It is a mystery to so very many and at least in NSW a failure of the roads authority that motorists still do not understand them.
Radio talk back and local Medea is full of peoples complaints about roadworks.
Mostly wrong too complaints about being booked for speeding and such.
It seems people spend half their time complaining about the condition of the road and the other half about it being fixed.
However by far the most complaints are about signs in place but no work in progress.
Here in NSW at least the RTA has flailed to educate motorists.
Yellow road work ahead signs are to explain driving conditions may have changed due to continuing road work , along with the not as old changed conditions ahead sign.
Speed reductions are the same 24 hours usually because of a real danger.
That roadway in working hours is now a factory floor, the workplace of many.
After work? not as safe as it once was but while deaths continue at such places and massive numbers are fined roadworks are still not fully understood by many motorists.
Recent survey found 60% of passing motorists drove at 20% above the new imposed speed limits on such a site.
In one case the NSW RTA funded, yes they fund much police radar, was removed from a construction site.
What price human life?
It had been in place there for 30 years!
An old RTA in fact DMR in the old days consideration in road building was that roads should forgive a motorists mistake.
Why is so little spent on education about roadworks?

Belly:
Human Beings + Motor Vehicles + Vehicle Fuel + Registration Fees + Comprehensive Insurance + Third World Road Conditions = One of the most capital raising con jobs that we are all suffering,....and the situation is NOT getting any better!
We hear the authorities "rabbiting on" about the increasing road-toll, but we have a deafening silence when it comes to the increasing number of vehicles taking to the roads!.....on a per capita basis the road toll today is no greater than it was in the 50`s,.....however it provides ALL the beneficiaries of this "Golden Goose" (the automobile and it`s associated costs) with a never ending and rapidly escalating source of "easy" revenue.
I would like a quid for every windscreen that I have had to get changed over the years, simply because the local authority`s workmen no longer sweep away the gravel left after a typical "henpecking" job on the subject road....(the same "repair" disintegrating again during the following few days!)
Another classic windsreen destoyer, is the simple act of passing a vehicle coming the opposite direction on a narrow (single vehicle width) road!.....I generally slow right down and edge off the road, whilst the other driver always seems to continue at full speed but also rockets off the edge of his side leaving the bitumen virtually empty! ...this is usually accompanied by his supposedly "courteous" wave of the hand accompanied by a shower of road-edge stones!....Driver Education?.....a joke!
I remember, when in the 50`s, all the roads were swept by a machine called a Road Sweeper which was utilized to remove debris and stones from the road surfaces!.....but today obviously we the motorists are NOT paying enough loot to allow this sort of luxury!
Has anyone noticed that around all the Metropolitan areas we are seeing a plethora of Toll Roads, Tunnels and By-passes? .....all to speed-up the traffic flow?.....why do we pay Registration Fees and Fuel Excise?.....or more precisely "where is all this Revenue going to?"

Belly, nearly every single roadworks site that I have passed through over the last decade has presented a totally schitzo approach to traffic management. The essence of the problem is; the use of temporary speed signs that are lawfully binding but which are used in only a loose suggestive manner.

The different State Main Roads Departments and local authorities deliberately put up signs with a far slower speed than is necessary in many instances, if not all the time as an unwritten policy. Where a 40kmh sign is used, a 60 sign would do. A speed 20kmh over that stated on the signs is practiced by practically every driver and accepted by roadworkers and police.

There is a heightened conflict between those who desire to do something near the speed stated on the signs and those who don’t give a damn what the signs say.

There is nearly always a long distance between the temporary slow speed signs and the actual roadworks area, and inexplicably, a long distance on the other side before you can legally return to the normal speed.

In many instances, especially on the open road, if you dare to go anywhere near the speed stated on the signs, outside of the actually physical roadworks area, then you’ll incur the wrath of a driver behind you, by way of tailgating, dangerous overtaking, horn-blowing or full-on road-rage.

This places a great deal of pressure on people who want to obey the law to roll with the flow, which means exceeding the temporary speed limit by 20kmh or often quite a lot more.

Then, once in a blue moon, the cops book people in roadworks sites, including many who would be law-abiders, but have come to realise that it is much safer and a whole lot less stressful to do the same speed that the majority doing, regardless of the legal situation.

Needless to say, I’m utterly disgusted. This situation could so easily be remedied. But there just seems to be no will to do so.

In the two posts above proof roadwork sites confuse us.
Ludwig often the shoulders of a road under re construction no longer exist.
A deep drop just out of sight may exist instead, bumps dips Sharp turns can be found.
Road works need very long start and end zones ,think with me on this, if you stop peak traffic for 5 minutes they form ques do they not?
Would you have the last truck to get in line travel at 100 klm an hour?
While I am critical of the authority's, you can be too, they do not always enforce their own rules, traffic control, management is a technical issue.
A traffic management plan and a car movement plan must be in place.
That is based on the speed limit on that road , average speed of all using the road ,numbers of motorists , escape routes for workers are considered.
The road conditions have changed once work begins speed is thought out to preserve life motorists and workers.
The road is now their factory floor, how fast can you run? if an out of control truck heads for you?
That road broom, they exist still, it has always been a practice to sweep the road within 24 hours in fact it is a crime committed against motorists not to do so.
But lazy councils, contractors ,and road authority's use signs yes loose stones drive carefully in place for weeks to stop claims, and never sweep the road
But if they sweep too soon? not a stone would remain on the road.
An understanding of roadworks will find much that is dreadful crime against motorists but the reverse is true too.
Last night long after dark my trip into a 80 klm an hour death trap called a road work site in rain saw 5 semi trailers over take in convoy doing far more than 100 klm.
5 traffic controllers died at these sites last year many more motorist do each year.
Driving for the conditions of that changing road are not considered by many but blaming the road is?

Why do roadworks sites need “very long start and end zones” Belly?

Of course some lead-in distance is needed, but I can’t think of a reason in the world why there would have to be any significant distance between the actual end of the roadworks area and the sign that allows traffic to return to normal speed.

Quite often there is no significant end zone when the operation is being conducted by local government workers. But it seems that Main Roads have the policy of always having a ridiculously long end zone.

This is where it is just impossible most of the time for any driver who desires to stick to the law to do so if they have any traffic behind them. It is an offence to anyone’s sensibilities to have to keep travelling slow when they have obviously passed the zone where there is a need to go slow.

Ludwig I do not wish to be a smarty you are a poster I have always respected.
But bare with me, I have an advantage I undertook training in this area and passed every 90 minute test in about 23 without mistake.
First traffic travels over the legal speed limit not all but most do.
In slowly reducing the speed of traffic before it gets into the work zone you should have buffer zones.
That is reduce speed from 100 to 80 for a length of road pre work site, then to 60 again as a traffic calming tool.
By law work cover law, if workers are within a set distance from moving traffic the speed must be reduced again to 40.
This all takes place in good sites the first 2 reductions in that long lead in before the work.
Have you seen traffic banked up for a kilometer? sometimes even twice that? more if the delay is long.
The long speed reduction zones are storage areas for that traffic, that is signs warn of work speed limits reduce speed and each car or truck added to the waiting traffic should be safely stopped at a safe speed.
Not fearing a truck at speed rounding the corner unaware roadworks are even in place.
So why am I concerned?
In my state authority's , work cover for a start are useless no policing takes place.
RTA councils and contractors do not obey the rules people do die and white wash is used not care.
Those roadwork sites are factory floors speeding trucks travel within 2 meters of workers and push car drivers some with reduced skills to hard in already dangerous roads.
No true duty of care is fourth coming from those who make and break the rules for traffic control at work sites.