This morning, whilst driving down the M1 towards Hemel Hempstead, I was so annoyed by the variable speed limits on the stretch from Milton Keynes South to Luton that I thought I’d vent my frustration with a blog post.
In the run up towards 9am this morning, having been in stop/start traffic from junction 16 all the way to 14, the traffic finally started flowing and I could get up to speed. Just in case you don’t know, the variable speed limits on the M1 start just before junction 13 - at about 9:05 I arrived at the first activated gantry sign.
From some distance I could tell that the variable limit was posted but until I was a little closer I couldn’t tell what it was. In preparation I moved out of the fast lane into the middle lane and started to slow the car.
Despite the traffic being light, the gantry at junction 13 had 40mph posted. That meant a deceleration of 20-30 miles per hour for every vehicle on the motorway - and over just a few hundred yards. I pulled into the slow lane and applied the brakes and watched the rear view mirror as an articulated truck barrelled down on me and then pulled out into the middle lane and overtook me.
What the hell do you do in these instances, the safe thing would be to maintain speed but that could get you a fine and penalty points (thanks to the gantry mounted speed cameras). Instead you slow down and in doing so create a concertina that massively increases the chance of an accident (and that’s what the variable speed limits are supposed to avoid). Bloody stupid!
What really pissed me off was that having got on the anchors, the gantry 100 yards further on was posting a change in variable limit to 60. That meant most around me went straight from ‘brakes on’ to the accelerator back down! How can that be safe?
After this debacle, the variable limits were posted at 60 all the way the Luton (jnct. 10). The traffic was light enough that the variable limits should have been switched off altogether. The cars around me were accelerating to the next gantry sign, slowing down past it and then accelerating to the next one etc. Did this make the road safer – of course not!
I can only assume that the limit signs are on some kind of timer because if some human was judging when to change them or switch them off, they need sacking or some further training!
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In the run up towards 9am this morning, having been in stop/start traffic from junction 16 all the way to 14, the traffic finally started flowing and I could get up to speed. Just in case you don’t know, the variable speed limits on the M1 start just before junction 13 - at about 9:05 I arrived at the first activated gantry sign.
From some distance I could tell that the variable limit was posted but until I was a little closer I couldn’t tell what it was. In preparation I moved out of the fast lane into the middle lane and started to slow the car.
Despite the traffic being light, the gantry at junction 13 had 40mph posted. That meant a deceleration of 20-30 miles per hour for every vehicle on the motorway - and over just a few hundred yards. I pulled into the slow lane and applied the brakes and watched the rear view mirror as an articulated truck barrelled down on me and then pulled out into the middle lane and overtook me.
What the hell do you do in these instances, the safe thing would be to maintain speed but that could get you a fine and penalty points (thanks to the gantry mounted speed cameras). Instead you slow down and in doing so create a concertina that massively increases the chance of an accident (and that’s what the variable speed limits are supposed to avoid). Bloody stupid!
What really pissed me off was that having got on the anchors, the gantry 100 yards further on was posting a change in variable limit to 60. That meant most around me went straight from ‘brakes on’ to the accelerator back down! How can that be safe?
After this debacle, the variable limits were posted at 60 all the way the Luton (jnct. 10). The traffic was light enough that the variable limits should have been switched off altogether. The cars around me were accelerating to the next gantry sign, slowing down past it and then accelerating to the next one etc. Did this make the road safer – of course not!
I can only assume that the limit signs are on some kind of timer because if some human was judging when to change them or switch them off, they need sacking or some further training!
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