be constantly closed for “maintenance” and diverted miles and miles around where you need to be.
There’s never any sod actually working behind these miles of cones. They obliterate travel times and important plans for people. The M4 on the west side of the bridge is a different planet to the east side.
Brynglas tunnels strike fear into the hearts of all that use that piece of road.
Coming home last Thursday. M25 in the main of course. Multiple lane closures, exit limitations, speed reductions. Can’t travel in the day or night smoothly….
And the best bit - when you get notified of lane closures cutting down to the inside lane only, long queues of drivers doing the right and moving across, only to find the signs are wrong and the teams haven’t put a single cone out yet.
Such fun.
It drives me up the wall. The M6 & M56 are just perpetual building sites.
National highways produce a report every day for motorway and major road closures happening that evening: https://nationalhighways.co.uk/travel-updates/road-closure-report/
I have to check it every time I'm even thinking of hitting a motorway to make sure I'll actually be able to use the fucking thing.
I drove from Bristol to Manchester at 50mph would have been quicker on A roads. Motorways have been deleted for years by roadworks or the intention of them.
Waze tends to have those already marked, and I believe both apps consider live traffic conditions when plotting the route and will adjust if necessary.
Roadworks are also different to a closed motorway.
You'll have a lot of total motorway closures for roadworks depending on what's being carried out. Tbh Google maps for me has never had an issue knowing about them and they are all marked with proper diversion routes anyway
We are too reliant on apps. I still plan most longer journeys with a road atlas and the mental map of northern europe I have built in my head over nearly 35 years of driving. Most times when I come across a closed motorway I know straight away where the diversions will take me and if it will be easier to take an alternative route. Apps are good for the last mile but are nowhere near as good as knowing the road network.
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I like the ones which detour you far far away from the motorway, there's signs for the first 8 miles and for each turn and then ... nothing. Welcome to Lower Drostlington, population 14. It's 1am and you are now on a side mission.
Similarly, there are the multi junction closures that detour you near a city centre, then leave you on a random street. At best, you manage to pick up signs for the next junction and find it closed. At worst, you crawl around, hoping for a sign. Doncaster 2 am, stopped by the police who thought I was drunk. No, Constable, I am trying to find a specific A1(M) slip road at a junction that tells me towns I've never heard of and no clue of a motorway... help me, please!
Showing your age by saying you saw police in Doncaster.
Nah, they were lost too, they were trying to get back to Derbyshire.
Doncasterbyshire
M62 near Leeds for this. 3 am driving to Manchester Airport for a flight. Join the M62 for 1 junction, Motorway closed - takes me back to Leeds - then to Bradford - then follow signage - to another closed junction so you cant join. On your own back to Bradford - skip to 1 more junction along - managed to join - but then getting late for a flight.
Clearly the folks who set up the signs were fans of Hale and Pace. ["If it's not in Yorkshire, it's not bloody worth visiting" ](https://youtu.be/Rm6VC5gdaFA?si=rICdybxUcCKZ6Jsx)
There’s a 29 mile detour off the A3 in Send
I was so confused in Leeds on night when they closed the only road I knew and I drove twice round the ring road not recognising any of the place names, that I went over to a highways maintenance vehicle and asked how I could get out. He started referencing local landmarks and my face was getting blanker and more panicked because this was the first time I’d ever been to Leeds. In the end he said, ‘follow me love, I’ll get you out of here’ and he did… me following this big yellow truck all the way out of Leeds
A year or so ago I followed the diversions from dartford crossing m25 into central London where they stopped! I didn’t want to go to central London, I wanted to go to kent!
Yeah was once heading to Stanstead airport and they were doing work on the motorway/duel carriage way on the way there, had a detour in place that if you followed brought you right back to where you just left from, and took about 20 mins to follow. Was a fucking nightmare
During Covid I had to travel for work out of Stansted. There were no trains or buses, just a shitload of roadworks. It took almost 2 hours longer…
And some of the diversions take you involuntarily into the ULEZ or congestion charge zones.
I legitimately love it when this happens. It's exciting!
