Motorways are by far our safest roads for a variety of reasons. Separating vehicles going in different directions, and providing high capacity segregated routes onto and off them greatly reduces the capacity for smashes between vehicles travelling in different directions or from drivers misreading each other’s conduct at a junction. In addition no cyclist or pedestrian is allowed on them, removing the danger of conflict between a fast moving vehicle and a vulnerable person. Motorways are more like railways which also have better safety figures thanks to a ban on all pedestrians and cyclists from proximity to the track, and from seeking to keep trains moving in opposite directions on different track.
The main reasons A and B roads are so much more dangerous lies in three main areas. First, pedestrians and cyclists are allowed, and are very vulnerable to mistakes by drivers or by themselves when coming into conflict with vehicles. Second, many junctions lack capacity and are poorly designed, leading to crashes between vehicles seeking to use the same piece of road to go in different directions. Third, there is scope for vehicles to wander or overtake in the lane coming the other way, leading to potentially very dangerous crashes between vehicles travelling in opposite directions. On a 50 mph road this may mean a 100mph crash.
Most of these A and B rods are under the control of Council Highway departments. They have options under national legislation and grant schemes to make improvements in each of these areas to cut accidents. As with motorways the first necessity is to increase overall capacity to reduce tensions and conflicts between vehicles. Pedestrians and cyclists deserve better treatment through the provision of dedicated cycleways and footpaths that avoid main A and B roads to cut conflict with vehicles. Junctions need review. Wherever possible roundabouts should be used rather than traffic lights, as that ensures all vehicles are heading in the same direction of flow and not meeting head on. Where there are signal controlled junctions they should where possible be reconfigured to provide segregated right hand turning lanes with short filter light phases where traffic is sensed by intelligent lights as waiting. Priority should be afforded with plenty of green light phase for the main road which should allow flow in both directions at the same time with right turning traffic held. On straight stretches of potentially fast road there should be consideration to painting a third overtaking lane where there is sufficient width allowing alternate overtaking by vehicles in opposite directions to cut frustration and dangerous overtaking.
April 22, 2021
We should also adopt the US practice of being able to turn left against a red light (at driver’s risk).
More intelligent traffic lights would also help – locally when driving by Wokingham station it is frustrating to have a red light when the level crossing gates are down – nothing can go across your path, but you are stuck there! There must be some intelligence as the lights on that junction by The Station Tap do not go green if the crossing is down.
April 22, 2021
Indeed but the government clearly wants to inconvenience, delay and deter car and van drivers in the main. Traffic light producers just want to sell and endlessly replace traffic lights. Doubtless employing political consultants and much lobbying for contracts. In London (when I lived there for 25 odd years until 2008) often the lights would fail and then we had less congestion not more. Even better if the slow cumbersome buses were on strike too.
April 22, 2021
+1
April 22, 2021
Going left ‘against a red light’ might be fine for the motorist, but in UK towns and cities where there are plenty of pedestrians it would make crossing the road even more difficult for parents with prams/the disabled etc who cannot just dash across, nipping between the traffic.
April 22, 2021
yes – but the point is that it is entirely the drivers responsibility. Any pedestrians prevent the motorist doing this.
April 22, 2021
You are obviously a very polite driver; not many of those in the parts of East London and Hertfordshire where I lived most of my life!
April 22, 2021
@Peter: It is quite simple, wait your turn, quite literally! No one, other than pedestrians, has any right to use the highways in the UK, we do not have a jaywalking law as they do in the USA. Motorists can be most selfish at times, in their own personal space & chariot…
April 22, 2021
As Johnson looses the plot by the day- his green folly becomes even crazier without any cost benefit analysis or where the money will come from. Will the govt. subsidise the purchases of horses for everyone to get about on? Then on the other hand we still have no cost benefit analysis for his nutty lockdown where there is no evidence to support it. Quite the reverse the WHO and UK plans were against it. Con woman had a good article by Kathy Gyngell on it yesterday.
NB: May did not mention her nutty green plan in her manifesto before thrusting it on the nation!
April 22, 2021
Hope
Further to you NB
No party is going to put into their manifesto uncosted nutty green plans call them what you want. It would make them totally unelectable.
April 22, 2021
Or you have a pedestrian button and flashing green arrow but only when this has not been pressed.
April 22, 2021
Also, the driver tends to focus his attention on the right where the potential, smashing car will come from and not look left where the pedestrian is crossing the road. I saw this several times in North America.
Some drivers will also dash out when they see a gap.
April 22, 2021
āToo many deaths and injuries on local roadsā
But compared to neighbouring countries we donāt do so bad.
I am grateful now if there is a journey free of roadworks or a road free of pot holes. In London we see lots of new cycle lanes but not always so many cyclists using them. Increased motor traffic is further squeezed to accommodate cyclists. Side street access is sometimes blocked to trap those vehicles. Tooting High Road is but one example. It was always bad and will never get better.
Peter (with a capital āPā)
April 22, 2021
@Peter – those lights used to confuse me for a while when the barrier was down, its the pedestrians triggering them(pressing the button) – even though they might have already crossed when the lights have changed
April 22, 2021
You can do all the things you cover in this days piece, but you must accept a certain attrition rate. You cannot legislate to cover all mistakes in human behaviour.
I am much more concerned today with the sacking of Jonny Mercer because he fought too hard to protect ex servicemen from the malicious greed of lawyers and the current trendy desire in government and some segments of the population to rewrite history. Young people are recruited by our armed forces and trained to kill our enemies. Government, when it suits its agenda, then abandons said vetrans to the malicious activities of lawyers out to make a quick buck. I find aspects of government behaviour despicable. It is ironic that after years of service veterans find that the real enemy are their own government.
April 22, 2021
And ‘Boris’ gave a devious answer on the subject of orotecting our servicemen at PMQs yesterday. I suspect he wishes to appease powers outside our country.
April 22, 2021
I think that is a general view, fools fooling no one but themselves or more likely out and out āliesā
April 22, 2021
Don’t believe the Tory’s. The answer again is why do we have 9 million foreign people born elsewhere living here? Repeat 9 million. Open door immigration causes problems from congestion on our highways to inadequate health, education and public service provision. Then they legislate equalities legislation to keep us quiet. We need radical change of choice from the legacies.
April 22, 2021
Well said and that is only the ones they know about!
I would like the government to explain why foreign criminals arrive here, commit heinous crimes, insult the taxpayers by making them pay for their LA, any time in prison and when released are allowed to stay here! With the taxpayer having to pick up the bill for this as well! There is no consideration for the safety of the law abiding?
