Sad and sorry state (UK Roads)

Member Name: IanPaterson

Product:	UK Roads
Date:	25/09/00 (55 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Some nice scenery in places

Disadvantages: 15 years over due an overhaul

Gritting my teeth, I held my completed V10 form and queued in the Post Office to pay £180 odd quid to be able to legally use my car on UK roads. As I handed over the cash, I though of all the bent alloy wheels caused by potholes I have had (4 in twelve months!), traffic jams through congested towns that desperately need bypasses I have sat in, noisy worn out road surfaces in residential areas, swerved to avoid debris on motorways etc etc, dumped burned out cars on ring roads and country lanes that have been there for months blah blah. Where does all that money go?

A recent survey concluded that Britains roads are FIFTEEN years behind on maintenance. FIFTEEN YEARS! That is a lot of revenue collected and spent elsewhere isn't it?

My Mum lives in Dunstable, near Luton in South Beds. This area has some serious congestion problems. For about twenty years, the town has needed a bypass desperately. Dunstable is a bottle neck of traffic between the A5, M1 and A41 for traffic travelling south and north for Milton Keynes and London. Dunstable is the only major British town not to have a train station as well.

Recently, Anglian eastern counties was labelled as the having the highest breathing disorders (asthma etc.) and allergies associated with poor air quality in children under 16 IN THE WORLD! Isn't that disgusting?

The problem with roads in this country is most of them were built thirty or forty years ago. Who would have known in the fifties what traffic levels would be like today? My Dad was a surveyor on the M6 when it was being built and there estimate forty years on was 20% of what it is now! There has been no investment in communications in this country since Maggie stomped into No 10 in 1979. Apart from the white elephants of the M25, widening the A1 and connections to the M1 around Hertfordshire.

An economy lives and dies on its communications infrastructure. This country has major problems moving go
ods due to transport costs by rail and fuel costs by road and poor road quality causing congestion and pollution. When Railtrack first took over, a new locomotive was built in Portsmouth to be used in Newcastle. It was cheaper to transport it on a low loader on the roads than moving it by rail!

Where do we go from here? Environmentalists are screaming for lower pollution, the ozone layer is breaking down four times faster than originally estimated, my kids will face breathing disorders and diseases, the cost of travelling to work outweighs the benefit of going..... Need I say more? UK roads are the tip of the disastrous transport iceberg.

I think I am going to immigrate.

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