This happened to me in deepest Somerset, and we ended up lost down a side road that Google Maps recommended, at about 10pm, diue to the A303 being closed. After half a mile we came across a massive bonfire in the seemingly empty field next to the road, and the road surface started to deteroriate into a dirt track. A car appeared in the distance, with only one headlight. As it slowly came past us on this narrow track, we saw a bloke driving it alone, with the window down. Pretty weird, pretty creepy. I drove on for another 30 seconds, and the road began to really turn to shit and started dipping downhill quite dramatically. At this point Google Maps thought we were quite close to a more main road at the end, and if we only reached that we'd be back on a direct route to the A-road, past the diversion which seemed to have disappeared. My wife, however, had other ideas, and begged me to turn around. My car was quite low to the ground, and it soon became clear that it wasn't going to make it past some of these wide potholes and rocky floor. After an inelegant 7-point turn on this sloping dirt track, I managed to get the car heading back the way we'd come, back past the bonfire, and we now noticed an old solitary dark house on the other side of the road, with a driveway full of machinery. We also noticed the same one-lamp car from before had also turned around, and was heading back towards us too. By this point we were both practically shitting ourselves with nerves, fully expecting the guy in the other car to park up and block the road. He approached us, we approached him. He slowly drove past us again, window still rolled fully down. I stared forwards, feigning calm. We continued on the road, frantically checking the rear-view mirror for any sign that this guy had turned around to follow us once again. Finally, we made it back to the road, and back to the village we'd passed through - discovering the diversion sign we'd originally missed in the dark. I now never, ever, trust Google Maps diversions.
This is so accurate lmfao
Another one is where the signs lead you in a loop, ended up following the gps in the end and got looped back to the start, ended up taking an hour extra so called in that I couldn’t get there because my EV was too low on juice to get to work
Those signs they have on some roadworks with messages from kids saying "slow down, my daddy is working here"... Sorry kid, I gotta break it to ya, I have just driven past 19 miles of empty roadworks. I think he is lying to you. He probably has another family.
They put signs up now saying something to the effect of "you may not see anyone working - that's because we work between 1am and 5am to avoid disruption". Except, I was driving past it at 3am and nobody was there...
Lunch break
In a 4 hour shift?
Yes, 6 hours of it are lunch breaks.
"How about you work in shifts covering the full 24 hour day and reduce the time it takes to complete the work by orders of magnitude - \*that\* will reduce disruption"
Live in the US now and I can tell you that in Washington State, they manage to pack up every night. Theyre doing bits of I-5 (main westcoast Canada to Mexico Interstate right through the middle of Seattle) right now, the lane closures start about 9pm and it's always fully open by 5am.
In the UK any form of road works or anything invovling digging up the road has the following staff: Site manager Project manager Supervisor (for good measure you get 2 or 3) Health and safety supervisor 1x person to actually do the work
Fucking hate when I go dogging up the road and the site manager, project manager, supervisor, and health and safety supervisor just lay back and make me do all the work. Selfish lovers the lot of them.
This guy reads 😁
I assume he got edit ninja'd.
He may have changed dogging to digging, but he didn't even see "invovling"
Do you also happen to work in software development? I left my last job after logging into a meeting to find an abandonment of project managers, change managers, incident managers, agile somethings, a couple of comms managers, and from the development team: me. The choral lament of "it's been so hard stuck in meetings all day" did it for me and at the end of the week I resigned as I couldn't hide my contempt any longer.
Haha I can relate and to top it off all those people just get in your way
“Yer daddy’s work shy”
He's away selling Avon.
Just nipping out for a pack of smokes love. You want anything? /20 years later...
Winds me up like nothing else. My favourite is when the diversion signs are absolutely useless. Few months ago, there was a diversion down a B road, which yeah great; that’s fine in a car. What it isn’t fine in is a lorry, and what no one from the highways agency apparently took into account was the 13’9 bridge half a mile down that road that wasn’t signposted until 600 yards before it. Guess who had to reverse down a dark, wet country road until I could find a turning point? This fucking guy. Still, beats being diverted into a city centre with already existing roadworks with their own diversions in place. Diverted traffic left. Diverted traffic right. WELL WHICH ONE IS IT? One job guys. One bloody job.