April 22, 2021
@Timaction; YAWN. What ever the issue, subject, problem, for some the blame is always migrants, not as you try and disguise, “foreigners”, after all I suspect you quite like having billionaires coming to live in the UK…
April 22, 2021
Agree – and thats 9 million and increasing daily
April 23, 2021
Twitch, twitch, twitch go those curtains…
April 23, 2021
MiC what is wrong with curtain twitchers, the neighbourhood watch, the people who wonāt just turn a blind eye, or ignore fly tipping and wrongdoers, or do you just prefer the people that stand videoing people doing wrong things and taking no action. People are being silenced by people like you who donāt seem to care about British people and what we want for our futures and the future of our children.
April 22, 2021
+1
April 22, 2021
Absolutely agree, we turn to the armed forces when in dire need, both in wartime and peacetime, but then seem to simply want to abandon them to any sort of historical claims that may turn up decades later.
Not surprised Johnny Mercer later made comment that he has found out that politics is a cess pit that needs to be cleared out.
His recent radio interview available on Guido Fawkes web site..
April 22, 2021
Reply to agricola
I agree the Government have a duty to protect the servicemen even more so than setting free appalling others.
April 22, 2021
Nor only human behaviour, self driving cars apparently need guidance lines down either side. (An electric car ed)that crashed and exploded requiring 39,000litres of water and still not extinguished shows the future of electruc cars.
When they break down you can’t push them off the road creating a major hazard.
What’s the betting accidents on rural roads increase and deaths due to car fires increase.
On another note, it seems the non Conservative government is studying taxes of up to 40% on meat and dairy products to save the planet. Destroy the motor industry and now farming. When will these shysters be binned.
April 22, 2021
Ian Wragg
Yes indeed, chemical fires that sustain even in the abscence of oxygen…..very nasty.
April 22, 2021
Agreed, this “witch hunt” of those that put their lives on the line for their country must stop NOW..
April 22, 2021
Having had a brother who served in NI and was injured there and then killed in the Falklands I concur with all you say. Sometimes their equipment is below standard and as in the Falklands they were not as well equipped as some of the enemy. To be chased by lawyers after putting their lives on the line for Queen and country is totally unacceptable.
April 22, 2021
At this rate Prime Minister Whitty will ban us from driving too. Immortality is the goal… zero risk to life without any assessment of how many fatalities restrictions cause or the complete misery it makes of life.
Mobility has contributed to an ever rising life expectancy through increased efficiency in getting things done. We’re about to put that in reverse.
April 22, 2021
The BBC is now a campaign organisation. This is clear by the news today and every day.
Why is it still funded by licence ?
April 22, 2021
Agree
April 22, 2021
This evening The One Show – all interviewees in a street interview agreed that lockdown had been a good thing for the environment and that they would be giving up meat, driving, flying etc… not one dissenting voice. The only thing criticised was the amount of plastic and card wasted in Amazon deliveries.
April 22, 2021
It seems the Tory party’s approach to politically inconvenient issues is to either ignore them, avoid them, appease them or remain silent about them.
The issue of road safety is simply an irrelevance to most of those who follow politics but then the most pertinent political issues of the day are by far more the most awkward and inconvenient political issues of the day and therefore resigned to oblivion
I have realised over time that the Tory party will betray and sacrifice anything and everything to protect the party from political harm from their enemy, even to the point of ‘climbing into bed’ with the enemy. To see Johnson and Starmer endorse yesterday’s judicial travesty and fall silent after Batley reveals how closely aligned the two main parties have become. There is orchestration and coordination at work with one aim, to protect at all costs the status quo.
The abuse of the Sovereign debt facility is evidence of politicians who are using liquidity to finance the destruction of liberty. This political class are using and have used sovereign debt to appease the majority, deceiving them with trinkets and buying their silence using State dependency.
The destructive and tumultuous past year as exposed the brutal nature of the British political class and those who align with it. This does not bode well for democracy, individual liberty and freedom of expression.
Both parties and the SNP have barbarity in their hearts and a seething desire to assert control over all things and we the majority population are their target
Reply As you dislike all my views and often dislike my choice of topic why do you bother with this site? Why donāt you understand many people are interested in transport and travel and wish to discuss what is a nationalised industry that fails to provide sufficient capacity? The topics you are interested in are covered some days but are not the only interesting and relevant subjects.
April 22, 2021
Well isnāt Johnson in very deeply with TB?
Takes orders they say!
And reply to reply
Why, JR do you publish if you donāt like? ( Deletion is my constant companion on this blog).
Donāt tell Dom to go ….please!
April 22, 2021
By definition politics puts you in constant conflict with an awful lot of people. I think DOMs complaint is that of late there is too much collusion because it has been realised that almost all in the HoC are socialists of varying degrees. It is the frustration of voting Conservative and the promises of Conservatism never being fulfilled. Many of us have said the same from time to time. I am less worried about what you call yourselves, being more concerned with what you in fact do or do not do.
April 23, 2021
All social animals, not just humans, are “socialist to a degree”.
Would you prefer a cat as PM?
April 22, 2021
@JR reply; The issue is not road capacity, it is about how people use the roads and when. The lockdowns have proved that there is excessive daily use of the roads, when many companies have actually increased productivity by not insisting their employees work in office blocks, rather than ever more road improvements how about the govt be brave, promise FTTP to all within urban areas within the life of this parliament (2024)?
April 22, 2021
Whk wants Free Transport To Preston or whatever it is.
April 22, 2021
Jerry is right. Homeworking will stay as it allows employers to squeeze more value out of their staff. In a Feb. 2021 Microsoft/Yougov survey of homeworking, many employees said that they are being stretched further in the work they need to deliver. Nearly one in three (30%) reported an increase in their hours, and more than half (53%) feel they have to be available at all times. Plus, it’s harder for staff to experience solidarity with each other, and office overheads are drastically cut. Some big advantages there, to employers.
April 22, 2021
Hey. A great idea here.
Why don’t we put beds in hospital corridors and call them… SMART Hospitals ???
A common theme running through all of the crises in this country (including the CV-19 crisis because they failed to close borders) is overcrowding, be it schools, housing, hospitals, transport…
The Tories are addicted to overcrowding and mass immigration .
They’ll even kill us to keep it going.
We’re out of the EU. They have an 80 seat majority. There is a global pandemic. There’s no hiding it now.
Dom, you’re spot on. They are to blame. Now be a good boy and get your mask on and shut up.
April 23, 2021
Well, the average birth rate has fallen to below 1.6 per couple, so, since the Tories’ paramount concern appears to be to maintain the asset bubble – notably in residential property – what would you expect them to do?
April 22, 2021
Sir John, a few white lines is not going to help. Our roads are mostly too small for the traffic load. Down here in Kent you could overlay a medieval map over today’s road system and, apart from motorways, there would not be much difference. Unless you are prepared to bulldoze ancient houses and old stone bridges the alternative is do nothing.
Essentially we are driving on tarmacked cart tracks and jostling with HGVs on those cart tracks. One cannot blame the HGV drivers or the speeding delivery vans – they have nowhere else to go. Therein lies the rub. Coming up to elections we don’t want more houses, we don’t want more of anything – except fewer potholes. Better roads mean more houses – that is the economic quid pro quo.
