Coned-off
Page 25
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
ile after mile of cones along the motorway try every truck driver's patience.
But those irritatingly cheerful red and white cones are even more infuriating when they seem to be protecting nothing but a few surveyors fiddling about with bits of string.
Now Swansea-based surveyors Longdin & Browning claim to have solved the problem with their brainchild, Clear Cone. A vehicle loaded with high tech laser and optical apparatus travels along the hard shoulder building up a computerised profile of the road surface that is unaffected by passing traffic.
As you all know, the Department of Transport's scheme for "lane rental", which provides financial incentives to contractors to finish road repairs quickly — and penalises them for delays — should in theory reduce the plague of the cones.
But as yet no one is immune to the disease. Derek Conway. Conservative MP for Shrewsbury and Ateham, was furious when, only hours after opening, the new bypass at Atcham was coned off to a single lane because National Grid was working on power cables above the A5. The MP says: "I invite them to sit in a jam with me over the next few 111 weeks."
Sounds to me as if National Grid need a short, sharp shock.