One of the routes I often take my pupils on is along Spring Lane (from Mapperley) down to Lowdham, then back through Burton Joyce or off to the A46 (or the opposite way, depending on where they live). It passes the site of the old Gedling Colliery, which closed in 1991, and which has been used for some time as a dogs’ toilet by local people.
The route is important, since it is one of the few remaining roads where the idiot council hasn’t cut the national speed limit to 20mph, although it has reduced part of the road from NSL to 40mph. It enables learners to be taught how to handle the type of road where statistics tell us they are likely to have most of their accidents without having to travel 20 miles out of the council’s jurisdiction. But I am worried that might soon change.
Council stupidity goes far beyond introducing 20mph speed limits on roads which should be 30mph or more. In this example, it concerns their conversion of the old colliery site into a “country park”.
I don’t know about you, but to me a country walk means dirt tracks, old trees, brambles, and mud if it’s raining. And it means not many other people around. To the council, it means digging all that up and installing Tarmac (or some other artificial surface) footpaths and a nice big car park for people to drop litter in. It also means extra lighting and footpaths outside for “accessibility”. And this is exactly what they have been up to for the last six months, with all the associated road closures and restrictions.
When I was young, people could lay several miles of new paved footpath in a week. As I say, it has taken them close to six months to lay 25 metres of Tarmac along part of Spring Lane, and temporary lights have been up all that time. Of course, this was carried out slap in in the middle of the tram works (which have overrun by about a year so far), the Ring Road improvements (which have created more traffic jams), and the grossly overrunning “Creative Quarter” road works on Manvers Street (where two lanes of city centre traffic now – and forever – will have to make do with just one, and where pedestrian crossings have been placed on blind bends for use by the kind of people for whom it is borderline that they should be allowed out unsupervised in the first place).
The “country park” also has a 34-acre expanse of solar panels at its heart (this was opposed by virtually everyone, but approved by Gedling Borough Council anyway – and it was built quicker than you could say “no, hold on a minute…”). The park narrowly escaped having a waste recycling plant built on it.
I won’t go on about the detrimental effect all this is likely to have on the diversity of species on the park, because for reasons best known to him, Terry Lock (the chairman of some group known as “Friends of Gedling Country Park”) who once saw a badger reckons it will increase diversity. So who am I to argue over such absolute scientific fact?
No. My point is that when I went past the place with a pupil last week, we rounded a corner to be met by rows of cars parked on either side of the road for about a quarter of a mile, creating a corridor that wasn’t wide enough for two vehicles to pass at the same time. I assumed it was some sort of opening ceremony, but given that Spring Lane is a narrow country lane (as this old Google Earth image shows) I thought how irresponsible it was of Gedling Borough Council to have allowed such dangerous parking.
However, when I went past on another lesson over the weekend we encountered the same thing, but with the additional problem of people blocking the road trying to get into the car park which was obviously full, otherwise those hundreds of other cars wouldn’t have been lined up outside. I noticed dozens of people out on an Easter “country walk” with their prams and designer wellies, wandering along the artificial paths that had been installed. The indiscriminate parking creates a long and continuous corridor with several bends, so you cannot see if anyone is coming the other way. It also means people are parking on grass verges outside residents’ homes and screwing up the grass borders.
So well done Gedling Borough Council for creating an absolute disaster-in-waiting. Someone will get killed and it’s all thanks you your bloody stupid ideas of what constitutes a “country park”, and your desire to attract the kind of morons who don’t give a f*** where they park as long as they get what they want.
I’ve mentioned before that Nottingham City Council (NCC) seems to be out to ruin this city. Nottingham is filthy. There is litter everywhere, the roads are full of potholes, and white lines are barely visible on most of them. Designs for new office buildings only seem to be acceptable if they’re submitted in wax crayon by local children, and no new building is permitted to bear even the slightest resemblance to any previously approved design, even if the two are going to be adjacent (or even connected) to one another. Symmetry is out, and the non-glass parts are painted in light colours which look dirty after the first storm (magnolia seems to be the favourite choice), and which start to peel after a year or so. Many have gaudy plastic facades designed to fade dramatically on first exposure to sunlight or pigeon shit. The preferred asymmetry provides ample nesting space for pigeons, who move in before the tenants do. Buildings are only let to companies which allow their employees to stick crap all over the windows on the inside. And at least 80% of any new builds must be student accommodation.
