The same thought crossed my mind on the M1 at the weekend. 15 - 20 miles of 50mph on a 4 lane stretch, no workers, for much of the distance the work looked completed. Who's safety were we protecting?

Get on to the highways agency perhaps they could tell you

Cannot comment on your particular case as I do not know the facts but this reminds me of a situation a few years ago on the M11 near Harlow. Sunday morning - one motorway lane coned off - no one working and a 40 mph speed limit for several miles. Believe me I tried my hardest to stick below 40 mph but felt a bit silly with everyone overtaking me and ended up drifting up to 50 mph (which seemed a safe speed) and getting a speeding ticket. It still bugs me even now as I guess a lot of cars got done for speeding in what in my opinion was an artificially low and unreasonable speed limit.

I'm sure it wouldn't take much to use a system like the variable speed limit that some parts of the country now have. The signs could be changed to reflect whether road works are in operation at that time of day. May be more pressure from members of the public might make them have a re-think. Also one issue might be that temporary road markings might be in use so although no workers the roads might not be as well marked out as they should be or uneven road surfaces. but as other say with cones cleared and road returned to normal operation they should be able to increase the speed limit????

There are no temporary road markings the road has not been touched, they are just replacing the street lighting. I agree if the speed limit on a motorway can be varied by an electronic sign then I am sure there is not as much paperwork to remove a speed limit during the day. If it is an admin issue they should change the sign from "The speed limit remains in place for your safety" to "The speed limit remains in place because its to difficult to do the paperwork to take it off each day" --- I also still fail to understand why they feel the need to reduce the limit from the 50phm (when the work started and they had the camera van) to 40mph now the automatic ones are in place.

There can be lots of reasons why it is "necessary" to annoy lots of motorists by having speed limits in place when there is no one working... - Legal To impose a temporary reduced speed limit the highway authority has to grant a Temporary Traffic Regulation Order [TTRO]. Before they can grant a TTRO the law requires that they give a period of notice to the public; you may have read strange little legal notices typically in the classified ads section of your local paper. Not sure what the minimum period of advance notice is but it is several weeks. Now here's the good bit... if you get a TTRO and establish a new speed limit then as soon as you remove that limit the TTRO finishes, and you have to apply for a new one if you want to put the limit back! That new application also requires several weeks statutory advance notice. So in practice if you remove a limit overnight, it will be several weeks before you can re-impose it. The Highways Agency and the major contractors have been pushing the government to amend the law for several years but so far to no avail. - Road User Safety If any of the work in progress leaves the construction of the highway [including barriers, lighting levels etc.] below its designed standard then although the deficiencies may not be apparent to the road user, there may be a need to reduce risk by reducing speed. The Highways Agency has guidance on when to impose temp limits [can't remember the reference, sorry.] - Road Worker Safety In order to remove cones, signs etc. a worker has to cross several lanes of traffic. They have to do that again to put them back. Crossing high-speed roads on foot is a very high risk activity, and neither the worker nor their employer has direct control over the primary risk; the behaviour of the approaching vehicles. The only way they can effectively minimise risk is to minimise exposure i.e leave the signs and cones in place. Is asking a driver to take 7 minutes longer to travel 20 miles an unreasonable price for safety?

My maths might be a bit dodgy, but I make the difference between 40 MPH and 70 MPH an extra 13 minutes (alright, 12-and-a-bit) for 20 miles, but that's not the point. Most of us, as H&S professionals, will have personal experience that, if you have five safety rules, and four make good sense, but one is well out of date and unnecessary, people won't discriminate - they'll use the one silly one as an excuse to ignore the rest. Enforcing unnecessarily low speed limits just brings the whole system of speed limit setting and enforcement into disrepute. Witness the number of people on this forum - surely people who care about safety more than average - expressing the view that speed cameras are just revenue generators. If the works in progress have left the road and its surroundings so far below specification that it's necessary to almost halve the speed limit to ensure safety, surely that's even more justification for 7-day-a-week working to restore the road to a safe condition as soon as possible? And while I totally agree with the EdwardH's bit about risk to workers when removing and restoring cones, in the original poster's example (and mine above, about Southampton roads), the cones ARE being removed, so that isn't the justification for maintained speed limits either.

I must be missing the point, other than the above threads composers are being slowed down getting to work. But thats the point is it not, its the AT WORK ACT, almost all of the above comment indicate that not one was at work. So please explain what i am missing or feel free to start a new thread on the actual point you are trying to address.

you might want to check out this website - www.pepipoo.com which is a useful resource for motorists caught up in the governments cash cow of road speed, parking and other road enforcement.

John, Very Brave of you to post that, you are right in what you are saying, but watch out there will be a few who completely disagree!! Sean

Does anyone know how the various common speed limits were decided on? For instance, why is 70mph an acceptably safe speed to drive on the motorway?

I have also slightly lost the 'thread of the thread' as well (and the site seems very slow tonight) but do caution slightly re #16 and suggest a quick look at the Produce Connection case - not at work!