M1 FENCE BLOCKS VIEW - DUMBING DOWN CONTINUES
16:00 - 01 March 2004
Work was starting today on a £100,000 fence along part of the M1 - to stop drivers crashing when distracted by a nearby river.
Minor accidents and traffic jams have been caused by drivers slowing down to look at the River Trent, especially when it floods, as it runs near junctions 25 to 24a on the southbound M1, claims the Highways Agency.
Work was starting today on the wooden fence, 1.2 metres tall and 600 metres long, to screen the river from drivers between the junctions.
It is expected to take three weeks to put up, weather permitting.
The southbound hard shoulder will be closed during the day and the inside lane will be closed overnight from 10pm to 6am.
John Warner, Highways Agency route manager, said: "The problem is that drivers slow down as they try to look at the flooding."
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Any bets on when the first vehicle hits the fence?
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Any bets on when the first vehicle hits the fence?
Before it's completed.
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Might even get people stopping to have a look at what's on the other side of the fence...
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the grass is greener on the other side!
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M1 FENCE BLOCKS VIEW - DUMBING DOWN CONTINUES 16:00 - 01 March 2004 Work was starting today on a £100,000 fence along part of the M1 - to stop drivers crashing when distracted by a nearby river.
Seems like an awful lot of money to spend on something that can only be described as mollycoddling the motorist. Whatever next? Perhaps you could put a roof over all roads so that motorists are not distracted by planes, helicopters etc.! If motorists can't keep their eyes on the road, then perhaps they should not be driving at all?
--
L'escargot by name, but not by nature.
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£100,000 600m fence. Sounds like a good money spinner to me!
Of course Helicopter can be very distracting....:)
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At the roundabout feeding J9 M25 to Gatwick you do not get a view of the roundabout traffic until you have just about stoped due to tall fences deliberately errected to spoil you view.
Sprinting into traffic is supposed to improve road safety?
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Henry - In pedant mode I would say that if you are referring to J9 of M25 at Leatherhead I suppose you can get to Gatwick from there eventually.
Gatport Airwick is on a spur off the M23 Junction 9 not a million miles from where yours truly is sat at this moment.
'Perhaps you could put a roof over all roads so that motorists are not distracted by planes, helicopters etc.'
If that comment applies anywhere it applies to Gatwick at that junction - sometimes the planes are so low I have tyre marks on the car roof! Honest!
It is fun watching them landing when theres a crosswind (except when you are the pilot.)
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Henry - In pedant mode I would say that if you are referring to J9 of M25 at Leatherhead I suppose you can get to Gatwick from there eventually.
Thanks - brain now in gear.
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£100,000 600m fence. Sounds like a good money spinner to me!
I think it's being installed by a plumber....
::Ducks and scarpers::
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I'm not sure whether this might be seen as political, if it is, I apologise and please delete, but I do think it's motoring related.
So many of our roads are in an awful state, and the excuse is that the money doiesn't exist to repair them all, but when you see the prices quoted for various schemes, it's mind-blowing.
£100,000 for a fence????
A roundabout was recently built on my home-town, the cost £1 million. A million for a roundabout? Can we really believe that it costs the same to build a roundabout as for 4 luxurious, fully fitted out 4 bedroom houses (in this area)?
Can anyone sugggest a cost breakdown for this?
It seems to me that there must be so much wastage, so much over charging and contracting and sub-contracting, that the cost is blown out of all proportion to the task being performed.
At a reasonable cost, 5 times as much work could be done to our roads for the same costs, but of course the people spending the money don't care, as it isn't their money they're spending.
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I think roofs over roads is an excellent idea as it will prevent aquaplaning.
Will we get passageways under roads for snails to use too? They can be as distracting as helicopters.
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We already have passageways for badgers , toads , greater crested newts etc so one for snails should be just around the corner.We used to have to tender for these sort of things regularly when I worked in Civil Engineering.
As an aside , the cost of this fence is not so high when you consider the height.
It has to be to effectively screen the view. If its anything like on the M25 we have something up to 30 ft high and that requires pretty hefty steel beam posts going a long way down. Holes are dug with very specialist augers by skilled men working generally on overtime at night in dangerous conditions on the side of a motorway. The timber is vey solid and thick , not your garden larch lap and of course the contractor has to make a profit.
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heli - Sooty reports that the fence is only 1.2m =4ft tall. I suppose that is a little above eye level in an ordinary car, but it's hardly an obstacle for buck and truss drivers, is it? And what about the cost?
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Bazzabear and ND really have hit the point.
Now, it should be said that most civil engineering needs pretty high standards if it is to last the course. There is probably more to building a roundabout that meets the eye, for example, although £1M will still bring tears to said organ.
However, this ('ere) fence is for screening only. It is not intended to restrain juggernauts. It just needs to be (a) opaque and (b) upright. So £167 per metre is ridiculous. That is over £300 for each 6 foot panel.
Now, working on the usual assumption that there are 40 million taxpayers and each household has a few, that is about a penny per household, for just one job. And we know what happens when you look after the pennies.
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Well, having queued for almost two hours to get from Sheffield to Nottingham the other Christmas, I must say that I really do think this is worthwhile. I was busy looking at the cars in front, and my wife told me that it must have been drivers watching the river that had slowed us down. To be frank, I didn't believe her, but it's now been confirmed.
Imbecilic behaviour, if you ask me, but a fence should stop it and prevent a 40 mile tailback when there's been a bit of rain.
Whether a fence should cost £100K, I don't know.
V
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This raises a thorny point. If you get stuck in a traffic jam at this spot in the future, you may have to ::deep breath: have a conversation with or look at SWMBO!
It'll never do. I'm writing to my MP.
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I wonder why no one has thought of a fence along the A303 past Stonehenge,much cheaper than a tunnel and would work both ways,ie stop accidents when drivers rubberneck,and screen visitors to the stones from noise and sight of traffic.
ndbw
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Has anyone considered the snow-drifting consequences of the fence/wall?
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Probably. The consultant's fee for doing the analysis was £99,000. The other £1,000 is for putting the fence up.
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some bright spark will probably think the new fence looks drab, and one night, may suprise you all,and brighten your journey up by painting a "muriel" on it, probably a nice river scene! :-)
billy
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I think fences look nice...
Put a new one up in my garden last year. On one side of it. The other needs doing though...
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nitroburner,
cant you "persuade" neighbours on one side that the fence is theirs, and needs replacing, then do the same with neighbours on "other" side. :-)
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Not surprised you only managed one side. Apparently the price of fencing has sky-rocketed recently ;)
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