CH lives in Bedfordshire and he has written to say that after many years of sitting in horrendous traffic jams on the M1 motorway, he is amazed at the news that the government are to start building a long-awaited £289m widening scheme to put extra lanes on the motorway. Too little, too late, he says.
To add insult to injury, the extra lanes between Milton Keynes and St Albans are to be used only by drivers with one or more passengers, i.e. not for single occupancy cars. This particular stretch of motorway from Milton Keynes to the M25 junction is one of the most congested in Europe. It will be lined with cameras no doubt to fleece those who dare to drive in the forbidden lanes.
His solution is to purchase a blow-up doll to sit on his passenger seat, but there is already a suggestion that new infra-red cameras can tell the difference between a dummy and a real person.
The RAC, which supports the idea of car-sharing lanes in principle, has raised doubts about their use on busy motorways. They say that the idea works OK on city roads linking the centre with the residential areas, but on major motorways there are so many people travelling for so many different purposes that for most of them car-sharing is not a practical option. Those that CAN car-share probably already do, so there won't be any improvement in the congestion.
What there will be, though, is a nice increase in revenue from fines, and the opportunity for the government to sit back complacently and say "this congestion is not our fault, we've done our best. It must be the drivers making unnecessary journeys ...."
It's odd, isn't it, that whenever anything goes wrong on British roads - accidents, ice, congestion - it's always the driver's fault. It's never the fault of whoever is elected and paid to provide us with the services we have a right to expect - including spacious, safe, adequate roads. Nobody talks of drivers' rights, do they? Yet most of us are drivers, and it seems to me we have the right to do what we want within reason. It's the function of government to facilitate the will and activities of the electorate. Unfortunately successive governments haven't seen it that way, and the current one is the worst of the lot.
What we need is a benevolent dictator with a bit of common-sense. Me, me, ooh me, Miss, I'll do it!
Of course we can take comfort in the fact that new technology in the hands of the authorities seldom works properly. Look at the NHS database. Or the passport fiasco. Or the Child Support Agency. The common-or-garden speed cameras are pretty dodgy. Did you read about the man caught driving his Peugeot at an alleged 406mph? Or the driver accused of doing over 150mph in a family car with a top speed of 107? Or the bus driver with a load of school-children caught doing over 80mph in a 30mph zone - he was lucky, he was able to use his tachometer to prove his innocence.
The GOS has had a brilliant idea. If you get caught by one of these fancy cameras, you pay him £10 and he'll swear blind he was travelling with you on the day in question so the camera must have made a mistake. He could call it "Rent-a-Sod". Could be a nice little earner. And if he's thought of it, you can bet your boots others will too ....
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