The Echo - reporting the news before it happens

I've made fun of the Echo and its obsession with reporting every tiny little incident on the road network as if it's the end of the world before. They seem particularly intent on reporting every time one of their reporters passes a speed camera on the road. Now they're at it again, and pre-emptively this time! Basically, there's going to be some essential bridge work on the most westerly part of the M27 over the winter, and obviously there's going to be some road closures and restrictions, just like there has been for the past few months a bit further up at junction 5-7. I personally have no problem with it - anything that stops a bridge from collapsing is a good thing. But this time it warrants a big ranty news story, because, as the headline seems keen to point out, they're putting in temporary speed cameras.

www.dailyecho.co.uk/news/9384560.Speed_limit_in_force_for_M27_bridge_repair_work/

The article has a washed-out photo, presumably taken from the Romsey Road bridge over the M27, of a yellow pole on the side of the motorway. The pole doesn't have a speed camera on it yet of course, but that's not stopping the article from pressing ahead. The text of the article itself opens with the doom-predicting sentence "Motorists face three months of misery on one of the region's busiest motorways."

First of all, there are two motorways in the region, the M27 and the M3. Both are regularly referred to in the Echo as "one of the region's busiest motorways". You may as well say "my mum's one of the two best parents I've ever had". Even if you count the mini-motorways - the M271, the M275 and the A3M - that's still only five, and you could happily refer to any one of them as "one of the region's busiest motorways". Motorways are generally built because a lot of traffic all wants to go in the same direction, they're supposed to be busy. Stop using this frankly redundant statement.

Secondly, three months of misery? How do you know? Who's writing this shit... Jeremy Clarkson or Mystic Meg? The M27 and M3 always have some kind of road works going on, particularly at night. We're used to it. They're not going to be closing any lanes during the day and most of the work on the bridges will be done at night, so the only thing most people will notice on the motorway is that because of the temporary 50mph speed limit it'll take 18 minutes to drive from Cadnam to Rownhams rather than 12. And don't forget, it's during the winter so if we have snow like last year anyone with an ounce of sense will be driving a bit slower anyway. Any genuine justification for assuming there's going to be three months of misery as a direct result of this essential road maintenance, or was it just a wild guess?

Basically, the entire article could be replaced with two sentences: "Over the winter, it'll take you an extra five or six minutes to drive from junction 1 to junction 3, assuming normal weather and traffic conditions. In return for this minor inconvenience, they're fixing some bridges so the motorway won't collapse with you on it."