Picture the scene (we know you’ve all been there). You’re on the road. On the motorway, to be exact. It’s busy, but its okay. Things are moving. Then, all of a sudden, things start to look busier ahead. You start to slow. You see the familiar yellow signs of roadworks ahead. You groan to yourself. Roadworks for how long? 10 miles? You’ve got to be joking. You’ve places to go and people to see. This is not what you need. But, you do what you need to do, you slow down. Right down. (You’ve clocked the speed cameras there, you can’t afford to get 3 points on your license). And through you drive. Past the road cones, closing one lane… for seemingly nothing. There’re no crews, there’s no lorries, there’s no sign that anyone has done any work here at all. Or looks likely to. What was the point?
Agh! Infuriating, right?
Well, while there isn’t much we can say to make that better, the good news is that Highways England has announce that the typical speed limits imposed at the sites of those repairs is being increased from 50mph, to 60mph. This should lead to a time saving of somewhere between 8%-14%, meaning you will get to where you are going faster as a result.
While Highways England are saying that this will not apply to all roadwork sites, you can expect to see the increase in many sites, especially those on large stretches of motorway
But of course, what they give with one hand, they take with another. In some areas of high traffic pollution, they are cutting speed limits, in a bid to minimise emissions from vehicles. While they are also looking for other ways to do so, that do not mean a cut in speeds, there are targets that they need to meet, which they have not found other solutions to, despite only using half of their allocated budget on discovering better ways to fight pollution. We hope that these are only temporary and that they can discover some measure that do not mean a reduction, in speed, which, by our logic, can only lead to more congestion as things slow down (otherwise why would they be increasing the roadworks limits)?
But if the last few months have shown us anything, it’s that nothing makes sense any more, really. At least one thing is unchanged – that if you are on the hunt for the best van insurance deals around, you’re in the right place.