In the absence of any clear reason for introducing them so widely, NCC came up with the following idiotic list:
streets more cycle and pedestrian friendly
greater community ownership of streets and parks
improved air quality
safer road junctions
reduced traffic noise
minimal effect on journey times
potential reduction in number and severity of accidents
As you can see, in NCC’s eyes 20mph limits are pretty much able to turn base metals into gold. In reality, these reasons range from the stupid (i.e. “community ownership”) to the downright wrong (driving at 20mph instead of 30mph may result in 8% fewer emissions, but the car is present for 30% more time; and journey times take 30% longer). However, at the time it was merely “a proposal” – which is council prat-speak for something which has already been decided, and it was only after they realised that they’d better do it properly that “a formal consultation” was arranged. I duly completed this and sent it back.
Before I continue, let’s understand that 20mph speed limits directly outside schools make perfect sense. But virtually anywhere else – and I include many roads quite near schools, and certainly sixth form colleges (where the attendees are technically adults) and shopping areas – they are completely unnecessary. They’re yet another manifestation of the nanny-state mentality of the very naive people who worm their way into politics and highly-paid council jobs.
What I didn’t realise when I completed the consultation was that identical ones tailored by area were being conducted in many other locations. More on that later.
Now, no one in their right mind – and especially if they drive a car – would ever agree to a blanket 20mph speed limit on roads. On the other hand, the kind of people whose brains turned to mush the instant they became parents, those who don’t (or can’t) drive, and certain people with a spandex fetish who favour two wheels would quite probably agree to it without question. It would not surprise me in the least to discover that the council deliberately targeted these groups when it sent out its consultations, but even if it didn’t I would be extremely dubious about the council’s claims concerning the response. As I say, they had already decided to introduce 20mph speed limits, and even if 100% of respondents were against the idea it wouldn’t have changed things.
Bearing this in mind, here is the council response sent out a few weeks ago announcing the “result”:
Dear Sir / Madam,
Having provided feedback as part of the formal consultation process previously I am now writing to inform you of the decision made by the Portfolio Holder of Planning and Transportation regarding the 20mph speed limit proposals for the [named] area.
The consultation period for these proposals ran from the 1st November 2013 and concluded on the 22nd November 2013 and the advertisement ran from the 15th October 2014 to the 12th November 2014. All comments and objections received during this time were forwarded to the Portfolio Holder for Planning and Transportation to enable a final decision to be made on the future of the scheme. All of this information has now been considered by Councillor Urquhart and on balance it was decided that the scheme be approved and implemented accordingly.
All A and B roads in the area will remain at their existing speed limits. This includes the [named road], [named road], [named road] and [named road]. Please see the enclosed plan which shows these roads highlighted in black. Furthermore all private roads will retain their existing limits. Please be assured that we will continue to monitor accidents on all roads within the area and consider additional road safety measures where appropriate.
All remaining roads on the attached plan will be included in the 20mph speed limit.
Yours sincerely,
The Road Safety Team
Just to clarify: the “Portfolio Holder for Planning and Transportation” is Jane Urquhart. I’ve mentioned her before, and I will mention her again when I get on to the subject of the tram and other road works in subsequent articles.
The idiots had already started introducing 20mph speed limits before the consultation was even initiated, and I am certain that it was negative public reaction to these suddenly springing up which made them decide that they’d better “consult” over it. They started putting in those traffic monitoring devices on all the roads where they planned to cut the limits. The supposed purpose of this was to try and fit real data into the RoSPA guidelines for where 20mph limits are recommended, one of which is that roads should already have average speeds below a certain level. The irony here was that the council’s complete and utter incompetence over the tram extension and “ring road improvements” had already caused virtual gridlock throughout the city, and any average speed measured now was completely non-representative of normal traffic flows. Many of the roads being monitored were at a standstill for large parts of the day during the monitoring period, whereas previously they had been free-flowing. In summary:
the council was going to introduce a blanket 20mph limit anyway
following criticism, it set out to retrospectively obtain data to support that decision
the data were flawed since they did not represent normal traffic flows
the council made the the decision that it was going to make in the first place
I was only aware of the changes in my area, and I hadn’t allowed for the size of the “blanket” the imbeciles were planning to throw over the city. Having ignored (I am sure) true public response, as of March 2015 it is impossible to drive for more than a few minutes without encountering a 20mph zone. And this is where the unforeseen problems arise.
