Our Readers' Opinions
September 8, 2006

Concrete spillage a serious road hazzard

EDITOR: I was wondering:

• How much more concrete would have to be dumped on our roads, making them more dangerous yet, before some bright spark realizes, “Duh, enough is too much already!”;

• Who is going to clean up this unholy mess? A) Us? B) The culprits who put it there? C) None of the above? About that, I am not wondering because the answer is obvious: none of the above. The concrete hazard is going to stay right there;{{more}}

• Shouldn’t the police paint the mounds yellow so that they could be seen at night? Since you cannot paint the loose stuff, should they not cordon off those areas with yellow caution tape? Then, in that case, the yellow paint and tape business would be one to go into because there is a high – and genuine – demand for both;

• Did the government rush the seat belt law to help drivers remain strapped in when they hit the obstacles made by the mixers? Or to stay strapped in when they go skidding and sliding after they hit the loose aggregate? (The loose aggregate accumulates mostly on corners where it can create most harm);

• Does the unsuspecting mini-van owner realize what damage the sharp stones in the loose concrete aggregate do to his tyres when he is going up a hill – or coming down – with a full load of passengers? It cuts up the tyres. The damage may be small but it is constant enough to be a real problem;

• Who is ripping off whom? Does the contractor pay for what he orders, or does he pay for what the mixer delivers? If he pays for what he orders then he is stupid because that is not what is delivered. If he pays for what is delivered, then the concrete people are stupid because that is not what they started out with. And either way, we are stupid because we put up with this ‘wutlissness’;

• Besides the driver being young, stupid, and reckless, inexperience and a show-off and driving way, way, way too fast, did the loose concrete aggregate at the corner above the Shell Station at Arnos Vale, contribute in any way to loss of control and to the unnecessary death of a pedestrian on May 23 this year? (The concrete spill is still there);

• If some body decides now to do something about this wutliss and ignorant practice of making our roads dangerous, is it because we’ve found our “bright spark”?;

• If I have wondered about the above, then this is what astounds me: how much more stupid can you get if months and hundreds of trips later you have not been able to figure out that if your mix is spilling out you are putting too much in. They do not know or do not care that it is money lost? They drive past their mess several times a day and still cannot work out what is going down. Where are the police in all of this? The mixers’ spill on the road that is just above Cecil Cyrus’ Museum is one foot high, rising, and spreading. How much higher and wider must it get before they, too, figure out that something is wrong? Lord, help us, I beg you like a child, send us a bright spark.

John Joseph