So do nothing is my advice, it is a can of worms. By the time we have greened our industry and houses, gone over to electric cars, lived with the consequences of Brexit and Covid we will be unable to afford a white line, let alone an adequate road.
April 22, 2021
Well said Jim.
April 22, 2021
Speeding delivery van drivers don’t keep their jobs for very long, 12 points in three years and they’re out of work.
April 22, 2021
Good morning
But what are the causes of such accidents ? Is it jumping lights ? Speeding or people just not observing to the Highway Code ? There needs to be more data before we start digging up the highway and splashing the cash.
April 22, 2021
Well said Mark, why aren’t the insurance companies getting together to identify which roads are causing the most claims all adding an x to the google map which are quite precise should trigger action by the Council Highways.
April 22, 2021
Mark,
Local authorities and police merge data to provide information where accidents occur the most and it takes little thought to understand why after seeing the results, poor road design, poor traffic control etc. The former responsible for road infrastructure and the latter for enforcement. The drivel I got back from my council leader when I asked why the focus was not on accident black spots instead of income generation confirmed my thoughts they were more interested in money than preventing accidents. I wonder if hospitals would think the same?
April 22, 2021
@Mark B; But what causes a road user to ignore red lights, or the highway Code and Laws etc, impatience perhaps, a feeling of being more important than the next road user perhaps? The govt needs to remind everyone via PIFs, not just legislate to the effect, that no one has any right to use the roads, use is a privilege, and such privilege has a stacking order – first to last, if I recall- pedestrian, horse rider, cyclist, motorist, commercial operator.
April 22, 2021
Massive increase in foreign drivers ā 3.9% foreign registered vehicles and unknown number unregistered, and 1+% of haulage transport, unknown number drivers using EU or international licence. Most delivery drivers, especially food deliveries and taxies donāt have English as their first languageā¦.its like the wild-west out there but still the police are fearful. Agree we need more data
April 22, 2021
@glen cullen; Thanks for the rant, that totally ignores the fact that other, modern, western European countries have similar levels of foreign drivers using their roads but with non of the problems the UK is beset with. As for your second sentence, that says far more about you and your (close to illegal) opinions on peoples ethnicity than it does anyone or anything else – I’m quite surprised our host actually published such speech.
April 23, 2021
Most people who have English as a second language speak it far better than those who only have English in my experience.
And if you want to learn your own language, then there’s no better way than to learn someone else’s too.
Think about it.
April 22, 2021
Exactly right.
Traffic light are inherently dangerous. This as they tend to encourage driver to accelerate to get through them in time – unlike roundabouts. Better use of bridges, under and overpasses is also needed. For about the last 30 years most “investment” in the roads (especially in urban areas) has been to block the roads, create intentional congestion and install ever more traffic lights (phased to delay, inconvenience and deter cars and van drivers) and to create environmental areas (to make people drive further). It makes no sense to take a wide road and reduce its capacity by giving over half of it to bikes, buses and taxis that are only perhaps 10% of the traffic.
Why too do taxis get priority over cars they are after all just cars and they are much less efficient (than a private car) as they need a driver (currently anyway) and often make double journeys (empty one way and with passenger on the other).
I heard an idiotic ex Transport Secretary the other day saying a bus takes 75 cars off the road. Just how moronic can one be. Average bus occupancy depot to depot can often be about 5 to 10 people (by definition people tend to catch the fuller busses so have a misleading impression of bus occupancy due to sampling distortion – ask the diver). Plus the buses take indirect routes and hold other traffic up at bus stops every few hundred yards. Often taking two hours to do a journey that by car is 40 mins.
April 22, 2021
Traffic lights versus roundabouts.
I agree that roundabouts are better and not just from the safety factor, they also facilitate better flow of traffic.
When Stevenage was massively expanded as a London overflow decades ago, it was decided all the main thoroughfares should have roundabouts and the decision was a good one, as the traffic, was, in the main heavy, but free flowing. Well that was certainly my experience when I worked there for several years in 2 of the multinational manufacturers and over that period I only heard of a couple of traffic accidents from the locals I worked with.
However, they are not feasible on minor roads and lanes, but given the amount of tax politicians take off drivers, they could at least keep these in a good state of repair.
April 22, 2021
@J Bush; The brilliance of Stevenage wasn’t the roundabout per se, they actually caused all sorts of issues, but the separation of pedestrian and cyclist from them and much of the road network besides. But that was fine for the New Town plan drawn on a blank sheet of paper and build upon by-and-large green fields. But such ideas did not translate well to the ‘modernisation’ of the Old Town, were the clearance needed to accommodate an underpass, roundabouts and bridges etc. might not be user-friendly within the existing build environment and much land clearance (demolition), or devaluation of property was needed. The New Town was indeed Utopia, but I can assure you that the Old Town became a living nightmare.
April 22, 2021
Agreed the new design took no account of the old town, which is surrounded by a sea of mediocre and a crying shame that the original town was not considered. I was only referring to the fact that traffic lights along the main routes through the town would have made it worse and my experience was based on coming in across country from the Walkern direction to the A1 side of Stevenage.
April 22, 2021
Either an off topic tail of urban and road planning history, or a on-topic lessons on how to totally screw up by way of insensitive, unworkable road improvements!
@J Bush; The original plan was considerate of the Old Town. There should have been no need for most though or accessing traffic to go anywhere near the Old Town area of Stevenage by the mid 1960s, that is what the A1M and Gunnels Wood Road were built for, the latter feeding directly into the original 1950s era industrial areas, both skirted the Old and New Towns, there were then three east-west feeder roads from the original “villages” that made up the original New Town residential areas, one passed to the north, one harmlessly bisected the Old and New Towns, and the other was to the south, all Interested with Gunnels Wood Road – the fate of the Old Town was pure late 1960s vindictive Socialist spite at its worst in my opinion, they had it in for the ‘wealthy’ areas of the Old Town and adjusted the original plan to achieve their aims!
April 22, 2021
I am certainly not a fan of the āMagic Roundaboutā in Hemel Hempstead- a bizarre wheels within wheels setup of half a dozen mini roundabouts meeting at a key junction.
Peter (with a capital āPā)
April 22, 2021
I have a worker that relies on the bus, it takes him one hour with 20 minutes walking to do a journey that would take him 15 minutes in a car.
April 22, 2021
LL
“Traffic light are inherently dangerous. This as they tend to encourage driver to accelerate to get through them in time ”
Why?……..because local authorities reduce amber time to deliberately cause bunching. Smooth traffic flow does not bode well for various unecessary tax payer funded projects.
April 22, 2021
And in reply to Alan Justin yesterday. Thank you for your comment about Johnny Mercer. It is yet another broken promise by āMr Blobbyā .
The disgrace is that the person who couldnāt wait to jump into his shoes is Leo Docherty an ex army officer prepared to sell out old comrades for self aggrandisement.