First of all, drivers only discover that a road in any area outside the one they were “consulted” about has a 20mph limit imposed by driving on it – and only then if they notice the signs. For someone like me, who (and I don’t mean this to sound big-headed) is an experienced professional driver, it comes as a bloody great surprise to turn into a road I have driven hundreds of times before only to discover it is now 20mph, and I will not disguise the fact that I have been caught out several times – including on lessons – where roads that were 30mph in the morning (and had been for the last 30 years) were suddenly 20mph in the afternoon. God only knows how other drivers will handle it (and judging by how many of them overtake me and my pupils every day, we have a good idea on what the answer to that one might be).
Secondly, their stupid “blanket” has a lot of holes in it. If you take North Gate/Haydn Road in Basford/Carrington/Sherwood as an example (a single straight road about a mile long), you encounter a 20mph sign as you turn in, a 30mph sign at the first junction, a 20mph sign a few hundred metres after the second junction, and a 30mph sign at the end. If you turn off into any side street while you’re on the 30mph stretch then you encounter a 20mph sign. A more complex route on several roads – turning left, right, left, right, and so on – can easily present a speed limit change at virtually every turn. It is dangerous beyond belief.
Then there is the appalling inconsistency of the signage. NCC – being peopled by idiots similar to those I used to work for – appears to have separate highways departments for putting up the big signs (at the start of a zone), putting up the posts they’re fitted to, putting up the small repeater signs (which appear throughout the zone), and for removing the old ones. In almost every case they erected the repeater signs before the main ones, and they didn’t take the old ones down immediately. On The Wells Road, for example, the old 30mph sign just after Ransom Road remained for several weeks after all the others had been put up (and it might still be there, as I haven’t been that way for a while). Similarly, on many roads it was weeks before the main signs went up after the repeaters had. There was absolutely no coordination and no haste. The Wells Road example (and it wasn’t the only one I encountered) caused massive confusion for my pupils on several lessons until I realised what they had done.
The “blanket” – however many holes it has in it – is huge, and the number of new signs required must run into the thousands. Apart from the cost, and the already mentioned confusion for drivers at the myriad changes on a once simple journey, the chances of there being a signage error are now that much greater.
To the best of my knowledge, the police have said that they will not enforce these limits. They hardly have enough personnel to enforce the existing ones, so covering these 20mph ones is pretty much a non-starter. But if they did, the danger created by having drivers forever on guard for the next change would be enormous.
The icing on the cake is that, certainly at the present, the “blanket” policy only applies to the city area – the boroughs haven’t applied it. Now, don’t think that “city” means a small circle in the middle and “borough” means a bigger one outside. Nottingham’s boundaries are far from symmetrical, and Clifton – which is about 5 miles from the centre – falls within the city limits, whereas West Bridgford – half the distance away from the centre – is part of a borough. Furthermore, unless you have a suitable map, you would never know where one boundary ends and another begins, as they are political and not geographical. None of West Bridgford’s side streets are marked as 20mph, but virtually all the city ones (and many of the larger roads) are. This detail means that the chance of meeting multiple or confusing speed limits on a short journey is higher still.
Then we come back to the matter of 20mph as a speed in its own right. It is too slow. It is not easy to adhere to it in the first place on a wide and clear road – even if you’re trying – and especially not over extended distances. If you drop below it by a couple of mph, half of the drivers in the city are trying to get past or sounding their horns at you (and although they are still in the wrong, you can understand their frustration). If the police ever did enforce it, they would catch a lot of people who weren’t actually “speeders”, but who were still technically speeding. Assuming that the they followed the ACPO guidelines of 10% + 2mph, a speed of 24mph would get you a ticket, but from what I can gather Nottinghamshire police do not use the ACPO guidelines. That means even 22mph could get you a ticket, points, and perhaps a ban if you’re a new driver who has already got one violation against your name. I have no doubt that at some stage we will see the tap on this particular cash cow turned on, especially since very few people appear to be making even the slightest attempt to stick to 20mph in these areas. NCC will be anxious to avoid having to do a u-turn over its policy, so enforcement is the next logical step for them.
I was lying in bed last night watching TV before going to sleep, and I thought to myself that I hadn’t seen a decent funny ad for absolutely ages. This is no word of a lie, but the next ad shown was this one. It’s for Dreamies – a snack for cats.
This is the German version, of course. The one I saw was overdubbed for the UK.
I will make no secret of the fact I had to look her up to find out who she was. I like The Apprentice TV show, but it is a measure of Hopkins’ profile that I had forgotten all about her (she was a contestant in 2007).
