6 February 2006
Silly limits are just asking for trouble
I commented that the speed restrictions on the A11 approaching Thickthorn roundabout, just outside Norwich, were much too slow for much too long – which meant people did not take them seriously.
This provoked a Little Fransham correspondent to point out similar problems further west in the county. Bruce Carswell, who is a regular user of the A1065 between Swaffham and Barton Mills, writes: “Over the past few years the speed limits have been reduced on several sections, some of which are justified on safety grounds, such as the reduction from 40mph to 30 on departure from Swaffham and the two reductions from 50mph to 40 through Hilborough and Mundford.
“However, the sudden imposition of a 30mph restriction from the southern exit from Brandon to the end of the Lakenheath runway is difficult to understand.”
He adds that although the junction to the Viewing Area is being worked on, “this could not possibly require a two-mile stretch of formerly unrestricted road to have a 30mph limit imposed”.
Similarly, “when the bridge at Red Lodge was being repaired, there was a very long 40mph restriction imposed on a formerly unrestricted section of the A1065, and a ludicrous 20mph restriction over a temporary bridge for 150 yards”.
He asks: “Who is responsible for the imposition of these speed restrictions and what is the justification? Who pays this person, and what is the cost per year of the department?
“Of course safety is vital to all road users, but common sense must also apply.”
The trouble is that common sense rarely seems to have anything to do with it. Slower and slower speed limits are imposed for no apparent reason. It seems quite normal nowadays for perfectly good B-roads to have arbitrary 50mph limits thrown at them.
Another reader complains that on the Lowestoft-Gorleston A12, the 40 mph speed limit on the last half mile of the dual carriageway travelling towards the Gorleston roundabout is “really silly – and the 40 mph limit on the corresponding bit of carriageway travelling southwards is even sillier”.
Not long ago a correspondent revealed how complying with a pointless 30mph speed limit for some 20 motorway miles was “probably the most dangerous piece of driving I have ever done, as lorries came hurtling up behind me”.
Yes, driving too slowly for the conditions is dangerous. And if speed limits are obviously inappropriate, they bring realistic speed limits into disrepute as well, leading to further hazards.
Blindly demanding compliance with too-slow limits, instead of contesting them, is asking for more deaths and injuries as surely as driving at 80mph round a hairpin on black ice.
Confusion over slippery changes
Following remarks about the apparent slipperiness of the A12 in the Lowestoft area, Jeremy Claborn was delighted to notice that “slippery” signs on the road had been amended.
Suspecting the power of the press had improved the road at a stroke, he was prepared to see changes all down the line.
Alas, this was not so. He tells me that the distance on six of the 14 “slippery road” signs has been changed to give an impression that less of the road is slippery. The first one going south, for instance, has been reduced from eight to two miles.
Unfortunately others have not followed suit, and the results are contradictory. Mr Claborn tells me that “the overall message is now that all but 0.6 miles of the north-south route is still slippery, and that all of the south-north route is still slippery!”
He suggests that this is “a job only half (or perhaps one-twentieth?) done”. Being an optimistic kind of guy, I can only hope that the changes are ongoing, and no-one is trying to slip the wool over anyone’s eyes.
Honestly, car-haters should stop making transport policy
Ethics are all very well, but maybe you can take them too far. In Dorset, a councillor left a meeting to discuss plans to improve a holiday park because he had a prejudicial interest: he thought caravan parks were a blot on the landscape and was fed-up with getting stuck behind them in traffic.
If people who don’t like caravans are not going allow themselves to speak, we will soon be inundated with the pesky things. But I’d be prepared to put up with caravan sites if people who hated cars were ethical enough to exclude themselves from transport policy discussions. Fat chance of that.
Newts in bid to oust ducks from Suffolk ponds
The influence of great crested newts is not hard to spot in the latest pronouncement from Suffolk – that ducks are bad for ponds.
Admittedly, such an assertion is not surprising from the county that believes cars are bad for roads, but few normal human beings would try to keep ducks and ponds apart. It is like trying to split fish and chips. What next? Cows are bad for fields? Birds are bad for the air? Water is bad for the sea?
Who could benefit from the removal of ducks from ponds? Clearly, great crested newts, who would be extending their territory further and taking one more step towards the destruction of life as we know it.
“They must be stopped,” said Henry (Fred) “Shrimp” Houseago of Erpingham yesterday.
Loving and lovable aunt
Last week saw the funeral of my Aunt Dorothy, whose name you will not have seen in any obituaries, because she was a quiet person who never married, was never involved in scandal, never made much money and never hit the headlines.
She was 90. She had spent much of her life caring for her mother, but she was also known to many boys in the county as matron at Norwich School in the days when it was a boys’ boarding school. In that role, as a loving and lovable Christian, she probably had more influence than many people whose names trip off all our tongues. She will be missed.