A14 Cambridge to Huntingdon "news"

[Andy33gmail]

You could always try covering the concrete with a hedge, so it looks natural.

The do that with stone walls in Wales, along the A5 - guess how I found out!

That’s really nasty - doesn’t help you make the right choice if you’re committed to crashing and have to decide between various options like oncoming car/hedge/ditch/telegraph pole/cliff/sheep

[ManomayLR]

But would you rather messy Armco like in nowster’s street view link above, or this?
https://goo.gl/maps/vtnDw7zWnshqW77u7

[c2R]

Visually, I prefer somethig for nature:

The Gorse and bushes on the M1 in Ireland:

https://www.google.com/maps/@53.9069338 ... 384!8i8192

Or the Oleander on the A-92 in Spain: https://www.google.com/maps/@37.2272975 ... 312!8i6656

[someone]

Visually, I prefer somethig for nature:

Yes, the best reservations are wider and greener (or pinker, that Spanish one is nice), not narrow and concrete. So given the choice I would easily pick nowster's "rather messy Armco" over EpicChef's dreary bland concrete.

That said, I have seen grass/weeds/saplings growing from the concrete barriers on the M1 too, so maybe there is hope for them yet.

[c2R]

Visually, I prefer somethig for nature:

Yes, the best reservations are wider and greener (or pinker, that Spanish one is nice), not narrow and concrete. So given the choice I would easily pick nowster's "rather messy Armco" over EpicChef's dreary bland concrete.

That said, I have seen grass/weeds/saplings growing from the concrete barriers on the M1 too, so maybe there is hope for them yet.

I suppose that while visually I prefer that, I'd also say that from a practical perspective, for much of English motorway network, traffic volumes are also so high that temporary traffic management including speed limits and lane closures to replace damaged crash barrier could cause significant delays, and therefore I've no problem with the use of concrete barriers as there isn't really a quiet time on much of the network to actually do repairs....

[Bryn666]

I’m always afraid of driving into them myself. Run into one of them and you’ll be clobbered (not to mention the car).

And they’re ugly things, really dominate the reserve.

You will scrape along a concrete barrier unless you somehow manage to hit at 90 degrees which would be qualifying for a Darwin Award.

Concrete barriers also lack Z posts that are well documented means to remove limbs from and/or decaptiate a motorcyclist.

[jackal]

Visually, I prefer somethig for nature:

The Gorse and bushes on the M1 in Ireland:

https://www.google.com/maps/@53.9069338 ... 384!8i8192

If you go to the other carriageway you'll see the barrier is of the decapitating cheesewire type. If we must choose safety beats aesthetics.

[Berk]

^^That sort of reasoning leads to the concrete block.

And whilst the concrete block might save my life (such as it is), I very much doubt it would spare me (and any passengers there were) any serious injury.

[Ruperts Trooper]

You could always try covering the concrete with a hedge, so it looks natural.

The do that with stone walls in Wales, along the A5 - guess how I found out!

That’s really nasty - doesn’t help you make the right choice if you’re committed to crashing and have to decide between various options like oncoming car/hedge/ditch/telegraph pole/cliff/sheep

It was in heavy snow in a Hillman Imp - not the best car to lose the back end so no decisions to make, just sit there and wait for the inevitable.

[Bryn666]

You're missing the point and focusing purely on "concrete".

Corrugated steel deforms as you hit it and the tensioning throws you back into traffic where you will likely be t-boned as your panic reactions to correct the vehicle result in a spin.

At the same time vehicles on the other carriageway are showered with debris and there are potentially two pile ups forming as a result.

You will scrape along the concrete barrier, your car will absorb most of the energy meaning that whilst your driver's side is totally ruined and your wheels are no longer aligned as the lip of the barrier catches them you are still facing forwards, alive but probably needing new underpants.

I know what I prefer the sound of, although not crashing to begin with is best.

[Andy33gmail]

I wonder whether a gravel trap could mitigate the impact?

[Bryn666]

Throwing lots of gravel around a live motorway doesn't strike me as a good plan.

It's the A14, not Imola.

[Alderpoint]

Throwing lots of gravel around a live motorway doesn't strike me as a good plan.

A friend was driving southbound on the M80 when a car on the northbound carriageway went into the central reservation and sprayed tennis-ball sized rocks on him: Bonnet and wing severly impacted, fortunately the one that landed on his windscreen didn't get through. He managed to drive it back to Birmingham though.

[A9NWIL]

For me a concrete barrier looks much cleaner, because grass growing between the Armco just looks rather messy. The concrete barrier on new ALR schemes and the A14 gives the central reservation a very clean look.

Also, although most concrete central barriers aren't tall enough for this, a tall concrete barrier can help to prevent "rubbernecking", in other words if an accident happens on one carriageway people on the other side won't be able to see it, so won't slow down.

