Oh! What a lovely bodge-up
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HOW CULPABLE were the road planners who failed to foresee that drains and gulleys on motorways might become blocked by debris thrown out by drivers and passengers? They . should certainly have remembered that the British are a filthy lot but should they have expected lunatics to hurl rubbish in the path of vehicles travelling at 70mph and more?
Whether they should or not, Department of Transport planners are blamed by the House of Commons Transport Committee for this and other shortcomings in motorways and other roads. If the list of faults in road planning, design, construction and maintenance is as alarming as it appears I would hesitate to employ those concerned to lay a garden path.
The committee is impressed by the ramifications of the holein-the-road industry. Gas, water, electricity and telephone workers dig 1.8 million holes a year and the bodged repairs are legendary. Indeed, one is lead to believe that the whole road system is a monumental bodgeup.
With true Christian charity, David Howell, Transport Secretary, congratulated the committee on its unrelenting probing. I am told that even when he was caned at school he turned the other cheek.