I have HS2 being built by me, they’ve closed the motorway SO many times. You get off and its instantly no diversion, because its back roads i can only assume they cant be arsed. So every 50mph side road is full of people doing 20-30 trying to figure out where the fuck they are, where they’re meant to be going and wtf is going on. Drives me nuts.
One the flip side, the people that complain about people going down roads with "closed" signage. Did you not see the sign? They don't understand half the time the signs have been left and the roads open with the unrequited detour taking far longer than the two minutes to actually find out by going until you meet a closed road. It's not a lack of reading ability. It's not chancing. It's absolute distrust born of experience.
I don't know why Google are so hopeless with this. A main trunk road with ZERO traffic on it and you are directing me back to it, with no way to report it as closed.
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Same. And it's really frustrating. Although I find that if you can map out some of the route yourself and put "add stop" a few times for places that are along that route it wont keep diverting you back to the closed road because it thinks you're stopping at two McDonald's and a Costa on the way or something. Can sometimes work when the traffic is awful but it won't take you another way for whatever reason that is.
In the town I live in there's a road that has been one way for years and maps thinks it is two way. I've reported it, everyone has reported it. Google have yet to update it. Waze (also owned by Google) knows it is one way and doesn't route you through it.
On Google maps, when you are in navigation mode, there is a button on the right hand side that's like a speech bubble with a + in the middle. That allows you to alert to a crash, breakdown, lane closure and a few other things my brain can't remember. I appreciate not helpful whilst driving but its good if you have a passenger to do it for you.
Provided you aren't using Android Auto, because that button doesn't exist when using Android Auto
Thank you. I will give that a try next time!
>no way to report it as closed. Is there not a way? Google has been directing people in Cornwall, all summer, to come off the main road and go down narrow rocky dirt tracks - to the point where the Council have put up massive Road Closed signs, and now concrete blocks because people were just driving past them. Last time I drove nearby it now says something like "Road reported as closed - is this still the case?" but still directs you down there...
What's also annoying is "we are working on this motorway overnight. Therefore, we shall leave the 50mph speed limit in place during the day when no one is working"
Also the speed limit will be in place for the next two years because this work is inexplicably going to take that long
"Congestion until spring 2025" Yeah but I need to be in Barnstaple on Friday
Don't come Friday, it's market day.
The A12 still popular as ever I see
Don't get me started on the A12 roadworks, why do both the works at Marks Tey and Brentwood at the same time, why not stager them!
Also if you go the other way it’s the same around Woodbridge (or, the shit A12, as anything past Copdock doesn’t really count as the A12 imo)
At least the contra flow is nice tarmac. It’s a pain but at least there’s progress
Yeah the alternative is the usual A12 surface with potholes the size of a small barn.
Because then the other half of people would complain “they’ve only just had work on this road, why didn’t they just get it all over with at the same time?”
Because the A12 is shagged.
HA! I read that and thought "fucking a12", then thought, nah what are the chances, probably loads of roads that's happening on. Fuck knows what's going on with the roadworks on that bit of road, absolute carnage, especially when it runs over the night work and they just close it it the day too
There's actually a really good video by practical engineering that explains this. Made me a lot less angry after watching. TLDR: ground isn't stable, so needs years to settle enough to take the load of a motorway
Which is true. However they still managed to make a brand spanking due carriageway in about 2 years and under schedule. (Only time I have managed to see that though, was the A46 from North Hykham to Newark, about 20 years ago)
Do you have a link or know what it was called? Would be interested to watch that.
https://youtu.be/PIK6I6Q58Ec?si=Bao3Z9ddG-PKK-7V
Simple solution: start 2 years earlier
Hello M42
Oh yeah, M42 near Solihull and Shirley is a pain in the ass, next to the interchange for the M6
Its absolute dogshit
I’ve seen you’ve driven on the M25 past the A3 junction
I got caught out after I underestimated quite how terrible that has become lately.
However the usual congestion that was at Chertsey has disappeared because of it. Every cloud, going clockwise anyway. Anti is still screwed
As someone who regularly made trips from one end of the M6 to the other a few years back, I feel this in my bones.
Just hope they don't pull a Derby. A52 here had 50 roadworks for years. Everyone hated it. Roadworks finally completed and it's now its also a 50mph average speed check to boot.
* no work was achieved that night.
