Motorway Charges

Aretnap

The_Slithy_Tove wrote: »

Since the HA work closely with the police, I guess they could get the police to send an NIP for driving without due care. That would flush out the driver's identity. They'd have to do that straight away, though, as it has to be served within 14 days.

An s172 requirement (the bit requiring the driver's identity) can be served after 14 days. It's the Notice of Intended Prosecution which must be served within 14 days (with some exceptions) if the driver is actually to be prosecuted. In practice the two documents are usually combined into a single piece of paper, but there's no reason they have to be. And one of the exceptions is where the alleged offence involved an accident - in which case a NIP is not required at all.

Nearly_Old

Bear with me if this is a long post but unfortunately the news stories very conviniently seem to omit the major points of the story! I spent 15 years in motorway and trunk road maintenance and this issue has been around for a long time - it is not new!

The 1980 Highways Act makes any person responsible for damaging the Secretary of State's highway infrastructure liable for the costs of repairing the damage.

Prior to 1986 the Highways Agency (HA) managed their strategic highway network using the county councils as their Agents. I worked for such a county council prior to 1986 so have seen that side as well. With the abolition of the metropolitan councils in 1986 the HA introduced the first privatised maintenance management contracts which is when I joined one of the new commissions. It soon became apparent that the old county Agents had not been doing everything that they were supposed to do including invoicing for damage caused to the highway infrastructure. So that ommission, along with quite a few others was rectified.

It did mean that when a colleague's wife collided with a safety fence he had the task of taking home the invoice and sending it to his insurers.

The HA then started to withdraw the county Agency Agreements and over a period of time the whole of the strategic motorway and trunk road maintenance was privatised. Initially the cost of repairing the damage had to taken out of the fixed annual maintenance budgets for each area but the money recovered went straight to the Treasury! Gradually that changed as in a large area the accident repair costs could be as high as £750k per annum and that would have reduced other essential maintenance work.

When I left this section of the industry in 2001 there was a proposal that under the next generation of contracts the contractor would not be paid directly for this work but would be expected to recover the money from the person causing the damage. The contract would allow the contractor to use the Secretary of State's right to recover these costs.

In the 80s and 90s the police quite often attended all motorway incidents. In the area I was involved with a motorway patrol car would call at the office each day with full particulars of all the vehicles involved. One night over 250m of safety fence was damaged - HGV driver asleep at the wheel? It took the best part of two days to find and then re-assemble the broken number plate but we did get the money back!

Spillages / leaks may look small but unfortunately oil and fuel does affect the surfacing and can mean that a section has to be re-surfaced. Small patches could not be used on a motorway and the minimum required by the HA's specification was full lane width minimum length 5m.

If you accidentally reversed your car into your neighbour's fence would you expect to pay for the damage? So what is different about having to pay for damaging a safety fence, road sign, etc just because the owner is the Secretary of State? Of course one alternative is that no costs are recovered and the VED is increased but would this be fair on the majority who have not caused any damage?

taffy056

Appreciate the post nearly old, some would argue that as we pay for road tax and taxes on our fuel, vat on everything associated with driving including as mentioned fuel, our insurance etc. and this far exceeds what is spent on the roads, that it could come out of that. The problem with using private companies you can see they ramp up their costs far above what it actually costs to fix.

That bbc article mentions almost £2k for closing a section of the hard shoulder, if that is not profiteering god knows what is. Anyway it's good to get a different perspective on it so thanks for that.

Aretnap

Nearly_Old wrote: »

When I left this section of the industry in 2001 there was a proposal that under the next generation of contracts the contractor would not be paid directly for this work but would be expected to recover the money from the person causing the damage. The contract would allow the contractor to use the Secretary of State's right to recover these costs.

How would that work though? Inevitably the contractor would not be able to recover the costs in all cases. Sometimes the driver who caused the accident would drive off without being traced, sometimes it would be an uninsured driver with no money to recover, and sometimes the damage would not be the result of anyone's obvious negligence (eg an oil leak from an apparently well-maintained car). So the contractor would either run at a loss, or they would have to recover more than their actual costs in the cases where there was someone to claim against.

Nearly_Old

Aretnap wrote: »

How would that work though? Inevitably the contractor would not be able to recover the costs in all cases. Sometimes the driver who caused the accident would drive off without being traced, sometimes it would be an uninsured driver with no money to recover, and sometimes the damage would not be the result of anyone's obvious negligence (eg an oil leak from an apparently well-maintained car). So the contractor would either run at a loss, or they would have to recover more than their actual costs in the cases where there was someone to claim against.