Truly a man of straw and one of the political cowards Johnny mentioned. The problem is as we see with the Protocolā our politicos lack the balls to do what they were elected to do, stand up for us against vested third parties.
April 22, 2021
Allister Heath is back in the Telegraph and spot on as usual today:-
Borisās big green gamble risks fuelling a new Brexit-style revolt against the elite
If new technologies fail to arrive, No 10ās eco plan will devastate the living standards of the Tory base
The new technologies (ones that actually work and are competitive) will certainly not arrive in the timescale Boris/May/Carrie have idiotically decreed. It will be the poll tax again in spades. It will export jobs and industries and not even save any CO2 (CO2 anyway is largely harmless plant, crop amd tree food & net beneficial on balance so far. It is not āpollutionā or even āenergy sewageā as the idiotic BBC put it recently.
April 22, 2021
I donāt know..I think it is worse than that.
Remember…āYou will own nothing.ā
I believe that is the intention.
In our cold homes ( if we keep them), few jobs and many done in said cold homes, no form of transport and highly controlled. Digital money, doled out if we obey.
Look at what they have done already!
April 22, 2021
Electronic, identity, covid travel passport announced yesterday. Scrub the covid, that’s just the pretext for this. Our lying political class have been plotting this for months.
April 22, 2021
Everhopeful. You are right. I’ve just heard that the planning rules will likely be changed in England so that the public and local councils don’t have as much say as they did have over the installation of wind farms and solar farms on the hills and in the countryside. Scotland’s general public find it hard to overule the governments planning officers and hence they have mountains of wind farms in the most inappropriate places. This is what is coming. A change in policy which will take away everything we have enjoyed in the past and a system whereby eventually we will own nothing.
April 22, 2021
+1
April 22, 2021
Lifelogic
Think you may be right on this one.
April 22, 2021
Indeed. But that article asks specific questions – like how will the electricity be generated to service the homes industry and transport which needs to move away from fossil fuels (currently c. 80% of total energy usage)? We do not get answers to such questions, and they are not even asked. I suspect most politicians and public figures who advocate greenery are simply unaware of these basic facts.
April 22, 2021
Of total energy use (not just electricity) worldwide then solar and wind are under 2% of energy use. There is no way wind and solar can substitute for fossil fuels on this timescale or ever. Politicians are in āvirtue signallingā dream world but the laws of physics seem not to be listening to them.
April 22, 2021
Just been told that Shropshire is a county where they are looking to see where they can put in solar farms and wind farms. Nice eh? A county which is beautiful at the moment will be no more soon.
April 22, 2021
They wonāt be contented until they have sullied and desecrated everything.
The world will be a very dark place indeed and eventually there will be no one to remember the beauty.
I hope that the ruiners get nothing but misery from their spoils.
What on earth goes on in their minds?
April 22, 2021
Thank goodness Shropshire doesnāt have any power stations or TV masts or mobile phone masts or electricity pylons because then youād really have a tizzy.
Oh…..
April 22, 2021
Yes…and those were earlier abominations.
Johnson will not stop the continuing carnage until he stands amid a depopulated smoking ruin.
April 22, 2021
Not very windy or sunny either!
April 22, 2021
Brexit is a project OF the elite. Billionaire Brexit businessman James Dyson, now of Singapore, can text the PM for help with his taxes – and can get an immediate response and a change to the law.
If you are a shell fishermen who can no longer export (thanks to Tory Brexit), if youāre a musician who can no longer tour Europe (thanks to Tory Brexit), or you are a business drowning in new Tory pensioner Brexit paperwork then you canāt just text the PM to get the law changed.
The best you can do is to write to your MP – and they will probably not even respond.
Allister Heath – born in France so presumably who still has his free movement -is editor of The Telegraph having gone to Oxbridge. It is amusing you believe he is not the elite.
April 22, 2021
I don’t think the public will condemn Boris for trying to get ventilators made hook or by Capitalist xxxx during a pandemic caused by Communists.
PS, Andy.
Your flash new car contributes nothing to carbon savings – chiefly because it is new. You need to go way back to basics before you set your carbon footprint to anything like zero.
April 22, 2021
Thanks, Sir John. (Sincerely.)
April 22, 2021
Yes and travel to his 2nd home in France does nothing for his carbon footprint either. Hypocrite.
April 22, 2021
Brexit was a vote by ordinary people against the growing number of unelected elite interfering in their lives and those mega rich multi national corporations who have too much influence on governments.
The elites love the EU and the UN.
April 22, 2021
Accidents occur where road conditions become complicated – at junctions where vehicles approach from several directions, where vehicles are manoeuvring, where vehicles are parked and traffic has to negotiate around.
In such circumstances it’s good to look ahead and anticipate danger, but you can’t if the road is badly potholed and your attention is concentrated on the road surface in front of you all the time, seeking to avoid damage to your vehicle.
So to make roads safer – keep them in good condition. Plenty of money raised through vehicle excise duty and fuel duty to pay for it, so it shouldn’t all fall onto council tax payers as present.
April 22, 2021
If all your ideas are effective and I am confident they are, why arenāt the transport teams across the country a hive of activity to put them into effect.
They got Covid restrictions, often not thought through and anti traffic, out very quickly. Is this part of a secretly driven anti car agenda from your government or inefficient officials, maybe.
I have a friend working with the NHS on a Covid related product. He despairs at the incompetence of many of the civil servants he has to work with and then gets enmeshed in the bureaucracy.
Incidentally anyone see the irony in Nissans losses partly caused by this governments policy on cars being bailed out by, yes the same government.
April 22, 2021
I wonder what the take-up of the ‘Bikeability’ scheme is in our schools these days? I can still remember a good, enthusiastic attendance at my ‘Cycling Proficiency Test’ training when I was at primary school.
April 22, 2021
I can remember taking that test and had marvellous fun for hours as a child, and even into my 40’s I still enjoyed cycling. But now in my late 60’s and riddled with hip and pelvic arthritis (which will now never be treated) I wouldn’t even be able to get on one, never mind move it!
So with the politicians talk of smart motorways and electric cars, how are disabled people supposed to get from A to B, if they can’t afford the ludicrous cost of these batteries on wheels and so many villages don’t even have a bus route? Ah, silly me, just take the jab and clap!
April 22, 2021
My daughterās year group at her school did bikeability a couple of years ago. Most of the kids took part.
April 22, 2021
My mate teaches bikeability now.
April 22, 2021
Good. I asked because I saw a cyclist make a right-turn signal the other day and it struck me that it was about the first I had seen in about ten years!
April 22, 2021
SW “The Lifesaver” check-back is just that and even more important as a hand signal esp with high speeds and quiet EVs and deaf folks etc.
April 22, 2021
It is my observstion that Councils are not repairing roads through small villages around here so as to force vehicles to travel slowly. Roadways leading to them have received attention but the work stops at the boundary.