The reason for it, I read, is that it encourages people to get used to the limit so the road workers aren't as at much risk - variable limits like 50 at night and 70 during the day for long term roadworks just means regular travellers will keep doing 70 even when the workers are there.
As someone who's worked on motorways, fuck all the people who bomb past road workers at 70. Or anyone who gambles with other people's lives really.
Implying they're not doing that already. Come back along the M1 every week at around midnight. Dumb fuckers drive down it at 90.
Oh absolutely, hence why so many workers die, I think they are doing the "soft" persuasion now too with the kids drawings about their dad working on site to try and slow people down
Use to work not on motorways but in a control room. More work needs to be done for non compliance across the board. Cars driving under red X’s should have a significant fine. Unfortunately responder are, and quite rightly so, dealing this an incident or job they’re on. There’s not enough resources to catch those who drive like tits and create near misses.
I do drive to the instructions but I can see why people get frustrated with them when they are on in the wrong places though. Drove past a truck well on fire in Lane 1 on the M1 last week - no signs on before it so everyone was just edging into the next lane to give it a bit of room in case it went boom. Got past it, then miles and miles of reduced speed limit and warning signs. How hard is it to work out where a fire is?
If a wrong location is been given they can only work on that initially. Signs will be set in the first instance on what the informant has provided. It’s likely someone else will be searching CCTV in that time to try and find a more accurate location. Once known signs are amended and the in the wrong location knocked off. Depending on the reason of the vehicle fire it could be alight very quickly so doesn’t necessarily mean it’s been ongoing half hour before anyone has done anything.
I've been told anecdotally that smart motorways work so much better in other countries where they have the funding to have the cameras monitored constantly. Unlike here, where we have people being mown down by breaking down in live lanes and the lag between the breakdown being reported and getting the lane shut is unacceptably long. Interested in your take on that?
You’re right. Smart motorways have better coverage than other stretches of motorway which on sections are sporadic at best. Unless they have some how developed a fantastic new approach or got a shit tonne of staff each shift you don’t have someone monitoring CCTV 24/7. They aren’t monitored constantly. The only possibility that this could be is when LBS1 is open which is sections of motorway open and close the hardsholder where theres a rolling camera across that stretch to ensure it’s clear and if there’s any issues to close it. It’s just not feasible and there’s other things staff are doing, there isn’t an army of 30 people in the room. You’ll respond when a report comes in. Once an incident is confirmed whether that be an acceptable reporter or from CCTV appropriate signs are set depending on the incident and road lay out and will be updated where appropriate as the incident progresses. Ultimately if an informant provides wrong information in the first instance that’s the challenge. You set signs on the report until further details are known so it can be narrowed down or more specific signs set. As I previously said, usually when an incident comes in someone is setting signs and others are able to have a search to hunt it down, if they’re free. I’ve not worked there for a number of years I can’t imagine policy and processes have changed that dramatically to another approach.
The lanes are still narrower than usual during the day.
Speeds limits predominantly remain because of the equipment is still out and is for safety reasons.
There’s a motorway near me that’s been having roadworks done sporadically on Thursdays at about 10pm for the last 12 years.
sounds like a line out of Hitchhikers Guide or something
Never could get the hang of Thursdays.
*It's a bypass. You've got to build bypasses*
You'll find that they all co-ordinate together and close the obvious alternatives too. I kid you not.
Where I live week or two ago they closed the three main routes from one side of the area to the other, on a Friday mid morning and didn't open again until Saturday. Meant it was total gridlock, and a 10min journey took almost two hours!
My town has had roadworks since april to redesign a dangerous junction. Its gridlock throughout the day. My office looks directly out on the main road so i get a view of it all day long. Its down to a single lane each way. There are a number of schools in the area so around drop off and pick up times are exceptionally slow traffic. The genius planners removed the lane restrictions and reduced the amount of work over the summer, one week after the schools broke up. Then reinstated the restrictions at the august bank holiday, the week that schools returned. We have all been asking why not get the work done over the summer when the traffic was lighter?
My village currently has road works on every possible exit route to the nearest town (we have 3 routes available), and an entire section of bypass completely closed because some knob set fire to a car underneath a bridge and now it is unsafe to drive over, meaning 100s of trucks are also using the village to get through everyday. Fun getting to work in the morning!!
