ABW                    Dangerous road surfaces

Having listened to "File on Four" (FoF) on Radio 4 this evening, I realise that the road signs I have seen on many occasions weren't what I thought they were.  I don't consider that I am much brighter or any dimmer than the average driver, so my misunderstandings are probably shared by most motorists.  The program examined a number of cases where serious or fatal accidents have occurred as a result of bad road maintenance.  There was even a hint that some council officers are likely to be prosecuted for negligence in not carrying out their duty of properly maintaining their piece of highway.

When it comes to who is responsible, and what they are responsible for, the legal situation is rather vague.  FoF tried to get interviews with local and central government officers, but it seems that they all pleaded the Fifth (without, of course, using those words).  The programme cited several cases where the road surface were dangerous, even in dry weather.  One police driver interviewed said that one stretch of road that looked to him to be quite safe, took him much longer to stop than he felt a good road should have done.  This was in his well-maintained police car.

The point of this essay is to publicise the fact that when there are "slippery surface" signs, they should be heeded.  In many cases where I have seen them, I have concluded that the signs were out of date and just been forgotten, like so many traffic cones are.  One sees so many seemingly absurd signs and notices, that one is inured against the few that are truly meaningful.  I recall a stretch of road recently where a "slippery surface" sign was "obviously" (to me) an error.  The BBC has alerted me that this sign on  a straight stretch of "good quality" dry road, may in fact have been important.  There are so many cases of "cry wolf" that people ignore true and meaningful warnings.  Look at some of the absurd warnings one gets with electrical appliances.  Is it any wonder that folk ignore real warnings.  This is an area where Parliament should act, and forbid any warning that is silly.

New Scientist has tried to highlight this absurdity by publishing some of the worst cases of stupid warnings.  The best I can remember was a notice on a packet of peanuts that stated "the contents of this packet may contain traces of nuts".  We all know that some folk are allergic to nuts, but almost all proteins find someone with an allergy to it.  One of my daughters is allergic to bread flour.  But to put warning on every piece of bread and cake is an obvious absurdity,  My eldest daughter has been found to be allergic to apple and egg-white (albumen).  We don't try to label every apple and egg in the country.  Allergy sufferers use their common sense.  I am lucky, I have no known allergies (except that of spending money).