Posted By Mark R. Devlin yes, how many times do we hear of stretches of roads being described as 'dangerous' and speeding cameras as sneeky (simple, don't speed and you won't get done......) As for the many motorcyclists who whilst driving at well in excess of the speed limit in black clothing blame the inconsiderate motorist who did not see them.

Posted By Stuart Nagle The legal definition of a highway: 'a way over which any parson may pass and repass, hinder only by obstructions that are either natural or legal' So having taken this to mind, what is legal and what is illegal. The highways authorities maintenance manual defines the maintenance standards for classes of highway, including the 'recommended' inspection frequencies for all such highways. In the last ten years or so I have seem most highways I travel deteriorating at an alarming rate (potholes, cracking, crazing, poor utilities reinstatements, vehicle wheel tracking, carriageway edge deterioration, kerbing misaligned and missing, broken, sunk, sunken manholes and gullies and utilities cover, poor surface dressing and slurry sealing, scabbing off of wearing courses, overlays lifting off, shellgrip wearing off, rippling on surfaces in hill stop and hill start zones at traffice lights and roundabouts etc etc etc...) and the standrads are getting worse. Whilst I know finances are limited, you can honestly tell me that the public highways are currently being maintained at an acceptable standard...... they were not being properly maintained ten years ago when I got so frustrated after 25 years in Local Government Highways Engineering (both on the tools and in an engineering office) that I left the job altogether... If you think they are, either you dont know what the actual standrads should be or you're not doing the job properly. Sorry, I just cannot agree with the notion that our highways are being maintauined at the required standard. by the way, I did not see the program. Stuart

Posted By John Allen Why are roads in such poor condition? - I’ll give you three possible reasons. One – utilities. Almost all the pot-holes I see are where utilities have dug up the road and then patched the hole. This couldn’t of course be anything to do with the fact that the now private utilities see profit for shareholders as more important than the convenience and safety of the road user who after all are nothing to do with them. Two – heavy goods vehicles many of which are illegally over laden and most of which exceed the speed limit laid down for them. Some roads are now like cart tracks where the HGV wheels have worn grooves in each carriageway. Three – a road estate that is too big to maintain. Unfortunately, over the last 50 years or so government policy has been to build roads at no heed to the cost. We are all aware now of the environmental cost (although that doesn’t stop new schemes continuing to be promoted). However we have now got to the point that highway authorities are unable to look after the roads they do have. Roads are a burden on every taxpayer and will continue to be so until we stop creating the problem and start working on the solution. The Kyoto Protocol came into force today but that won’t stop the Scottish Executive and the Local Authorities pushing the Aberdeen Western Peripheral Road through the city's green belt at a cost of several hundred million pounds and in defiance of the SE’s own environmental policy and an independent report showing the WPR will cause an increase in traffic in the city centre. Of course property speculators will make a killing out of the green belt land freed up for housing and out-of-town shopping centres. Meanwhile a cheap and simple cross-rail project which would reduce pollution and congestion lies dormant in the council files due to lack of political morale fibre by the councils and their officials. The cost of maintaining the WPR will come out of the maintenance budget for other roads in the area. The cost of treating the additional cases of asthma and other diseases caused by the increased pollution will be borne by everyone. The difference between the dinosaurs and us is that we know what is coming and could do something about it!

Posted By Ken Taylor The traditional road safety interventions are engineering, education and enforcement. Whilst they all have their place in seeking to improve matters, it is well known that, whilst most road traffic 'accidents' are due to road user behaviour, education is generally the least effective option for improving it. Road surfaces seem to be deteriorating faster than driver behaviour these days and so I must also agree with Stuart. Low cost engineering measures have been around even longer than traffic calming and have shown that the pot of paint and the banned right turn have saved many lives and injuries. I just wish that the savings were all ploughed back into making the road surfaces safer.

Posted By J Knight I liked the spoof website, however, even that managed to be somewhat anti-pedestrian and anti-cyclist. I'll nail my colours to the mast here; I am a cyclist and a walker who has to drive 30,000 miles a year for work. Pedestrians almost never kill anybody but themselves, cyclists can cause fatal accident, but it's still usually themselves they kill. If I was setting up an industrial training scheme for a piece of equipment with the potential for causing a fatality in misuse, would I ask potential operators to take one set of exams and never require retraining? Even if the kit & the opertaing environment changed almost beyond recognition? When I failed my first driving test at 17 it was in a car with no PAS, no servo brakes, a four-speed box (it might even have been three...), 50 BHP on a good day, a CHOKE! and the road holding capability of a polystyrene box in a gale. Roads had no right turning lanes, or yellow boxes etc etc. This was only 30 years ago. Circumstances meant that I didn't try to pass again until 2001. So I know about advance stop lines for cyclists, and yellow boxes, and trams (we have them in my home town). But there are people out there who have had no instruction whatsoever for 60 or more years, who are still driving. This isn't an ageist comment, some 70+ drivers are good and conscientious, but it is a flat statement that we need a system of retests and lifelong learning for drivers. Already we learn that 50+ drivers suffer from 'sign fatigue'; how can we expect otherwise when many of the signs and markings now in use didn't exist when they passed their test. And this isn't even to mention the huge change in traffic densities since the 1940s (which is when some drivers will have got their first licences). I mean, we're going to have to do CPD just to tell people that yes, risk assessment is a legal requirement, but to drive a vehicle with a top speed of 200 mph is just a question of having enough dosh. Make drivers retrain, that's what I say; oh, and stop fining people for speeding, just give em points, that'll shut the Association of Bad Drivers up, John