The Witham by-pass seems to be closed due to an accident more than it is open these days.

Having recently moved to colchester have noticed all the cameras and adjusted to the lower limit. wasn,t much faster anyway.....

As someone posted about the extension of avg speed cameras in another post, In wales we had them on the heads of the valleys road A465 and more recently around newport and port talbot M4 and both are twisty bits especially newport with the bends hill and the tunnel.

Slow down, save money, don't pay the taxman...

allegedlt there is a future project to have a man with a flag walking in front of all motor vehicles.

Spot on.

I have family in Colchester and have driven the A12 for 25 years. It was bearable 20 years ago, although the surface was a washboard from Chelmsford onwards, ground down by freight heading to Harwich Port. It's has got busier every year since.

Colchester's population has doubled in 15 years, for the well-known reasons, with no real investment made to cope with it - example, Colchester General Hospital, now in 'special measures' as the staff are run-ragged accomodating a population of 180,000 when it was originally specc'd for 90,000.

The Hatfield Peveral junction onto the A12 Northbound is a strong candidate for worst blackspot in the UK. Its a ridiculously short entry slip, on a near-blind corner so A12 drivers dont see the car arriving until very late, and the car joining doesnt see the main road either. To cap it all, there's someones driveway at the end of it, and a bus stop. You couldnt make it up.

re: the AVS cams, they mightve been justified for traffic control measures as much as speed limit enforcement. There's growing evidence that AWS cams help traffic to flow, and stop the dangerous 'concertina' effect.

Roll on M12, or A12(m).

You've got to love the self righteous camera fans on here. No one is saying that they want to drive at stupidly high speeds but the cameras are there to catch you out even for minor transgressions or (gasp!) human error.

The 6 mile long 50mph (camera controlled of course) stretch near me is becoming a massive bottleneck - mainly because a wagon in the inside lane doing 45mph dictates the speed of the outside lane - as people seem reluctant to go anywher near 50,let alone slightly over!

Hence, 6 miles of crawling traffic, which takes several miles to sort itself out after the roadworks!

And the kick in the teeth - the cameras and cones have been out 6 weeks, not a dot of work has been done yet.

With regard to the A127, the bit into Southend between the A130 and Southend is full of junctions with traffic lights, houses directly onto the road etc.

It is all the junctions which hold you up - not speed cameras. Most of it is 50 with reducing to 40 and 30 towards Southend. You hardly ever get to do those speeds anyway and, frankly, 50 is quite fast enough for most of it.

The bit between the A130 and M25 is also usually full of traffic which prevents progress and, like the A12, has junctions directly off it.

I can't see how cameras have made any difference to the progress, or lack of it, you can make on that road.