I've resigned myself
to the fact that my chances of death are 100%.

Statistics are mostly bollocks anyway. Especially when the numbers are so low that a small difference results in a large percentage swing, such as casualties on a particular road. If there are on average say 4 deaths a year on a stretch of the A1 for example, one really bad incident could skew the death toll for that year by a large amount, and get the campaigners bleating.

On a similar note, I travelled back from Skye today, a journey of well over 200 miles, much of it on Highland A roads. I was (when I found clear road) driving quite quickly, but safely and making good progress until I came upon the numerous tourists out for the holiday weekend. I managed to overtake most of them without too much trouble though.

There were numerous cars around Fort William with stickers campaigning for an upgrade to the A82. Fair enough, it takes a while to get anywhere because there's a lot of slow traffic on the road. But that led me to the conclusion that it's not the road itself that's at fault; I showed this by making good time on the road, while taking no unnecessary risks. Instead it's the fault of people driving too slowly.

Fair enough, it's picturesque round there, and tourists like to look at the mountains. But all it needs is a few signs and a few more laybys to inform drivers not to fanny around and use the laybys to allow faster traffic to pass.

Problem solved.

I should be transport minister!
( K2k6 has a proper job these days, Fri 2 May 2008, 22:47, Reply)