N O W H E R E P A G E
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More information about this website & why it was created can be found by visiting this website's "front" pages (link opens in a new window) 
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Under normal circumstances this view should be impossible - as it was taken on a motorway where traffic is supposed to be free flowing and fairly fast moving. However a vehicle had
caught on fire and all traffic flow past it was halted whilst the fire brigade dealt with the fire.
The delay in this instance was about 30 minutes; however because it is police policy that even after recovering the injured and clearing the road after traffic smashes they completely
close roads for hours on end whilst 'investigating' so delays of many hours are not uncommon.
The cost of this (both time & money) to ordinary people, and businesses, who are innocent of any crime but still being held as de facto prisoners is immense. |
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The curse of road works with single alternate lane traffic (SALT) controlled by temporary
traffic signals causes delay to ALL road users no matter how they travel.
Why cant the work be carried out 24/7 so that those delays are reduced to the absolute minimum?
There
should never ever be situations (as there was here) where the hole in the ground remains for weeks on end
without anyone actually doing anything.
When California's roads were damaged in the 1994 earthquakes
we in Britain saw just how quickly road repairs can be accomplished - when there is a will to minimise
the inconvenience road users suffer. |
Ah, now, despite having been travelling through this site for some time you have still not arrived at your destination.
Maybe this is because you have been caught out by unexpected traffic congestion and become the unwilling victim of the crime of time theft.
Annoying, isn't it?
Probably left you feeling BLUE.
If you realised how much fuel your vehicle is burning
whilst you are stuck in that traffic and what its costing you / how much profit the oil companies & the government are raking in (from your hard earned,
heavily taxed income) you would be quite likely to start seeing RED with anger and
frustration! (A whopping 4 litres an hour for the average car! - that £3.60 an hour @ 90p per litre - of which at least
£2.70 goes to the government in taxation.)
Click the cashtill or speakers icon to hear the cashtill ring up a sale. (This link leads to an 8kb file called "cashtill.mp3").
Seriously B-A-D For Your Health!
But its not just your time and money which are issues here. The stress is not at all beneficial to your health, with there being growing evidence that the effects will last for many years, potentially resulting in all manner of aches, strains, pains and illnesses.
In addition the environmental consequences of traffic congestion are equally harmful. Vehicles in mile-long queues emit more CO2 standing there for an hour than they would if they had travelled 50 miles.
Click here to continue your journey and hopefully arrive somewhere on this website (where? -- ah well, as with all diversions you'll
just have to discover where you are going when you get there).
Alternatively, you could try and find an alternative route by pressing the 'back' button to make a 'U' turn, returning whence you came.
PS: Watch out for speed cameras as they are not programmed to allow for victims of time theft attempting to mitigate
their loss (ie: driving faster to make up for lost [stolen] time)!
Delay Repay
The railways have a scheme called delay repay which will pay compensations if passengers are seriously delayed. Whilst there are many caveats the fact is that some passengers do receive compensation.
It would be great if road users were also compensated for delayed journeys and wasted time!
Additional notes.
If you go to the police and make malicious allegations about a crime that did not occur then you are liable for prosecution for wasting police time. This proves that time is a commodity that can
be spent wisely - or wasted - and for which a financial value can be attributed.
So who should be prosecuted when it is the ordinary persons' time that has been wasted? Politicians? Civil Servants? Transport
Planners? ALL OF THEM?
Maybe that would be the required 'solution' to get them to sort out our transport chaos.
This page was conceived by a former 30,000 miles pa company car driver. Most days were fine, but every once in a while your author was caught
out and wasted 20 minutes (plus) getting past the cause of the congestion. In most cases the reason for the delay was 'man made' with unexpected road
works topping the list. The reason for saying ‘unexpected‘ roadworks is because where the works were known about it was usually possible
to take a different route or use the back streets to escape the delays.
Apparently, according to the Transport Research Laboratory it has been found that at least 25% of all traffic congestion on our roads is caused by roadworks - and
that often this is caused by utilities (gas, electric, water, telephones, etc) independently digging up the same roads rather than co-ordinating the works to be carried out
in one 'big bang'.
However road works are only part of the problem - under the guise of "traffic management" (which in plain English is better described as "traffic mis-management")
local government traffic planners (who are often encouraged by politicians that hold virulently "anti-car" viewpoints) have unleashed upon the captive travelling public
a plethora of negative "solutions" (sic) which persecute road users - and barely a handful of the types of alternatives which will actually entice people out of cars.
Even before he was elected London's former Mayor Ken Livingstone was known to have publically declared just how much he hates cars and car drivers.
Amongst the nefarious 'anti-traffic' schemes so loved by the desk bound pen-pushers are:- closing roads, reducing road widths (and hence traffic capacity), road
space re-allocation, lower speed limits, "scamera" road (un)safety partnerships, and a policy of installing unnecessary new sets of traffic signals plus tinkering with
the phasing of existing signals (creating long red and short green phases) to restrict traffic flow through busy junctions.
All this causes congestion where none need exist (or - where congestion did already exist - it exacerbates an already bad situation)
and is done solely to make driving a motor vehicle as unpleasant as possible.
Note that the vast majority of these also adversely affect bus and taxi users too. Not that the politicians & transport planners seem to care.
Equally despicable is that all this purposely caused congestion significantly compromises the air which we breathe. There are a multitude of pressure groups which
complain about vehicle speeds but does the fact that people - including children - are also suffering ill-health and even dying because of air pollution not worry them too? (oops I've started
seeing RED again). Their silence is deafening!
Other forms of "human action" which also cause traffic congestion include
- Illegally parked vehicles (sometimes for want of somewhere legal that does not require a long hike)
- Van drivers who park (blocking one lane of traffic) while sitting inside eating sandwiches!! - couldn't a side road be found to park and eat in???
- Traffic police who - when there is an incident - instead of doing the sensible thing and trying to minimise delays and keep the traffic moving close the road, adding insult to injury and
compounding the misery so that as many other innocent people as possible can share it too. OK, if the wreckage is strewn over the entire roadway then it must be closed - but more often this is
not the situation.
Isn't it time that humans in positions of power stopped being allowed to ride roughshod over the weak and powerless?
Apparently the closure of roads for hours on end is 'thanks' to new procedures where fatal accidents are now treated scenes of crimes [ie: as if someone is always to blame, thereby
requiring a thorough and detailed investigation of the crash site]. The new system was introduced by Richard Brunstrom while he was head of road policing for the Association of Chief Police Officers.
The same gentleman later became chief constable of North Wales, where he was one of Britain's most fervent advocates of speed camera technologies.
Unlike most other pages on this website there is no system map at the foot of this page. This is to mimic a road closure, with you, if you are (un)lucky, being forced to spend much time &
money (petrol / diesel) taking a longer diversionary route via places you quite possibly had not intended to pass through on your journey, and - because you may be wishing to minimise the extra journey time
by driving as quickly as safety allows - potentially being entrapped by speed cameras too!
Click here to continue your journey and hopefully arrive somewhere on this website (where? -- ah well, as with all diversions you'll
just have to discover where you are going when you get there).
Alternatively, you could try and find an alternative route by pressing the 'back' button to make a 'U' turn, returning whence you came.
E & OE.
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