Let’s face facts: none of the people who appear on The Apprentice are normal in the first place. However, if we’re lucky – and of the 156 contestants who have appeared over the series’ lifetime, we have been lucky 155 times – those who appear vanish off the radar within 7 days of being fired (quicker if we’re really lucky).
Katie Hopkins is the one exception. If you read that Wikipedia article, it seems that she has been moderately busy since her Apprentice appearance. She somehow managed to get herself labelled as “a celebrity”, and thus appeared on “I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here!” and “Celebrity Big Brother”. She writes for The Sun (a right-wing tabloid) and has appeared on Question Time three times, presumably as a result of trying to get into politics in 2009. I note that she was fired by her employer partly as a direct result of her appearance on The Apprentice. She was sacked as a writer for two local (south coast) newspapers following a series of reader complaints and subsequent poll. She is considered to be a “professional troll” by virtue of her obnoxious comments (you can get a rough idea of her politics by imagining UKIP, then taking the mirror image of it, then bending a few bits here and there). She has been investigated by the police for comments she has made about high-profile news stories. Following her failed attempts in the political arena, she seems to be trying again in her characteristic gung ho manner. I saw reports of the latest police incident today, where she appears to have implied that Pakistani men and child abuse go hand-in-hand, while referring to Rochdale. As you can see, Hopkins really is a stellar talent – right up there, alongside David Cameron’s gardener or Nick Clegg’s barber.
This latest incident seems to be linked to another (politically-themed) story a few days ago. Hopkins had stated that she would quit the UK for good if Labour won the next election. My immediate – and I mean instantaneous – thought was “good”. Unfortunately, when I looked at some of the media stories, most of them seemed to have beaten me to the same punch line. Great minds, and all that.
Hopkins is a nobody who insults people whenever she opens her mouth. Most people like that get into fights in dank pubs on on Friday nights, and remain anonymous from their births to their deaths, with their only legacy being a number of unfortunate offspring, already conditioned to carry on the same message.
I can’t help wonder if a layer of artificial celebrity is in any way likely to alter this perpetual cycle.
Note that I used the question in the title in early 2015 and I wasn’t aware that anyone else had (nor do I particularly care). I notice that as of late 2015, various newspapers are also using it. You’re welcome, guys!
I saw this news clip on the BBC a couple of days ago. In one way, it’s old news (if you’re an instructor who reads the relevant channels). since DVSA announced its plans well over a month ago, and is due to commence trials very soon. It was also covered in various newspapers during February. The story concerns proposals to alter the content of the driving test.
Judging from the BBC news item, you’d be forgiven for thinking it was all about cyclists yet again. The item features a woman who lost her husband (a cyclist) when he was hit by a (female) motorist who was farting about with a satnav and didn’t see him. In typical, saccharin-sweet, knee-jerk manner, this now means that the driving test should change solely to teach people about satnavs.
For f***s sake, satnavs come with an instruction manual. Even if people bothered to read it – or look at the pictures if they’re especially stupid – they are unlikely to follow any rule if it suits them not to. For example, every satnav manual in existence says – in words or in pictures – that you shouldn’t attach it directly in your field of view. Of course, that’s precisely where the vast majority of people put the damned things, where they could easily obscure the driver’s view of pedestrians, cyclists, and even other vehicles. They do it because they’re idiots – you know the ones: they have the satnav running when they go to the shops or travel to and from work – and no amount of “training” would ever make them do it any other way.
Every satnav manual also says not to use it while you are moving. Some units (and I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that this applied to all of them) even nag you about it every time you turn them on – on my Ford, I don’t think you can’t turn the visual nag off, and you just have to press OK each time you start it for the first time after each engine start. And yet almost every driver in existence attempts to programme them or play around with the settings while they’re moving. Again, no amount of “lessons” now will ever change that – if they want to fiddle with it while they’re driving, then they will, and no one is going to persuade them otherwise.
It’s the same with mobile phones. Every jackass 17-year old (and anyone else, come to that) knows full well they shouldn’t use them while they’re driving. But of course, that rule only applies to everyone else, and not to them.
To be honest, I’m sick and tired of cyclists being held up as sentimental shields to try and prove points against motorists. The vast majority of cyclists are far less well-behaved on the roads than the vast majority of drivers. The majority disobey almost every Highway Code rule going at one time or another (not giving signals, riding on pavements, riding across pedestrian crossings which aren’t designated for cycles, red lights, and so on). The fact that they also ignore cycle routes and deliberately mix it with traffic might well appear to be a brilliantly militant way of proving their entitlement to use the roads, but it’s bloody stupid if they end up dead as a result of being right.