April 22, 2021
I thought about yesterdayās article and of course realised that all these problems come down to one thing. Motorway traffic, local traffic.
TOO MANY PEOPLE …grace Ć our wonderful governments who for years now have followed orders from elsewhere. The UN interests itself in the conduct of traffic globally and hands out rules and regs.
Our motorways were never made for such. volumes of traffic but ( purposeful) destruction of public transport, credit etc have led to more and more cars and traffic congestion.
So you create ANOTHER LANE from the hard shoulder and damn the consequences.
April 22, 2021
Oh..BJ has saved the NHS then?
I heard 90,000 staff shortage.
Leaving in their droves. 1 in 5 doctors seeking another career ( they often go into comedy donāt they?).
Wonder why they are all leaving? Roads too crowded? Forced to get jab? Sore feet from dancing? Covid too challenging?
No health service at all….great!
April 22, 2021
Ever hopeful
Correct . I know of 2 specialists and 2 GPs activelylooking for new careers.
April 22, 2021
Actively looking ….maybe actively looking for an even higher paid public sector job
April 22, 2021
Perhaps an MP?
April 22, 2021
+1
April 22, 2021
And it will continue.
Govt. probably wanted to dismantle NHS..part of the plan?
April 22, 2021
Dare I ask what sex these doctors seeking new careers are ?
The NHS is keen to recruit and train female doctors. They tend to take career breaks and early retirement.
April 22, 2021
Good point.
The article didnāt say.
Oh well! Weāve had a year to get used to no healthcare being available, I suppose.
April 23, 2021
Ginny
All male.
1 is doing a training course on micro brewing.
2 are looking at returning to their homeland
The last one is considering an offer in the private sector something to do health insurance medicals is my understanding.
April 22, 2021
Off topic, an excellent article by the Australian trade minister in todayās telegraph, pointing out just how restrictive is the U.K. (due to legacy EU trade barriers) on food imports. We should have no tariffs or quotas at all for any imports from Australia. Any goods or services legal for sale in Australia should be capable of being offered for sale without restriction in the U.K. this is the way we need FTAs to go, even if the approach doesnāt work with the EU. let goods be clearly labelled so people know what they are buying. And vice versa of course. Now we are out of the EU need to move away from the decades of protectionism justified by bogus claims of safety and consumer protection.
April 22, 2021
@Richard1 – due to EU legacy? or our still bizarre position of being held to EU rules and laws while pretending to be an independent sovereign nation.
April 22, 2021
No New Zealand apples for sale yet where I usually get them.
April 22, 2021
Plenty of English where I am though.
April 22, 2021
With regard to a special trade deal with Australia somebody has made some unhelpful comments:
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/apr/21/bizarre-uk-comments-about-australias-trade-minister-a-serious-setback-to-talks
But in any case any such trade deal involving food could not apply to all of the UK because Boris Johnson has singled out our fellow UK citizens in Northern Ireland for exclusion.
It is hard to see why has he done this, apart from his obsessive desire for a special trade deal with the EU.
This is from the Northern Ireland Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs:
https://www.daera-ni.gov.uk/articles/sanitary-and-phytosanitary-checks-and-points-entry
“At the end of the transition period (31 December 2020) Northern Ireland must comply with EU rules on Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) eligible goods and animals trade in accordance with the terms of the Northern Ireland Protocol (The UKās approach to the Northern Ireland Protocol, May 2020).”
“From 01 January 2021, all agri-food goods, plants and animals entering Northern Ireland from GB, must do so via a Northern Ireland Point of Entry (POE). POEs which has been approved by the European Union (EU). DAERA has worked, with the Food Standards Agency (FSA), the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) and the EU to designate the following as POEs for the purposes of (SPS) checks:
Belfast Port;
Larne Harbour;
Warrenpoint Port;
Foyle Port; and
Belfast International Airport.”
And so forth.
The following two paragraphs are extracted from the editorial in today’s Irish News:
https://www.irishnews.com/opinion/leadingarticle/2021/04/22/news/boris-johnson-s-sandpapering-won-t-smooth-loyalist-protocol-discontent-2296393/
“Boris Johnson’s sandpapering won’t smooth loyalist protocol discontent”
“Mr Johnson promised that there would be no additional paperwork or checks for trade across the Irish Sea, only to sign a deal that did exactly the opposite.
Since then, Mr Johnson has insisted, often in the same sentence, that what almost everyone regards as, in effect, a border at the north’s ports does not in fact exist, while blaming the EU for the onerous checks conducted at a regulatory frontier he pledged would not happen.”
April 22, 2021
My family got stopped trying to get into Australia because our teenage daughter had a piece of uneaten fruit in her bag. We were confronted by a sniffer dog at the airport and threatened with a huge fine because a kid had a piece of fruit in their bag. Australia does this to protect its people and its country from foreign diseases.
If this is what Oz does for one piece of fruit imagine what it does for imports. It is also why your suggestion is does not work in the real world because protectionism – as you call it – is often there literally to protect people.
April 22, 2021
Yet you advocate open borders for unvetted people.
April 22, 2021
But then terrorists are so much better for the country than a carrot cruncher.
April 22, 2021
Australia and NZ have a clean FTA. We should have the same. The argument which you make that we should have no restrictions on any trade with EU countries (I agree with that) but we should have them with the rest of the world is nonsense. People are now seeing quite how silly it is.
April 22, 2021
Andy
Trade with Australia is quite straightforward in my experience.
As it is for them to sell into the UK.
We have rules too.
If you trade with other countries you follow the standards and requirements of the market you are selling into.
Did you not read the rules?
They are written in plain English on the customs card you fill in onboard the aircraft.
You must have ticked the No box on this form saying you had no food or fruit.
Think yourself lucky they didn’t fine you.
I would have.
April 22, 2021
Got the same treatment with my pet Cane Toad.
April 22, 2021
It is unfortunate that we were unable to take advantage of the lockdown periods, when there were very few vehicles on our roads, to at least repair their potholed surfaces and ideally to implement some of the improvements suggested today.
April 22, 2021
Not sure I can agree with this as during lockdown I have never seen so much road repairing around Wokingham!
April 22, 2021
Problem is Peter much of the work is not fit for purpose, and has to be done time- time again until it is eventually done properly.
Just viewed work completed on the Woosehill spine road, simply disgraceful, but guaranteed they will still be paid.
About time contractors offered a guarantee on their work, or it was properly inspected before payment. !
April 23, 2021
too often the ‘ repairs’ will prove to be ‘one year partial repairs’ and when winter comes the rain and cold temperatures will see the soft crumbly tarmac come loose again.
April 22, 2021
Potholes are a speed control device.
April 22, 2021
It is mostly an economic protection tool, there to protect the ineffient. However I do sympathise with your daughter, jobsworths crop up everywhere.
April 22, 2021
There are two more reasons why our roads are not as safe as they could be and they are due to Ministers and English Heritage.
