Road works speed limits

[Express]

Originally Posted by Bevsta007

In Victoria, they also put up signs telling us what the project will cost.
Some obscene amounts..

In my experience if you give a contractor a value to work to, they make sure it reaches that value, and not less

Originally Posted by b0son

This will make your blood boil ....

https://www.facebook.com/Channel4New...54249963541939

There's an intersection upgrade near my place, and its been going for months with not much obvious progress. And when you see the five guys on the site, with only one of them actually doing anything while the other four stand and watch, its not surprising.

If the authority isn’t doing the work themselves then a contractor will usually be employed on a Tender basis and if they had any sense they’d try to get the costs down to maximise their profit.

A big part of budget blow outs for large roadwork projects will often be caused by stand down times due to weather and the fact the initial cost estimates are often calculated a couple of years prior to work commencing and even though cost increases are factored in, the accuracy of on-costs is not always the best.

Jobs that run to or under cost are usually those that also don’t suffer from lost work hours.

I won’t go into the politics of governments who like to hoodwink their electorates with the lowest estimated costs then shrug their shoulders at the completion of work when the real figure becomes known.

Anyone who works the roads as full time employed Council day labour knows if you are employed to do a job the Unions won’t allow you to do anything but that job and therefore some employees stand around watching and waiting.

For example a truck driver will stand around the job chatting while waiting for a load but can’t pick up a shovel to help speed things along.

I know when I was a Council Engineer we could have greatly reduced the time cost of jobs if we could have gotten around that one factor alone.

So don’t blame the workers, the contractors and the government authorities for staff standing around, but feel free to point the finger at the work to rules mentality.

I've worked for 2 Japanese multinationals and let me tell you as bad as our workers may be perceived by some, you wouldn't want to replace it with the employer is God mentality that is rife in the Japanese workforce as that is just the other extreme.

[aussie muscle]

Originally Posted by Rallye Sport

It peeves me too when the limit is left up after hours or on the weekend...

I complained to my local member of parliament because the RTA left their roadworks signs up for a 4 day long weekend. Their excuse was 'loose stones' may be on the road. if they build the road properly and correctly there should never be loose stones.

[Cobra]

I was driving home on the South Eastern Freeway in Adelaide a number of years back and there was a roadworks sign with 40km/h speed limits. There was nothing going on which adversely affected the road, hence they'd remove the speed limit signs at night when no workers were there.

This one evening, however, the speed limit sign was erroneously left up at the commencement of the road works, only for the 110km/h sign at the end of the strip to have been removed. Needless to say, all of the Muppets in front of me kept driving 40km/h indefinitely. I knew what had obviously happened, but there was no way I could get past the cars in front of me.

It wasn't until we went past the next on-ramp where there were cars entering the Freeway were oblivious to what was going on and the cars in front, whom which their drivers must have all of a sudden twigged to what had happened, proceeded to speed up. Wow, that was frustrating. For anyone not in Adelaide, you'd be able to imagine that the 10 kilometre stretch between the Stirling and Bridgewater on-ramp would be a right PITA to plod along at 40 clicks.

[Rallye Sport]

Originally Posted by aussie muscle

I complained to my local member of parliament because the RTA left their roadworks signs up for a 4 day long weekend.

Their excuse was 'loose stones' may be on the road. if they build the road properly and correctly there should never be loose stones.

You left out my next statement, "however if the road conditions are changed, unfinished works, narrowed lanes, no emergency lane etc there is still a risk and I accept that."
Were the works finished yet? Would you have complained if your car was stone damaged and the signs hadn't been up? Even the best built roads will collect debris, stones leaves and the like. Thats why you see street sweepers in the real world.
Another real world factor is most of the signage is null and void in the case of an accident, get a good lawyer, sorry re-phrase that, a competent lawyer, no such thing as a good one and they'll find a loop hole. Under my state legislation you must have a series of three signs, two advanced warning and one with adjusted limit, spaced in metres at double the posted limit eg 80km zone = 160m apart, they'd attack that if its over or under by any margin. Theres even legislation on the size of the black line around a sign and how far from the edge it is to be.
Alot of the time the public don't know how to read works signage either, its all well and good the traffic controller doing their courses, maybe the same could be done as part of the learners permit system... alas too late for most drivers though