One method when preparing tenders is to start with a) certaintities; in this case known regular cyclic maintenance; b) less certain work; e.g. removing graffiti, ad-hoc boundary fence repairs; c) very uncertain but will occur; e.g. recovery of accident costs. For b) and c) various risks will be put into a Risk Register and at the end of the day an amount for "risk" will be calculated. This will then be spread across the tendered rates for a) on the basis that it will be swings and roundabouts over the 5 year duration.

Although I retired from full time work a year ago I do some consultancy work including working for a European maintenance contractor who was preparing a tender for the routine maintenance of a UK scheme. Trying to get them to understand risk was a major exercise as they wanted to be in a "no loss" situation but of course that made their price far too high.

Nearly_Old

taffy056 wrote: »

Appreciate the post nearly old, some would argue that as we pay for road tax and taxes on our fuel, vat on everything associated with driving including as mentioned fuel, our insurance etc. and this far exceeds what is spent on the roads, that it could come out of that. The problem with using private companies you can see they ramp up their costs far above what it actually costs to fix.

That bbc article mentions almost £2k for closing a section of the hard shoulder, if that is not profiteering god knows what is. Anyway it's good to get a different perspective on it so thanks for that.

It's a difficult concept but in effect the highway network is a national asset owned by the UK plc albeit that the majority was funded from the public purse. 3rd party car insurance is mandatory (as it is in most countries) to provide cover if your car damages a 3rd party's property irrespective of who the owner is.

Unfortunately the costs of working on the motorway can be quite expensive and recent tightening (much needed) of health and safety regulations have added to it. From personal experience just having a line of cones between you and the great british motorist is not a nice place to work. Generally if the work is going to take more than 10 to 15 mins you need the lane closed plus a safety margin which sometimes means closing the adjacent lane. Also during the day the Agent might take very quick temporary measures and then return in the next off-peak period to make more permanent repairs.

taffy056

I understand that, but tell me how would a line of cones closing a hard shoulder equate to almost £2k ? And that is probably the tip of iceberg in this area, I appreciate it costs money to do repairs and clean up after an accident but excessive costs puts everyone's insurance up, it's the same way for garages.

I once had an accident which was not my fault, cost of repair was £4.5k and took 4 weeks to do at an authorised repair centre , it was a taxi and each day it was off the road it cost me money, that was rip off as I could have repaired it myself for under £2k and on the road in less than a week, insurers would not pay for it, I lost a contract and many thousands of pounds that were not compensated for.

So like these private companies on the motorways we are being ripped off and it reflects on insurance. The parallels are astonishing here, they are like a mix of the worst part of private parking companies / accident repair garages, though its hard to see a good part of either to be honest.

Kite2010

Charging more than the cost o damages in the hope that it gets paid, covering non-payers.

I wonder how many people have been taken to court over these unpaid invoices.

Nearly_Old

taffy056 wrote: »

I understand that, but tell me how would a line of cones closing a hard shoulder equate to almost £2k ?

A full hardshoulder closure in accordance with Chapter 8 of the Traffic Signs manual complaince with ehich is a contractual requirement:

1 No 610 arrow (1200mm dia keep right arrow) plus a line of cones at 45deg across the hardshoulder 400m and 200m before the closure.

Close spaced (shoulder to shoulder) cones at 45 deg plus another 610 arrow at the start of the closure.

Signed Works Entry and coned entry to the works area.

Cones along the hardshoulder / lane 1 white line usually connected by rope to stop anybody accidentally straying into the live lane.

When placing the first cones and signs provide a block vehicle - a large vehicle with a crash cushion fitted to the rear to stop any errant vehicles hitting the workforce.

Works vehicle with driver plus 2 roadworkers.

Distance from the nearest depot could be 15 miles so a 30 mile round trip.

2 vehicles, 2 drivers, 2 roadworkers, 6 signs, say 50 cones, etc.

Total time for travelling, setting up and removing could be 3 to 4 hours before any work is done so getting to £1,800 is fairly easy.

To try and put it into perspective when preparing for a contra-flow constructing 2 central reserve crossovers cost circa £250k in the 90s. For some major maintenance schemes the traffic management could be between 30 and 40% of the total cost of the works.

taffy056

Yes I understand that, but lets face it here, they are not buying any of that equipment as they have it on a truck already, and as they already have the truck, all these costs are running costs of the company, and that includes the staff to do the work, they are not specifically hiring or buying for that incident. This money that they are charging is almost all profit apart from the repairs themselves which I can understand costs money.

As for the rest of the post above its beyond what I would consider payment for fixing problems after an accident, I have seen barrier work being done and the coning off of maybe a two mile section of road to do that on either side, again the cones are on a truck again the employees already work for the company.

I am not saying the company doesn't deserve to make a profit otherwise they wouldn't exist, but excessive profits is unfair on the people who has to pay for this, namely us people who has to pay premiums on insurance policies.