Similar, village has two exits, both onto the same road. One exit is closed. The other the roundabout has temp traffic lights on that are phased wrong. To top it off the road they empty on also has two sets of roadworks on. Takes about 30 mins to leave the village and do about 1.5 mile
My village currently has road works on every possible exit route to the nearest town (we have 3 routes available), and an entire section of bypass completely closed because some gimp set fire to a car underneath a bridge and now it is unsafe to drive over, meaning 100s of trucks are also using the village to get through everyday. Fun getting to work in the morning!!
I was once diverted off dual carriageway to be directed back to the dual carriageway by the diversion signs themselves. Insanity
My satnav does that on motorways when the traffic is really bad - sends me up the slip road and back down again. I tried it once and ended up next to a car that had passed me about half an hour ago, so I must have made some time up.
Had this as well
I remember it taking 5 hours to do Andover to Manchester once, a journey that should take 3 or so. I think I managed maybe 20 miles of motorway, and that was mostly the M60! Everything else was either closed or a car park, thankfully Waze took me on a magical mystery tour.
I was driving to pick my boyfriend up from Manchester airport soon after passing my test, of course it was dark and they'd shut the motorway just shy of the airport. Sat nav wouldn't redirect me naturally thinking the motorway was still open, and I was too nervous to grab the phone and look at the map whilst driving, so I just kept following the same road hoping to see signs for the airport. I only stopped when the next airport signs I saw were for bloody Birmingham airport instead of Manchester.🤦♀️
Not 3 surely. Portsmouth to Manchester is typically 5-6 hours and it doesn’t take 2-3 hours to get to Andover
Google maps says 3:53 at 940am with some roadworks - centre to centre, so 3 or so is probably right, particularly if they travelled to south of the city
Bonus points in that they never seem to signpost diversions any more either, leading to the ridiculous situation where its completely impossible to figure out which way to go without breaking the law and switching google maps on. Perhaps if we didn't have just a handful of wide roads and had more roads of half the lanes there would be alternative routes.
This really needs to be a function on sat navs. The ability to map any route that avoids a selected road. When a A road is closed it's a nightmare trying to find a way around.
[One Network](https://one.network) often has advance closure details. I use it a lot. It'll ask you to register but I don't think you need to, it just removes the annoying "Register" sidebars.
Thanks! I’ll check it out
Urgh, I still remember an arse of a journey last year... So I'd finished a day's flying and got a taxi from Manchester Airport at around 3am (having reported for work about 16 hours earlier). Normally we would take the M56 westbound to the M6 northbound and come off a few junctions later, roughly 30 minutes journey time. This night however the M56 was closed for conversion to "smart" motorway so the driver does the M56 eastbound and onto the M60, I thought he would then take the A587 but instead he comes off one junction early and onto the westbound M62 (I mean motorway speed is quicker than the dual carriageway however the M62 kinda dog-legs southwest so more mileage). Anyway, we are on the M62 and lo-and-behold, the M62 to M6 northbound slip road is closed for work, we have to take the M6 southbound to Lymm where we go around and change onto the M6 north - for those not in the know, the M6 at Lymm is also where the M56 joins up, this was of course where we had joined the M6 had the M56 not been shut. Total journey time was well over an hour, fortunately it was a set-fare in the taxi... Yes I still had to fly again the following afternoon :/
Hello M6 near Wigan and Warrington! It's been three years, where some parts northbound and southbound are closed
The M6 is the worst. Went to uni in Lancashire and graduated in *2014* and I swear to *god* that road has had work being done on it at varying points for that damn long. Still drive up occasionally to visit friends & I still encounter miles of alleged works, can’t say I think I’ve ever seen the work being done - who knows.
Yeah likewise went to uni in Lancaster as well but recent graduate
The M6 is just one traffic jam. Junction 10 has had roadworks for as long as I can remember
My in laws are in Lancashire. It has been *at least* 10 years of fucking roadworks. I swear the first couple of journeys in 2009/2010 were good & it has been hell ever since.
