Effective road and traffic management

Written evidence from Leonard Wells (ETM 01)

I am a 70 year old pensioner. I spent a great deal of my life as a Professional Driver. The bulk of those years (18 in all) were spent driving the family limousine in to London from a country estate in Virginia Water, in and around the London area itself and then home again in the evening.

During the early years in the 1980’s it would often take us up to 2 hours to get home in the evening using a combination of the A30 and the A4 during the rush hour.

This went on for many years and I closely studied the causes and pondered on possible solutions. It immediately became apparent to me that the bulk of the hold ups were related to illegal and obstructive parking along the main arteries into and out of London. Exiting from London on the A4 there are stretches of 2 and 3 ‘A’ road lanes and 2 and 3 Motorway lanes. All that was needed in London to cause a major delay in the flow of traffic was a car parked on one of the 2 or 3 lane stretches of the ‘A’ roads. For some reason the British Motorists seem to find great difficulty in dealing with switching from 3 lanes to 2 and there never appeared to be any Traffic Wardens available to do anything about the problem.

I sat down for many evenings and devised a solution. What I came up with I called Green Routes. I have worked in various Government Departments over the years and had heard that Mrs. Thatcher had a reputation for getting things done. I therefore set out my scheme in the fullest detail and sent it to her. I heard no more until the Government announced the scheme we know today as Red Routes. This was precisely the scheme I had outlined –even down to motorised Traffic Wardens –or as they are sometimes referred to as Environmental Protections Officers.

Since I asked for no reward or acclaim for my efforts I thought no more about it –though today I am much more cautious in sending details of any such scheme of mine –in any field – without being aware of what had previously transpired.

NOW I will come down to the point of my email. Whilst Red Routes is still a valid system, the bulk of our roads are still subject to enormous delays –resulting in frustration for motorists, bus drivers, truck drivers and bus passengers.

The bulk of the journeys made on our roads are in fact made on ‘A’ roads which before Motorways were the best available at the time.

The problem today with the advance of car ownership is that many of those ‘A’ roads are reduced in their capacity by selfish parking on the part of millions of car and van owners-at least during daylight hours.

I now make use of my bus pass so am able to see these problems at first hand. I will just give one particular example. On the A680 between my home town of Haslingden and Accrington the buses are constantly having to stop because the road ahead has been reduced to a single lane by car owners parking at their front door. They do this in many cases, despite having an empty driveway or a nearby side street or cul de sac. This is a tiny sample of what happens on a daily basis from 0700 right round until 1900 on just this one 5 mile stretch of A road. The cost to our local Bus Company alone must be enormous in terms of extra fuel used and unnecessary wear and tear.

My estimate of the amount of fuel wasted by all kinds of traffic because so many roads are reduced in this unnecessary and selfish manner is probably in the order of a billion litres per year.

In our area one rarely sees a traffic warden outside of the town centres. In London you have only to park with one wheel on a pavement and you can guarantee that your car will be towed away and will cost a hefty sum to have it released back to you. Unfortunately, in this area you can seemingly park anywhere –including entirely on the pavement- with total impunity.

Now- the only way to deal with this problem is to make daytime parking on any ‘A’ road an offence of obstruction. Time after time our local Traffic Warden –when he appears- tells me he can’t do anything about parking on a pavement or causing an obstruction as that is a Police matter. In addition he or she is very often unable to do anything about parking illegally on yellow lines because the County Council –having painted those lines- has not put up the appropriate sign.

My own view is that the Police should be responsible for ensuring the free movement of traffic through their area. For example, one often comes across temporary traffic lights which are wrongly phased and causing huge delays. If the Police took full responsibility in such matters they could immediately request the owner of those lights to readjust them- removing the bottleneck at a stroke.

The overall savings to our Nation would far outweigh any additional costs arising from the regular patrols by Traffic Police. It could be done in fact by motorised Traffic Wardens specialising in obstruction infringements. But they must have the authority to deal with cases of Obstruction.

Well, thank you Committee members for your time and I hope that I have been of assistance.

November 2010