John Prescott took up the post of Minister of Transport some 24 years ago and immediately cancelled a whole range of bye passes and ring roads throughout the country many of which have never been reinstated. A good example was the A36 around the west side of Salisbury planned to link up two sections of up-graded highway. On some bends two twelve wheeler trucks hardly have enough room to pass in opposite directions not to mention the blight and pollution in several villages due to crawling traffic.
Another example is the A303 passing Stonehenge where English Heritage and others have frustrated road improvements for 40 years through court action supposedly to protect some pre-historic bones and cooking pots that should not be disturbed and I doubt will ever be seen.
In the intervening years traffic volumes have increased dramatically and this will continue until our highways become blocked with abandoned electric vehicles all with flat batteries!!!!!!
April 22, 2021
@George Brooks – meant to make you smile. Stonehenge, 303 a good wall of trees to the north would stop all the rubber-necking that slowing traffic causes to enjoy the view. The 303 had great promise but then was neglected, then again the A30 the great southwest road (main Trunk road from London to Exeter and beyond) almost all dug up neglected fast becoming a dirt track to no where. Accept of course where is passes the homes of the rich and famous in Sunningdale/Wentworth
April 22, 2021
And the A27 which badly needs a by pass around Arundel. Still it has been talked about for the last 50 odd years so that’s progress I suppose.
April 22, 2021
One thing that would make a big impact on driving safely would be to get rid of all the pot holes making sudden changes of direction to protect wheels and suspension units.
Some of our roads are something out of WW1 trench war instruction books.
County councillors inform me they have no money as too much is taken up on social services and supporting the needy.
April 22, 2021
never fear HS2 will save the day
April 22, 2021
Sir John
Your position today seems a bit out there with the fairies and doesn’t appear ring 100% true in practice.
I say that as an enthusiastic walking and someone pre – Covid generally clocks up in excess of 70K miles traversing the country going to meetings a couple of time a week
You could have started with saying successive Governments have force fed immigration on the UK without first creating infrastructure to cope. To many people around for the what is on offer.
People are in cars mainly because the UK transport system is a mess, there are no alternatives for the vast majority.
You state ‘dedicated cycleways and footpaths’, for most pedestrians they would state if only. Governments have brain washed people to cycle, but instead of creating the infrastructure they have resorted to kicking the pedestrian off the ‘footways’. They now take to their cars as a form of safety. A foot way that just has room for a parent and child then has no space for a marauding cyclist was always going to create discontent.
April 22, 2021
There is another element that contributes a good degree of chaos – Lack of adequate parking.
Traffic is frequently held up because the road is not wide enough for some trucks because of parked cars beside the road.
Then you have plenty of situations where delivery people have nowhere to stop, and often park badly to inhibit traffic flow, then there is double parking.
Better road design that allows for the growing use of delivery vans and plenty of off-road parking should be mandatory – New homes should require parking spaces as part of the build.
Existing home owners should be encouraged to give their homes parking spaces.
Over and above all of that we should get away from the irrational idea that speed limits make driving safer. They do not. It is having appropriate control of a vehicle that makes a driver safe.
It is quite possible to drive within speed limits and still cause accidents, so please let’s get away from the idea that CONTROL OF VEHICLES is not as necessary as inane speed limit.
April 22, 2021
Just as an aside, statistically based on the road death statistics by far the most dangerous form of transport on our roads are motorcycles. In my experience they are second only to cyclists in the way they ignore traffic law, particularly speed limits.
April 22, 2021
I don’t think so. White van man claims that spot with a clear lead.
April 22, 2021
Most of the safety aspects of using the UK’s infrastructure can be laid at the lazy interpretations by successive Governments of the simple rules of the road. We drive on the ‘left’ we walk on footways and sometimes road so that our back are never facing the traffic flow( That means on the left on footpaths and the right on roads, that is the opposite to the advice put out by the BBC) .
A and B roads suffer as being to narrow for the width of todays vehicles, as such cant cope with vehicles, cyclists, horses and pedestrians all at the same time. Keep growing the weight, width and size of vehicles conflict happens. Its not a motorway thing as you imply, its neglect and not keeping up with what Governments foist on people. These minor roads have become major ‘rat runs’ because of all the impediments to impede flow elsewhere. It is possible to suggest we will go ‘green’ if we get people out of their cars and we can do that by making it impossible to simply just go somewhere. Forgetting, not thinking it through there are no alternatives.
The again you have on your doorstep Wokingham Council, that rather than stick to the drive on the left require cyclists to pass one and other on the right – how does that work for safety and clarity.
April 22, 2021
A big wow from me
I totally agree with the subject of todayās blog and the comments made by Sir JR
Ok I know I clash with you about the EU
However today Iām in full agreement.
On the subject of road safety I understand there is UK research being done into alternative recycled materials for road aggregate as an alternative to tarmac .
I understand itās a recycled synthetic rubber type of material that does not break up through the use of salt and freezing winter weather.
I make this point because the total budget for roads is fixed and the costs of resurfacing after harsh winters is high
If alternative long lasting aggregate can be used then more resources can be directed to road safety and pedestrian cycle routes etc
April 22, 2021
Good points David. This different type of road filler has been talked about for a few years now. If it takes as long as plannine for new roads then it will only be another few decades.
April 22, 2021
Motorways are nothing like railways, motorways do not have junctions on the same level as the railways do, nor do they have level crossings for dissimilar traffic. By comparison non motorway traffic, farm machinery, and pedestrians, are kept separate by bridges and underpasses. There has been some very serious accidents on the railways caused by the failure to observe correct operational rules at junctions or were non railway traffic has fouled the running line in the path of a authorised train movement.
The reason railways are safer than roads, including motorways, is because trains operated to a strict timetable, all staff are highly trained, no train driver assumes they and their train is more important than any other, even those driving the Royal Train still observes the signals etc. whenever such rules are broken that is when we get the railway equivalent to the motorway pile up. Of course the rules can create accidents, such as in 1988 at Clapham junction, but such circumstances are rare these days.
“Wherever possible roundabouts should be used rather than traffic lights, as that ensures all vehicles are heading in the same direction of flow and not meeting head on.”
That can only happen at traffic lights on right turns, and those conflicts can be solved, as you say, by way of filter light phasing and/or lane marketing so that vehicles pass Nearside to Nearside rather than Offside to Offside.
Roundabouts are far less safe than traffic lights, there is a much higher risk of rear end collisions, they positively encourage CONFLICTING movements, although less than simple cross roads or T-junctions, all (bare traffic lights) are the equivalent of a railway junction without signals! That is why, were ever possible, traffic lights -in effect, are replacing the zebra crossing pedestrian crossing.
April 22, 2021
When existing roundabouts become regularly grid-locked, cause tailbacks on feeder A routes, or become unsafe, what is the usual remedy, the Highway authorities install traffic lights on the roundabout – problems solved with in-road sensors monitoring length of queues and switch priority accordingly.