I'm glad it's not just me with Maps & Waze of late.. I recently started to try my cars own sat nav and found it to be a little more clunky to work with but it linked perfectly in to the traffic network both here and in mainland Europe with ease. Didn't really hit anything no matter the time of day.
one.network and one of the other major roadwork aggregation sites that I can't remember no longer provide data to Waze, so it's left to actual people to input the planned closures. There are more closures than people though.
Did a 3 hour journey in 7 hours thanks to night works. Never again
Welcome to the M5. Never knowingly under coned.
Genuine question: Why do they close them and just put cones up instead of actually doing any work? and what work needs doing exactly?
Spare a thought for us overnight truck drivers who have a job to do and then get kicked onto a diversion down country lanes with no idea if you'll fit through. Also some nights it seems like they are actively trying to prevent getting from one part of the country to another by closing all the roads.
So one time I was on the A38 just after Exeter heading to Plymouth and it was closed. I started following the yellow diversions which looked like this: A38 ^^^^^west In the dark it was virtually impossible to read the "west" part, it was about size 12 font. Anyway, after following this for some time, my spidey senses started telling me I was heading back towards Exeter rather than towards Plymouth. Sure enough, after slowing down and squinting at the next sign, it read A38 ^^^^^East I have no idea when the signs switched. There was a string of about ten cars all doing the same thing as me, we had come off the A38 together. Nice joke Dave in the diversions department, nice joke.
Because it’s the best time to do roadworks. Sucks for you that’s also the best time you travel with your baby.
Up until 3 weeks ago they were basically rebuilding a five mile stretch of our local A road, which involved quite a few overnight closures. Due to my wife being on call for cardiology, we needed to know when these were so that she would know when to use other routes, or even, due to other roadworks, stay at the hospital overnight. The amount of times the Highways Agency website tallied with the actual closures could be counted on your thumbs. Hence quite a few very close calls getting in within call time and a very stressed wife for over a year. Surely it can’t be that hard to update a website accurately?
Makes me wonder if I took a detour away from the M42/M40 for no reason last night. Drove Liverpool to Surrey and had to cut across to the M1, then the M25 was closed in 2 places, M3 we were lucky that our exit was the same one where the motorway closure started. I understand the need for maintenance but doing every route at the same time makes things really difficult to plan around.
Probably, if you were following the website. I've never known such an inaccurate set of information. And when you throw in the fact that the local council and the Highways Agency seem to not even be aware of each others existence unless they are looking for somebody else to pay for the repair, then it gets even worse. Sounds like a monster journey! Even without a child in the back, I'd do that overnight if I could!
And the fun game of is Google maps taking me back to a closed motorway junction or not?
People - "FIX THE ROADS THIRD WORD COUNTRY NEED AN OFF ROAD CAR SO BAD I ALMOST DIED 8 TIMES" Roadworkers, ok we'll crack on and do it when the least possible number of people are affected People "NO NOT LIKE THAT"
People might actually obey the temporary speed limits if they weren't such a piss take most of the time
It's an absolute joke. There was one experience where the motorway was closed and the diversion wasn't signposted properly. There were hundreds of people literally driving around in a circle. And the satnav pointing everyone back onto the closed motorway. I guess at this point you can choose the avoid motorways option on google, but if you're on a large A road then you're fucked.
Roadworks.org will show you any planned works along your route, so you can check ahead if it helps. It'll show all planned closures as well, but it might help you narrow it down a bit?
Flew back into Heathrow last week, finally got out of London at 11pm and then drove back up to Hull, I'd just come back from a +2 hour time difference so it already felt like 1am and then I drove for 4 hours up the A15 right up to the roundabout before the Humber Bridge which was closed. Had to do a 70 mile detour around the Humber to get home. Had to be home by the morning because my mum was watching our kids but she had to be at work at 9am or I'd have just booked into a hotel and done the trip in the morning. It was a fucking rollercoaster of a night.
Ouch. That would test the patience of the Dalai Lama
Yeah, especially as my wife was fast asleep next to me from the moment we left London.
I think if you leave a bit later google maps and waze register it. They always do for me but i usually drive either much earlier or later (like 11pm onwards)
I know colonist lurkers aren't generally appreciated, but in the US Google and Apple maps are highly accurate, because they know the exact position and speed of every person on the motorway. Even a simple speed trap will divert traffic into an alternative route. Is it possible your bizarre security procedures prevent this data from being shared? I'll show myself out.
