Shoulder to cry on

Is it only me...but does anyone know what the hard shoulder is for?

The other night I was driving home along some of this country’s finest motorways when lights above me and ahead of me started to flash red. It was a traffic jam. And before you could say Jensen Button we were reduced to travelling at the speed of an arthritic snail with a zimmer frame, on roads designed and built to carry traffic speedily and efficiently from A to B.

Something must be up, I thought, for I can be perceptive like that. No doubt the red lights and slow, slow speeds gave it away.

Mile after mile after mile after mile we proceeded in this fashion, edging our way along the tarmac. At any moment I was expecting to be serenaded by Chris Rea as we crawled along the Road to Hell. And why is it that when the speedo barely touches 10mph the warning signs are exhorting you to do no more than 50mph in these conditions? Fat chance.

And after what seemed an age, time that I would never get back, and at my age all time is becoming increasingly precious, our three line highway squeezed into two lanes.

And then up ahead in the deepening gloom appeared the cause of the motorway chaos-a car had got into some kind of mechanical trouble and had applied its winking, blinking hazard lights and headed onto the hard shoulder. There it had been immediately surrounded by those neo-policemen, popularly known as Wombles, who look like policemen in police cars but who aren’t really and can’t do anything should you speed past them at speeds in excess of 70mph. Do you know who I mean?

Now in case you missed this-the car with the winking and blinking hazards was on the hard shoulder. It was therefore out of the way of all traffic. It was causing no obstruction. It was not in the way. It was not blocking our progress.

However this was not good enough for the Wombles who no doubt to justify their very existence had deemed it necessary for reasons that are beyond me, that the car with the winking and blinking hazards needed to be isolated from the other traffic lest its sparks plugs, cam shaft or alternator might be infected with some auto virus and other otherwise healthy vehicles be struck down. As a consequence the inside lane was also closed and this was in fact the cause of the trouble.

Now it might only be me but when I was taught to drive a car I was told that the hard shoulder was where broken down vehicles were to go. Has this been changed? Must two lanes be closed de rigeuer to satisfy some Health and Safety Gauleiter? Why was this change made? When? And if so exactly what is the purpose of the hard shoulder now?

It does seem rather strange to me that the Wombles,who presumably have it in their Job Description that their number one accountability and responsibility, and if they don’t have this we ought to ask why not, is to keep the traffic moving, should think that by reducing motorway capacity by 33% this would not cause a hold up. Nor can I understand why no one thought that a car parked on the hard shoulder was out of the way and unlikely to cause an obstruction.

To whom are these people accountable? How is their performance measured and evaluated? What does a high performing Womble look like?

Until we get answers to these questions, have a great week.

And don't forget to check out www.themarketingcomic.blogspot for more intellectual stimulation than you might get here.

Sis felix. Et sis fortunatus.