April 22, 2021
People don’t report pot holes unless their is good reason to go out of their way to do so, ie a burst tyre caused by a too deep pothole, watching people swerving around them causing problems for oncoming traffic, or actually seeing a cyclist fall off his bike because his front tyre went down it at speed.
This is the response you get after they throw a bit of tar in it. “In line with our Highways Inspection Policy we believe that this issue does not require any action at this stage.” You think why bother! But Les was injured quite badly when he came off his bike. Yet again another pothole I reported, very dangerous just around a blind bend, filled in with a bit of tarmac not tamped down or cut and repaired properly, the whole road is flaking to bits and is a very busy stretch. If a cyclist gets injured along there I will hold the council responsible.
April 22, 2021
Oh sorry I forgot to mention the new generation of vehicles fitted with sensors that warn of imminent crash
Some cars are fitted with engine immobilisers that stop the vehicle before a hit
However I feel technology is at a very early stage in this development
Bit like stop start engines I guess the immobilisers are still at the stage of
More work needed
Before people become more tolerant of them
Iām not saying they are good or bad
Iām simply adding this to the comments about overall road safety
April 22, 2021
Got that on my car and an extra air balloon under the bonnet in case of a collision with a pedestrian or cyclist. I would like to think I was concentrating enough to avoid a frontal collision. I find Adaptive Cruise Control a brilliant asset though.
April 22, 2021
Please could we have more and longer slip roads at left turns. This to reduce the Braking Waves that flow back up a stream of traffic, that comes down to crawl speed a kilometre back from the turn. I remember back in Physics lectures they used to call it Kinematic Wave Theory. It is a frequent cause of traffic jams that have no obvious explanation.
April 22, 2021
I wonder if the literally thousands of new houses in Wokingham have increased traffic. Itās a shame our forbears did not foresee the Tory obsession with massive immigration and make the London Road, Finchhampstead Road and Nine Mile Ride 6 lane highways. Blame the Romans eh? They couldnāt know the Tories would increase the population by a million every three years.
April 22, 2021
20mph zones may have a place with regard to safety, but in many cases they are just used to “blanket” an area and get ignored, use them selectively where needed.
I noticed when driving past The Royal Berkshire Hospital the other day (in a 20mph zone) that Reading council in their wisdom had put a width restrictor on the main ambulance approach to the hospital from the south (Redlands Road), whose great idea was that? – I guess all of us who live in the area know the answer…the same person that replaced the roundabouts in Shinfield with traffic lights.
April 22, 2021
The majority of accidents are caused by one of two factors.
1) Driving too close to the vehicle in front
2) A momentary lapse in concentration.
Virtually every serious motorway or A road crash would not happen if people kept their distance.
I pulled out from a junction into the path of an oncoming vehicle a while ago. I donāt know why I did it, I was looking but I just glazed over for a moment. Fortunately, the other driver slowed down and didnāt make a fuss.
Neither of these issues has anything to do with junction markings, traffic lights etc.
As more cars get automatic āmaintain distance from the car aheadā technology, accidents on major roads will diminish considerably.
A feature of modern life is the 6 hour sit on a motorway because the police are treating a crash ahead as a crime scene. They simply close the motorway and stuff the people behind – some of whom have to use the motorway as a toilet. It will be interesting when cars are electric and the batteries all go flat in the winter as people need the heaters on.
April 22, 2021
As a matter of interest how many deaths and serious injuries have occurred on the Borough of Wokinghamās roads?
April 22, 2021
Too many deaths and injuries on local roads
Not to belittle the idea that all deaths and injury’s anywhere have equal standing. But surely such a headline is reliant the impartiality of the figures. Then the story being told by those that create them, are selling. How many miles of motorway in the UK? Then how many miles of all other roads?
We have to condition ourselves that most that emanates from so-called Government sources is no longer about creating pictures for a way forward but are created for’ Virtual Signalling’ of a pet project. Or as someone suggested succinctly on your blog yesterday Governments now aim for the ‘dead cat on the table’ approach to deflect from all their failed actual elected policies.
April 22, 2021
Off topic. An article in the Critic.co.uk sets out how the EU is to change its rules to set up programmes/beam propaganda into our schools for which they get plaques for participating etc.
Given the contempt the schools unions have for democracy I would not be surprised if there will be a mass take up.
Is the Secretary of State aware of this and will he confirm that the EU has no right to interfere in the education of an independent sovereign country.
April 22, 2021
Under this government it doesnāt matter if its an A road, B road or motorway, soon weāll all be travelling in driverless electric cars at a max 20mphā¦.utopia
April 22, 2021
The UK has just about the safest roads in the world already. If you want to improve safety still further, concentrate on driver on-going training and removing unsafe drivers from the roads. Look at motorcycle culture and do something about it. These are the things that will make a real difference without hobbling the economy.
The best thing you could do is sack all senior roles in the Highways Agency and anything to do with road planning. These roles are occupied by people whose brief is clearly to destroy road transport for the private motorist.
You need to consult more widely and stop pandering to the vociferous anti-car lobby groups. Why is “Brake” a registered charity? It is a campaigning organisation that gets most of its funding from the state.
There is no mention in this article about the transport and the economy. Time is money.
April 22, 2021
Not to far from todays topic, it is noted that some of the Worlds mainly self appointed egotists are having a ‘Virtual Meeting’ to ‘Virtual Signal’ they are interested in making the World a better place. A better place in their required image – that is.
What they wont do is let humanity off the leash to thrive and prosper
April 22, 2021
Off topic, to mark the fifth anniversary of the launch of Project Fear I sent this letter to our local paper, the Maidenhead Advertiser, supported by suitable references:
“It is now five years since George Osborne launched his Project Fear campaign to scare the British people into voting to stay in the EU.
Included in that Treasury analysis published on April 18 2016 there was a projection which attracted relatively little attention at the time, that a “Canada style” free trade deal with the EU would be of only marginal economic value for the UK.
Such a deal would be worth only 1.3 percent of UK GDP, according to that ex-ante Treasury estimate, while recently we had an ex-post estimate from the EU that Boris Johnson’s “fantastic” deal is worth a mere 0.75 percent to our economy.
(Viewpoint, February 25 2021, “What was conceded to make this deal?”)
Neither source is trustworthy and so both their numbers should be taken with a pinch of salt, but it is nonetheless interesting that the average is close to the 2017 estimate from the German Ifo Institute for Economic Research, 1.1 percent.
(Viewpoint, January 16 2020, “Economic impact of EU membership has always been marginal”)
Indeed there are quite a few other estimates of the one-off economic benefit to the UK of any such deal that fall in the range from zero to 2 percent, but notably there has been no estimate at all from the Department for International Trade.
To be perfectly clear, all cited estimates of the economic impact of various changes to our international trading relationships refer to the one-off effect, even if the projected effect on UK GDP would be spread over a number of years.