A tall concrete barrier would also help prevent lorries going over them.

[mikehindsonevans]

I have just arrived in Cambridge after a hilarious diversion. The advance warnings were displayed from Kettering as I headed eastwards, advising an A14 closure from j25 to j31 (Histon).

Great traffic management from Cambridge Services, coning us down to one lane and then off at Bar Hill (I think, because none of the directional signs can be read without main beam, which annoys the poor sap in front of you). There's a Tesco just south on the second roundabout (where the "A14 East" diversion signs were sending us).

Unfortunately, a few absent diversion signs had a lot of us back on the Westbound carriageway heading back towards Huntington and Godmanchester.

We went past Cambridge Services and were then directed off, up over and back onto the eastbound A14!

Arrived at the closure a second time. This time, many of us thought "******* this for a game of soldiers, I have a bed waiting for me". Thus a large convoy headed out towards Oakington, eventually rejoining the A14 Eastbound at J31 having explored Histon.

Not a good night for HA and their signage monkeys, many of whom were sitting in their well-illuminated lorries at critical points, believing that their job was done.

Sorry lads, not tonight it wasn't.

G'night.
Mike

[RichardA35]

I have just arrived in Cambridge after a hilarious diversion. The advance warnings were displayed from Kettering as I headed eastwards, advising an A14 closure from j25 to j31 (Histon).

Great traffic management from Cambridge Services, coning us down to one lane and then off at Bar Hill (I think, because none of the directional signs can be read without main beam, which annoys the poor sap in front of you). There's a Tesco just south on the second roundabout (where the "A14 East" diversion signs were sending us).

Unfortunately, a few absent diversion signs had a lot of us back on the Westbound carriageway heading back towards Huntington and Godmanchester.

We went past Cambridge Services and were then directed off, up over and back onto the eastbound A14!

Arrived at the closure a second time. This time, many of us thought "******* this for a game of soldiers, I have a bed waiting for me". Thus a large convoy headed out towards Oakington, eventually rejoining the A14 Eastbound at J31 having explored Histon.

Not a good night for HA and their signage monkeys, many of whom were sitting in their well-illuminated lorries at critical points, believing that their job was done.

Sorry lads, not tonight it wasn't.

G'night.
Mike

Please let us know the response to your complaint/enquiry to the organisation concerned.
I am sure they will want to know your experience of what went wrong and learn from it.

[A43Corby]

I have just arrived in Cambridge after a hilarious diversion. The advance warnings were displayed from Kettering as I headed eastwards, advising an A14 closure from j25 to j31 (Histon).

Great traffic management from Cambridge Services, coning us down to one lane and then off at Bar Hill (I think, because none of the directional signs can be read without main beam, which annoys the poor sap in front of you). There's a Tesco just south on the second roundabout (where the "A14 East" diversion signs were sending us).

Unfortunately, a few absent diversion signs had a lot of us back on the Westbound carriageway heading back towards Huntington and Godmanchester.

We went past Cambridge Services and were then directed off, up over and back onto the eastbound A14!

Arrived at the closure a second time. This time, many of us thought "******* this for a game of soldiers, I have a bed waiting for me". Thus a large convoy headed out towards Oakington, eventually rejoining the A14 Eastbound at J31 having explored Histon.

Not a good night for HA and their signage monkeys, many of whom were sitting in their well-illuminated lorries at critical points, believing that their job was done.

Sorry lads, not tonight it wasn't.

G'night.
Mike

I got clobbered by this too. I was on my way to Cambridge and was running a few minutes late knowing the closure was imminent and arrived at the closure just 1 minute before it was due to start only to find the cones already in place, I would have only been 10-15 minutes from my destination at this point. Initially the traffic was blocked by an HGV driver on the western side of the Bar Hill roundabout who appeared to be asking the occupants of a HA vehicle for guidance, the resulting diversions then took us across the A14 at Cambridge Services then back up to Godmanchester and down the A1198.

By the time I got back to the A14 I realised if I'd carried on I would have missed most of what I was actually going to Cambridge for (it would have probably taken me another 20-30 minutes from that point) and just rejoined it westbound. What an utter waste of time and petrol!

[roadtester]

IMHO the quality of the diversions has been the worst parts of the scheme.

I suspect one of the problems is that there are so many and they have to change so frequently.

[Arcuarius]

So apparently the A1 now starts, according to the driver location signs, at the new entry-slip from the A14. What an utter joy (!) it was to be greeted with A1 - A - 0.1 on joining

Who designs this sh*t?

[c2R]

So apparently the A1 now starts, according to the driver location signs, at the new entry-slip from the A14. What an utter joy (!) it was to be greeted with A1 - A - 0.1 on joining

Who designs this sh*t?

That's because there's several datum points on the A1. The DLS signs just make that more visible. It would be better to start again with them probably, but it's far too late now....