Traffic census…causes traffic!
Oct 7th 2009
I know this is supposed to be a food related blog, but hey, sometimes a girl’s gotta rant.
Can someone explain to me why the police think it’s a good idea to carry out a traffic census during rush hour? I know, I know, they have to monitor the traffic or something, but they ended up causing it, not measuring it! Several people in my office, myself included, were late into work this morning. I personally sat for nearly half an hour to travel a distance that would normally take approximately 1 minute. There have been a few census points in the area this week, this is the first time I got caught and to my astonishment they’d set up two points in two different directions so there was no escape and the repercussions just fed back into the main traffic route.
Surely creating traffic, in order to monitor it, defeats the object? And they are not only causing chaos on the roads, but costing me time, money (in petrol) and damaging the environment by having hundreds of cars sitting in queues with engines idling for hours at a time.
And Cheshire isn’t the only area to be hit. I’ve seen reports online of a similar scheme being abandoned in Hull due to the gridlock it caused across half the city.
The police can get our addresses from the DVLA. They can send us a form to fill in at home if they’re that bothered. H and I have just completed a traffic survey for the DoT and Manchester City Council which we didn’t mind doing (especially as we are supposed to receive vouchers for doing so – although they’ve not arrived yet). If I received a traffic census form in the post, I’d fill it in. However, I’m afraid if I’m stopped in the coming week and handed a form, I will be tearing it up and throwing it away from pure irritation.
Rant over.
Oct 7th 2009
Looks like the police/local authorities/ DVAL or whoever simply never learn. As well as Hull, threy’ve recently caused chaos in Limerick, Derby, Shropshire, Croydon and Greater Manchester
http://www.live95fm.ie/news/news-item.aspx?arti_guid=a62999b9-e58a-4fbf-86e9-b7bb241610a2
http://www.derbygripe.co.uk/census.htm
http://www.shropshirestar.com/2009/06/24/traffic-census-lessons-not-learned/
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/traffic-census-jams-roads-for-13-miles-1095102.html
http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/parking-traffic-offences/221364-police-controlled-traffic-census-2.html
Oct 21st 2009
Ran into these idiots coming off junction 2 on the M60 this morning. Who on earth thought it a good idea to hold this in rush hour?! You know, when everybody’s on their way to work?
Completely lunacy. I drive that stretch of road every single day and if I’m lucky I might see another car or two, many days it’s deserted. Let’s just say it’s a good job I wasn’t stopped, as they’d have had a very large piece of my mind.