Roadworks. We all hate 'em, but we know they're a necessary evil - if you want your water, gas, electricity, phones (internet) to keep working, your roads not to get completely undriveable, and bridges not to collapse on the roads, you need a certain amount of maintenance.
Recently, though, I've been seeing a problem with - er - pavementworks being signed as if they're roadworks; that is, work being carried out on the pavement (sidewalk) is marked up with 'roadworks' and 'road narrows' signs.
Except that the road doesn't narrow. Often I've seen it marked up where pedestrians - even wheelchair users - can get past the roadworks without having the leave the pavement. This is annoying because for a moment it distracts you, as a driver - where's the hazard I have to look out for? Is it round the next corner? Hang on, I can see triangular signs facing the other way on the other side of the road, it must be between here and there somewhere... oh there it is, right out of the way, not a hazard at all.
I've also been seeing something disturbing, though. In, I presume, an effort not to block the pavement with the (unnecessary) signs, the signs are being placed with one leg on the pavement, one on the roadway. This effectively reduces the width of the carriageway, requiring more care.
Finally, this morning, on my way out of Charvil to Twyford to pick Ian up, I found the roadsigns right in the middle of the carriageway, requiring that I drive on the wrong side of the road - the irony being that the sign in the middle of the left-hand carriageway is warning about the road narrowing on the right. Well, yes it does now narrow on the right - because you put a bloody sign in the middle of the road!! Sadly, there was no sign warning me of the road narrowing on the left due to the sign in the middle of the bloody road! This went beyond annoying, it was downright dangerous.
This site is prone to traffic jams anyway - the one this morning hadn't tailed back that far, but it was far enough that after picking Ian up I turned round and headed back down the same bloody road to get back to the A4.
When I came back this evening the signs had reoccupied their usual station half-on, half-off the carriageway. They're still completely pointless.
2 comments:
Not knowing the area at all..... is it possible that the signs were moved by that well known road hazard... the student/pissed-up-teenager?
Monday morning? Yes, quite likely. However, if the signs hadn't been there in the first place, they couldn't have ended up in the road.
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