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David, you're a lucky driver!

23rd September 2004
Page 66
Page 66, 23rd September 2004 — David, you're a lucky driver!
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

Keywords : Ruthin, Wales

Brian Lee of Allan Morris Transport retlec3 on the lucKy breaks every driver needs, and bemoans our roadworkersi lack of gallic urgency.

As I walked through the door havingjust undergone a hard S&M session at the gym, Rena said:"You're not going to like what I'm going to tell you." All sorts of things run through your head when your wife makes that sort of statement —she's discovered your secret monthly subscription to Naughty Nights in Nottingham... Blackburn Rovers have self-destructed... or the nut who promised to buy the company for millions has been returned to the asylum.

"A lorry driver known as David has gone over" was the garbled message Rena had received. For a haulage company based in Wales a driver called David doesn't narrow it down much.

I started to eliminate the dozen or so Davids and concluded it was the David en route from Ruthin to Bristol who wasn't answering his phone. By tracking I discovered there was a vehicle on its side on the Shrewsbury bypass so I gambled that it was our David and off Terry and! went in the search of a truck.

The sight that greeted us an hour later was a two-year-old trailer resting on its side, embed ded in an embankment bathed in floodlights.This, ladies and gentlemen, can only he termed as the miracle of the A5.

David, it seems, had a coughing fit, blacked out and came round a couple of seconds later having crossed three carriageways, the central reservation and striking a tree-lined embankment.This happened at six o'clock in the evening and the only injury was David's fractured coccyx. No other car, pram or person was involved. David, sometimes someone up there likes you!

Flintshire County Council recently invested in a bilingual sign to inform road users that from 06-09 (no year) work would be undertaken that might cause queues. It was useful for the sign to be in English, the universal language of the world, as the road in question in EC terms is known as the Galway to Brindisi highway so the multiethnic cow, bus, lorry and motorcyclist could understand why they have been held up.

The Welsh wording was for the assistant sanitary inspector from Gwynedd who insists, against the will of the vast majority of the inhabitants of Wales, that signs are to be in a language known only by a minority.

Once the sign had been placed and we all had a chance to look forward to viewing a major construction epic, imagine our disappointment when, from out of nowhere a 10ft square hole appeared.I travel the road a number of times a day and was able to observe the hole as I and the thousands of passers by had an unrestricted view.., no machines or men in sight.

Day three I saw a Spear and Jackson No7 shovel artistically placed close to the hole looking like a Damian Hurst reject from the Tate. Day five, a bloke who looked like Tony Blair was looking at the hole — obviously the weapons of mass destruction weren't in Iraq but buried under the A55 in North Wales.

But then on day seven, the hole was filled in again. Nobody saw anybody doing it. What was the point? All that! can think of is that somebody in the Flintshire Highways department wanted to see how far a simple hole could clog up the highways and byways. Well last Friday they were backed up to Denmark.

Recently I've been swanning about the French autoroutes and N-roads and I've been able to get from A-B in the times that I've anticipated. When I've come across roadworks. I've seen men and machines working both day and night. Why oh why doesn't that happen here? •


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