If these bleeding hearts are going to keep going on about petty issues like using satnavs, maybe they need to look elsewhere for the cure. Because another thing that makes my blood boil is the number of times I see mummies and daddies stopping on yellow zigzags in the morning to let their own brats out, obviously believing the rules about stopping on those only apply to others. And those idiots in spandex who shun cycle paths to deliberately get in the way of busy traffic on national speed limit roads. Or those who ride in huge groups on narrow country lanes.
Most of those people are parents, and their arrogant and ignorant attitudes are the real reasons why idiot 17-year olds use satnavs and mobile phones while they’re driving. Pity the kids being brought up by people who behave like this. It’s inevitable that if they are being taught adult skills by a bunch of retards who think it’s fun to get in the way of lorries and cars traveling at 60 or 70mph just to prove a point (or stop where it is illegal to stop, or cross where it is illegal to cross, and so on), is it any wonder they run the risk of killing someone when they become responsible for themselves? Poor parenting is the problem, and that’s where any training ought to be taking place.
As things stand, a 40 minute test involving 10 minutes of using a satnav – one of the changes being trialled – will have as much effect on the attitude of the average 17-year old as a drop of water does on the level of the Pacific Ocean. Much bigger changes are needed.
Nottingham City Council really are a bunch of idiots.
Over the last couple of weeks, Domino’s Pizza has been using human billboards (known as wobble-boarders) to advertise its products.
Basically, they get a bunch of cash-strapped students to wear giant pizza boxes with a special offer price on it to stand on corners. Depending on how extrovert the respective student is, you may get a dance or a wave as you drive by.
They were a dangerous distraction to drivers and obstructing the highway.
So dangerous, in fact, that Domino’s has been threatened with a community protection notice and £20,000 fine:
…detrimental effect, of a persistent or continuing nature, on the quality of life of those in the locality.
What a bunch of arseholes they really are. No one wearing a wobble-board was forced to do it, so the “degrading and exploitive” nature of the scheme exists solely in the minds of people who couldn’t get a real job themselves and so ended up working for the council. And as for affecting “the quality of life of those in the locality”… absolute bollocks.
It reminds me of a similar scheme a few years ago where Kennelgate (I think it was) had paid students to dress up in animal costumes and do pretty much the same thing. In fact, they must have recruited their students exclusively from the performing arts colleges judging by the antics they got up to, and I can remember me and my pupils saying what a good idea it was (we’d never seen anything like it before). I don’t recall reading any stories about how that was banned (though with hindsight it probably was)
The average cyclist is a million times more dangerous than a Domino’s wobble-boarder.
Well done to Arjun, who passed first time last week with just 2 driver faults. He’s doing a Masters course at Nottingham University and will need to get around. He plans to get a car straight away.
He was an interesting one – he’s been driving since he was 10 in his home country and as a result had got a lot of the typical bad habits you associate with that. But we managed to overcome them and a good result came out of it.
Another interesting detail was that his inability to follow road signs is probably his weakest point, and this came out on the test – but since he did everything properly it didn’t result in any faults. People should remember that when they start worrying about independent driving.
Well done to Carrie, who passed with just 3 driver faults last weekend. She has always been a particularly good driver and deserved to be out on the roads long before this.
Now those odd shifts won’t be as much of a problem, especially early winter morning ones. She already has a car waiting and will be out straight away.
Well done Chloe, who passed last week with 9 driver faults. She was nearly sick several times while we were on our way to the test centre, and almost decided not to go through with it. Fortunately, she did. And the rest, as they say, is history.
As I pointed out to her, her demeanour after she passed improved significantly compared to what it was before. She’s already signed up for Pass Plus, and hopes to get a car very soon.
Well done to Arjun, who passed first time last week with just 2 driver faults. He’s doing a Masters course at Nottingham University and will need to get around. He plans to get a car straight away.
Well done to Carrie, who passed with just 3 driver faults last weekend. She has always been a particularly good driver and deserved to be out on the roads long before this.
Well done Chloe, who passed last week with 9 driver faults. She was nearly sick several times while we were on our way to the test centre, and almost decided not to go through with it. Fortunately, she did. And the rest, as they say, is history.