For a proper perspective UK GDP increased nearly sixfold between 1948 to 2019, the trend rate for that growth of the economy was 2.54 percent a year, so a one-off 1.1 percent would be similar to natural growth over about five months.
Some may disagree, but I do not think it is worth risking the integrity of the country for that slight gain.”
I’m glad to say that it has been printed today under the heading:
“Look at the bigger picture of GDP levels”
April 22, 2021
A primary town nearby has had a great traffic light sequencing system going, when you set off at the top of the Town you can get through all three sets of lights to the main roundabout. Last week everything changed you are stopped at every set, often with no joining traffic from the side roads. Someone has made the decision to do that and add nearly an extra 7 mins to a relatively short journey.
April 22, 2021
As @glen cullen has stated along with many others – HS2 will be our catch-all saviour and provide the right transport in the right place for the whole country for very little cost. It will solve our carbon footprint woes, might even help with the NHS recruitment.
The economy to pay for it – who cares that’s for the next generation that gets to relive the stone age.
April 22, 2021
Sir John, there is another important contributory factor to danger and deaths on country lanes, proved certainly in the area in which I live. The edges of the lanes are not finished off properly. As a result and with increasing traffic flows, particularly white vans with home deliveries, the road edges crumble. When they are ‘filled in’ (normally very poorly) the effect is that the lane is widened slightly. It then needs to be repaired again the following year. Over the years this leads to a considerable widening, which enables people to drive much faster. These roads need to be taken back to the width they were originally. It would slow down the traffic and reduce accidents
April 22, 2021
From the MsM – ‘BORIS JOHNSON has launched an inquiry to find the person at the heart of No10 responsible for leaking his private text messages to the media.’ – who cares. Even the UK Secrete Service (MI5) doesn’t think it is right they have secrets and have taken to exposing all their dirty linen on Social Media. T&C on Social Media is they get to remove all your contacts from your devices and put them up for ‘Sale’
And what of the UK economy, its high taxpayer burden – must be who cares again.
April 22, 2021
Sir John, as you have tweeted about the disgraceful sacking of Johnny Mercer, I feel justified in commenting on this. This is yet another example of Boris Johnson’s betrayal of Northern Ireland and his lies to all those who believe in the Union and in defending British interests there. First he lied when he said there would be no border down the Irish Sea, and then he lied wheen he said that British soldiers would not be prosecuted. Why does he constantly lie about Northern Ireland?
ConservativeHome suggest that it is because he fears the violence that the IRA might create if he stands up to them and defends the Union. But if the government cannot take the action that it would wish to, and which it believes to be right, because it fears that the consequence will be violence, then we are allowing the terrorists to dictate government policy. How can this possibly be right? Boris Johnson’s refusal to take on the anti-British republicans is morally indefensible and demonstrates both his cowardice and his betrayal of the country.
April 22, 2021
Sir John,
I would like to pose one simple question, as you appear lately to be enjoying the sponsorship of the Minister for Transport and Highways England. Imagine that you have a daughter who lives at the opposite end of the M1/M6 as I do, and that daughter has small children of her own who are required to be transported in child safety seats on either side of the rear seat of her car. When that daughter brings your grandchildren to visit, or returns home after a visit, would you rather that she undertook that journey on a motorway with a hard shoulder or one without?
April 22, 2021
It is time for a system of certification for cyclists. There are a lot of cyclists where I live and I frequently observe hazardous behaviour by flaunting traffic controls and through lack of awareness of other road users and pedestrians. No one should be allowed to cycle on a public road unsupervised unless they have passed an examination in the theory and practice of road craft. There would be no need for someone with a full driving licence for a motorised vehicle but others should be tested before being allowed unsupervised to ride on a public road. In addition, the lack of a minimum age at which a child can ride on a public road is an obvious anomaly.
April 22, 2021
There used to be many middle lanes for overtaking but were phased out unused and wasted road space as it was known as “Undertaker’s Alley” for obvious safety reasons. What should happen is those such roads with an ability to be widened with much adverse collateral should be seriously considered. Also all Accident Black spots should be labelled for safety reasons but the PC brigade would be offended, which is why we never see them these days.
April 22, 2021
“Smart” motorways are not safe; they are lethal and should be scrapped immediately.
April 22, 2021
Accident figures are bad on A & B roads due to several reasons. Firstly they were not designed to enable vehicles travelling at 40, 50,60 mph. Surfaces leave a lot to be desired, potholes, worn patches and ill-fitting drain covers add danger. Cyclists find they need to identify drain covers at the roadsides in order to avoid them and possible uncontrolled change of direction this can cause when hitting them. Signage is often inappropriate to road conditions. In more recent years more large very heavy freight lorries find they are directed onto unsuitable routes by satnav. They are too wide, too long and are alarming ly close when meeting other large vehicles like buses, tractors etc.
April 22, 2021
UK revenue vehicle tax Ā£40bn and fuel duty Ā£28bn per annum
Maybe some of these funds could be used for repairing potholes rather than subsidising EVs
April 23, 2021
The A30 between Basingstoke and Hook parallels the M3 from J5 to J6. County policy has been steadily to reduce the extent of dual carriageway by placing hatching and bollards in the outside lane over several sections, thereby reducing the overtaking opportunities. It’s supposed to be safer but it doesn’t feel safer when white van man is driving up your backside willing you to go faster. I must write to Hampshire County Council to find out what the record of fatal and serious accidents has been since I moved to Hook in 1987. They may not have all of the data on line and they may not want to release it if it contradicts their assertion of greater safety.
Incidentally, a couple of roundabouts have been replaced by 4 phase signals. We were promised that the lion’s share of green time would be allocated to the main direction of travel on the A30 but it hasn’t worked out like that. I’m not sure to whom to complain because the police are allowed to – and often do – modify signal settings determined by the County’s traffic engineers.
April 23, 2021
Sorry should have said Ginty.
April 23, 2021
We could certainly do a lot more with active road signs that light up to warn of the hazard of traffic emerging from a side turning, or in a hidden dip, or round a tight blind corner. Those who drive their local roads will mostly be aware of these potential hazards, but the advantage of a specific warning when there is other traffic to beware of would be useful to all.
The main use for satnavs for most people is to be able to monitor traffic and select the faster routes. Some who are inclined to speed do like a warning of cameras to reduce the risk of points on their license, but the latest in car tech will read road signs and ensure adherence to speed limits for those who are on the point of losing their license. Perhaps an enterprising satnav company needs to find a way to add pothole warnings to their offering. It could usefully inform councils of the need for repairs too.
April 26, 2021
I admire your faith in roundabouts! They work well when the traffic flow is even in all directions.
When I lived in your constituency the Sindlesham Mill roundabout was a right pain in the morning with long queues on approach. Complaints to councillors (of what ever political flavour) got nowhere. Looking at google maps nothing much has changed over a decade.
The famous Winnersh roundabout with the traffic light controlled cut through did work well.