Tuesday 28 July 2009

Xmas-Voting Turkey Of The Week


The idea of repairing roads with the help of the public came from a man who described the state of the road outside his Marston house as like “the surface of the moon”.

Anthony Baker, of Raymund Road, has appealed for people and businesses to come forward to help the council, which is responsible for repairing the city’s side roads.

He said signs could be put up at the roadside to recognise those who had contributed towards the repairs.

Oxford City Council, who taxpayers (and the government, via taxpayers) pay to fix the roads in Oxford, say they have no money to actually do so. Yet Anthony wants to lob them some more?

I've never been to Oxford, but I'd be willing to bet a pretty penny that they have, in the past year, installed pillows, platforms, humps, bumps, lumps, chicanes, throttlers, bottlers, red tarmac, yellow tarmac, green tarmac, purple people-eating tarmac, skid risk signs, flashing signs, 'your speed is' signs, 20mph zone signs, go as fast as you like signs, surface dressing, bus stop dressing, french dressing, controlled zones, no car zones, low emission zones, no-alcohol zones, no fly zones, yellow lines, red lines, white lines (don't don't do it), posts, rumble strips, parking restrictions, width restrictions, traffic wardens, dog wardens and litter wardens** ... but they can't find the cash to fix a fucking pothole.

I'd also wager that the glut of gashes in the tarmac is something to do with a lax salting of the roads during cold weather. And you want to give them more money to reward them for poor allocation of resources?

Don't encourage them, Anthony, for chrissakes. Oxford will only send some highly-paid policy officer to a seminar to instruct other local authorities on how best to hold out the begging bowl when they have wasted their funds on unnecessary nonsense.

** It's odd that councils never run out of money for tobacco control advisers, is it not?




9 comments:

nannyknowsbest said...

Down yur in deepest Devon, we have a rash of spanking new new glowing road signs, complete with matrix displays (probably costing over £100K each), all displaying such "invaluable" advice as "Tired? Take a Break" and "Seatbelts on, Phones off". I wonder when we will see "Did you go to the toilet before you left?" or "Have you phoned your Mum this week?".

I am sick of our money being spent on telling us what we already fecking well know whilst, as we drive and look at these messages, we drive off the road because of a pothole the size of a small country and smash into the new "wheelie bin crash barriers" that exists everywhere.

I have probably driven over 1 million miles since passing my test and have never, ever had an accident or come close to one - yet these 20 year old idiots are allowed to spend millions on telling me how what I need to do to be "safe". Sorry for the language but fuck them - when they've done as many accident free miles as me,driven through blizzards, fog and one of the biggest motorway pileups in history (without damage - M4, when everyone burst into flames) - then, and only then can they use my money to tell me how to drive, instead of making sure I have a road to drive on.

Curmudgeon said...

Excellent stuff!

Nail hit firmly on head there.

SaltedSlug said...

Just moved away from Oxford; it's the worst possible place to have a car. Everyone is on a fucking bike, it's like 80s Beijing.

Mark Wadsworth said...

The odd one out is "French dressing".

And you missed off "nuclear free zone".

Beware of Geeks bearing GIFs said...

Unfortunately, I am afflicted with the curse of running a rather nice sports car and when I first moved to leafy Surrey, wondered why everyone ran around in 4x4s.

Now after several changes of Gaz Nickel later and chronic damage to lumbar discs M3/M4 I finally understand why...

Anonymous said...

One obvious source of sponsors would be the various community groups that Oxford will doubtless have thrown (away) many tens of thousands of pounds at, grrrrr!!!!!
Here's a thought - stop giving money to these (sponging self-interest) groups, hey presto, you've got yourself a highway maintenance budget. Nah, it'll never happen, way to sensible.

Witterings from Witney said...

DP - Oxford City Council is run by the 'green'(Greens & Libdems) fraternity, so your assumption (humps, 20mph etc) was a 'good guess'!

I notice word verification is 'rationol' - something Oxford City Council is not.

Dick Puddlecote said...

nannyknowsbest: My thoughts entirely

Slug: Are there 9 million bicycles, then? ;-)

Geek: What's Gaz Nickel? Is that a technical car thingy? I just drive the buggers.

patently said...

I've never been to Oxford, but I'd be willing to bet a pretty penny...

I work near Oxford. Let's just say that I won't be betting against you.