Slowing down for roadworks...

[2011G6E]

Having just done a few trips down to Bundy and back, with all the roadworks, I had a few close calls with people in roadworks areas, mainly those who refuse to slow down for roadworks at all.

It could be a hold-over from my job as a train driver...if you come to a temporary speed restriction sign for some damaged track, say 40kph, and you take the train across it at 41kph and it derails, there's a pretty good chance you'll be standing in the unemployment line come monday morning.

So when I see roadworks at any time of the day or night (they do work at night sometimes now I've noticed), I do the damn speed it says on the sign. I don't want to have to explain to my insurance company why I wrecked my car or did some damage doing 60 in a 40 zone, and more importantly I really don't want to stand up in court and explain why was doing 70kph when I ran into and killed that road worker when it was signposted at 60kph...

However, driving along those sections, I would be tailgated by semis half a meter off my bumper, cars attempting to overtake even in areas with only a lane and a half of road available, and overtaken by everything from ordinary cars to council vehicles, goverment cars, a police car, and SES vehicles. Does anyone at all bother to do the signposted speed in those areas?

One funny example...and why it's fun to drive a brand new Falcon...was when we were down near the Sunshine Coast after going through lots of roadworks. A white van had been behind us...attempting to overtake, tailgating right up our backside, and finally he zoomed past and had to jam in in front of us when the lane started to end in a 40kph zone. He just got ahead of us and he started to pull away, well over 40, and I flashed the headlights at him a couple of times.
The brake lights came on, and he braked...hard...and sat exactly on every speed for every other roadworks we went through while he was in front of us.
Obviously it was a panicked moment of "Oh crap...that Falcon I just overtook was an unmarked police car!"...

Another amusing one was coming back from Bundy a week ago in our Celica. We were coming to the end of a long 40kph section, and the road widened back out to two lanes...but was still 40 for another half a k or so. A Lancer Evo that had been sitting right up my ding zoomed past me, giving it everything...and giving me the finger...and raced off with a fart from his show-off valve. As he came to the end of the 40 section up ahead, I saw a police camera van sitting off to the side of the road, inside the 40 area...lets see...maybe 30 or 40kph over the posted limit for that area, double the fine and points as well I think...

Then there's the plain stupid. Just the other side of Dingo out here on the Capricorn Highway, there is a long stretch of highway being resurfaced. It now has two guys there 24 hours a day signalling to traffic and making sure people slow down for the long gravel stretch, but a couple of weeks back, I was driving along in a line of cars on the gravel doing the posted 40kph, and a moron in an old Commodore with mismatched panels flew past the lot of us, overtaking and showering us all with rocks. I saw waved fists out windows up ahead, as he pulled in at the front of teh short line of mine vehicles, cars, and a couple of utes. I was watching to see if he would stop at the Dingo roadhouse...he didn't, but I suspect he would have been flogged to death by half a dozen angry guys who would have followed him in.

Hey, I'll drift over the limit on the highway now and then, but when it comes to roadworks, what's wrong with just sitting on the posted limit, especially seeing as how the fine is bigger if you get pinged, not to mention all the potential dangers involved?