You may think that this title is a bit of a contradiction from an 18 year old boy, but I promise you, it is entirely true. I am talking of which about the ever trustworthy British road system. It’s fantastic, you can always rely on it to let you down in some way shape or form. I mean where else in this world can you drive on a road and have road works going on, closed lanes, congestion, speed cameras, unwanted detours and the occasional burning car? I am terribly sorry to upset any fans of the road system, but a journey that took 3 hours last week took 6 and a half hours this week really tipped me over the edge.

First on my motorway hit list is the nuisance that is road maintenance. Don’t get me wrong, I am all for the roads being renovated. I more than anyone am sick and tired of driving to my local shop and feeling like I am on a rally stage, however, I do not like to be greeted with that dreadful sign displaying men at work when they are all off for the weekend. For God sake, if there are no “Men at Work” then take down the damn sign. All it does is hold up traffic, make us all go slow and increases our blood pressure by a few bars. I heard over the radio on my way to Kent that a vehicle had overturned, the driver air lifted to hospital and the road has been cleared of all debris. 2 hours later and I am in that same traffic jam and I am wondering why my Speedo is reading zero. There is no wrecked car, no ambulance, and no debris but there still remains the traffic cones. There wasn’t even a single police officer on the scene so I thought to my self, “who is going to remove those cones?”. So I sat waiting, and waiting for another hour for the traffic to clear just because some stupid police officer decided to swan off home early or have his lunch break rather than easing traffic congestion. Come to think about it, traffic cones are nothing but a hindrance also. When you are driving you see a traffic cone and the first thing that comes into your head is stay away from them. This is mainly due to the fact that I do not want a traffic cone shape embedded into my bumper. When you sit down for a minute and really think about it, it is just a piece of heavy plastic painted in pretty colours. What is there to be afraid of? I can recall when I was seventeen driving to my snooker club which had virtually no parking and my friend saying to me,
“Just move the cone.” Simple huh. Why the rest of us just can’t have that mind set I don’t know but it seems that the route in which we take to our destination, is decided on the dreaded painted plastic.

Another thing that causes me to make finger nail marks in my steering wheel is the devils CCTV that is speed cameras. I know I know they save lives and reduce the amount of injuries sustained by car crashes and all that but do they really make you feel safer? Ask yourself that question. I for one do not feel at all safer, if anything, it makes me feel a bit edgy to be perfectly honest. All speed cameras do is make drivers slow down where there is a camera. Everybody knows full well that the same driver who was doing an honest 27 mph a minute ago is now challenging Schumacher on the M4. Another thing is that it doesn’t only apply to the boy racer types in their scrap yard on wheels. Even the oldies racing for their pension are a colossal pain when it comes to speeding. On many occasions however, I find my self elevating my voice at the driver in front of me who has the frame of mind where he thinks the speed limit is 30 but decides to go 15 just in case. The fact of the matter is that every car company sets their Speedo a slight bit higher to meet certain safety laws plus the speed cameras them selves are set to grab you when you are nearing 40 miles per hour. It’s the government’s way of ensuring they get the real speeders, not the geriatrics that cant see how fast they are going. All people are doing when they slow down for a speed camera is, not obeying the law, they are just causing more jams and again elevates blood pressure. Why on earth cant we have minimum speed limits everywhere?