Stuck on the highway to hell

A tricky dilemma for me this week: I’m British so I should enjoy queuing, but it turns out I really, really, don’t. Especially when it should be easily preventable.

Compared to some, I have a sweet commute. I leave my pretty village, drive through lovely countryside with views of mountains, skirt around England’s largest lake, then arrive at work, 25 miles later, on the edge of Ambleside.

I could be on the M25. Or Basingstoke. Or somewhere in a tube train, hurtling along below ground pressed against a sweaty guy with an annoying cough who bathes in garlic oil.

Sure, there are some occasional annoyances; tourists in 4x4s who seem terrified that there’s a dry stone wall close to their car; Rivers and lakes that sometimes get over-keen and try to muscle in on the roads; Idiots in Audis (I don’t need to qualify that one, do I?).

But there is one irritation that outstrips all others and I encountered the latest incarnation of it this week, when a set of temporary traffic lights appeared on the A591 near the Low Wood Hotel.

They’re a necessary evil, but take on a whole new level when the following happens:

• You join the back of an unexpected queue in a normally jam free area.
• 5 minutes later you can still see the same sheep in the field.
• Pedestrians overtake you.
• Time ceases, you become trapped in a infinite loop of despair as you realise that your limited lifespan is draining away whilst you look at the back of a transit van, start questioning your life choices, read the entire booklet that came with the Queen CD that’s just looped back to the start and cry inside about the hideous injustice of it all after realising you don’t have any mints left. (Just me? Oh.)
• You eventually reach the lights, having spent as long getting to them as it normally takes you to drive all the way home, having covered less than a mile.
• There is no queue the other side.
• Olympic gold medal-standard tutting commences.

We live in an infinitely complex digital world, with data oozing out of almost anything with a circuit board in it and access to wifi – how come we can’t understand that more traffic goes one way in the morning, then returns in the evening?

Maybe we need a council/government department that deals with temporary lights. All of them have a prominent identifying code on signs, plus phone number. If they aren’t phased correctly, the wrath of the authority is unleashed on the contractor, who has to immediately rectify it, or receive the kind of fine that would make Bernie Ecclestone wince.

The fines would pay for the bureaucracy, the problem would lessen, and my blood pressure wouldn’t make me look like an angry beetroot attempting to drive.

Next week: I come up with solutions to create world peace, ensure England win the next World Cup and make the Kardashians disappear.

This post possibly first appeared as my 'Thank grumpy it's Friday' column, in the North West Evening Mail, on the 9th of September 2016. I haven't received the paper for 3 weeks now, and it isn't on their website, so fingers crossed it did!

I did attempt to contact someone about this. Unsurprisingly, it was bloody nightmare. South Lakeland District Council's website made it pretty damn hard to find anything, until eventually I got to a section on roadworks. After eventually clicking  on something to make a map appear, it told me there was nothing in the place where I'd spent a large amount of time just the night before.

Although it was by no means obvious or clearly signposted, there was an option to change layer, which could show future roadworks. Sure enough, this revealed that works were planned for August. So woefully out of date, then. 

Eventually I found an email address and sent a note. 2 weeks later, and I haven't heard anything.

I tweeted SLDC the next day after another lengthy pop-up car park incident, and got a fast reply saying it wasn't them, but I should ring Cumbria County Council Highways. 

I tried tweeting Cumbria County Council, who replied to say.... I should ring the Highways department.

Great Customer Service there folks. Fine job of basically being a telephone directory, and saying "not our problem" without trying to help or pass it on to the right section.

The roadworks continued for another week. On some days the queue was 15-20 minutes, but there were a couple more very lengthy incidents too. Bravo, everyone. Bravo.

(CD A:Z: It's Jean-Michel Jarre time! Rendez-Vous is currently getting a spin. Tres bien!)