New 55mph speed limit?

sevenhills

Encountered a 55mph speed limit, junction 45 M1 roadworks. Never seen one before, cannot find anything on Google. Is this a new thing?

docmatt

I’ve seen a 45 a few years ago. Must be there for a reason. Better than 50 I suppose. The M6 has about 20 miles of 50 temp limit which is an absolute ball ache at night with an empty motorway and no one to be seen.

daveyjp

I’ve seen it when they are getting towards the end of the works and the road is about to be reopened.

consumers_revenge

know of at least 3 35mph by me

MX5huggy

It part of a plan

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-41704392

IamNotAllowedToUseMyName

It's a bit like the cycling helmet argument:

- worker safety is compromised by high speeds

- more people are becoming overly stressed by roadworks and that has health and safety implications (like crashes due to frustration or long term health impacts of stress on people's health)

So let's trade the health of a small number of people for the small benefit to a large number of people.

I would have thought the better solution was not to work on 24 miles of road at the same time for 18 months but to work on 6 sections for 4 miles each for 3 months each. I really doubt the cost is significantly different but I suspect the stress element would be far less as it would be obvious that there was work going on.