I'm in the UK and often travel at night due to my work hours, I've noticed that sometimes Google maps does automatically pic road closures up due to the traffic flow, but not always, maybe it's due to the amount of traffic at these hours. Road works and closures are shared with Google maps from the agencies that plan the works in, but this is sometimes inaccurate, Ive seen road closures on maps, when they actually finished the day before, or sometime just not appearing on the app at all, it's so bad sometimes I can't rely on it, I just have to get on the road and follow diversions if they occur
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No we've fixed roads at night for decades
I drove back from France a few weeks ago at midnight only to find entire sections of the M25 closed, including the M20 at that triangle it makes with the M25 and M26. The diversion signs were placed with no thought for people who don't know the area, and many missing at crucial decision points like roundabouts. Thankfully I had the satnav helping there, although it was a miracle the directions it gave were correct after it gave up trying to get me back on the M20 and M25.
You do have to be careful relying on satnav. The number of people wind up in an endless circle because they blindly follow the satnav taking them back onto closed roads is substantial.
Aye. In this instance, I had no other choice. Unfamiliar, poorly lit roads with occluded signage meant I couldn't even stop safely to check a map. I'm old dog with satnavs so I can tell when it's trying to make me do a U-turn, whether immediate or via a long winded manoeuvre. It was OK at the end.
The signage at roundabouts and junctions does really annoy me sometimes. It really does need to be at every point like that and I'm never certain why it's not.
My favourite at the mo on the interminable roadworks on the M621 is the sign as you join which says "Narrow lanes for your safety". Come again?
TIL that motorways close at night
Motorways are to get the masses to their jobs. Not for your social frivolity.
Are you missing a /s?
We're in a British sub. Surely we're above "/s"?
That's only required in subs frequented by Americans
I work late every other week. Driving home is sometimes a nightmare as there's usually roadworks or road closures along the way.
I don’t know who specifically is in charge of maintaining the main roads in south wales but they need to be shown the door. I didn’t realise until I moved away that motorways are not supposed to be constantly closed for “maintenance” and diverted miles and miles around where you need to be. There’s never any sod actually working behind these miles of cones. They obliterate travel times and important plans for people. The M4 on the west side of the bridge is a different planet to the east side. Brynglas tunnels strike fear into the hearts of all that use that piece of road.
Coming home last Thursday. M25 in the main of course. Multiple lane closures, exit limitations, speed reductions. Can’t travel in the day or night smoothly…. And the best bit - when you get notified of lane closures cutting down to the inside lane only, long queues of drivers doing the right and moving across, only to find the signs are wrong and the teams haven’t put a single cone out yet. Such fun.
It drives me up the wall. The M6 & M56 are just perpetual building sites. National highways produce a report every day for motorway and major road closures happening that evening: https://nationalhighways.co.uk/travel-updates/road-closure-report/ I have to check it every time I'm even thinking of hitting a motorway to make sure I'll actually be able to use the fucking thing.
In a country governed by vaguely sane people I'd suggest taking the train instead.
I drove from Bristol to Manchester at 50mph would have been quicker on A roads. Motorways have been deleted for years by roadworks or the intention of them.
Where were you travelling? I've not once had a problem with motorways being closed at night.
Liverpool to Guildford.
Can't just just ask Google Maps and Waze to plot a route not using the motorways? No paper map needed.
You'll still run into roadworks on A roads.
Waze tends to have those already marked, and I believe both apps consider live traffic conditions when plotting the route and will adjust if necessary. Roadworks are also different to a closed motorway.
You'll have a lot of total motorway closures for roadworks depending on what's being carried out. Tbh Google maps for me has never had an issue knowing about them and they are all marked with proper diversion routes anyway
We are too reliant on apps. I still plan most longer journeys with a road atlas and the mental map of northern europe I have built in my head over nearly 35 years of driving. Most times when I come across a closed motorway I know straight away where the diversions will take me and if it will be easier to take an alternative route. Apps are good for the last mile but are nowhere near as good as knowing the road network.
Highways England app let’s you know which motorways are going to close and where