I just drove past a mobile safety camera (official name) van, publicly known as a speed camera happily booking drivers as they pass. It’s been parked on a section of road that opens out from a 30mph single carriageway into a 40mph dual carriageway, and vice-versa (I believe it covers traffic in both directions) so it’s easy to accelerate too early, or brake too late and to get caught out.

Another thing, it’s sited right before/after a school, reinforcing the safety point.
But the school is closed because of the COVID19 pandemic. And it’s a Saturday morning. And the roads are almost empty.

I’d say that the clearer roads would mean that people are more likely to drive faster to take advantage of this, so are more likely to get caught. Cynical me would say that Kent County Constabulary are not actually concerned with safety, but revenue.

I got caught by one of the blighters a few years back and had the option to attend a “Speed Awareness Course” for £100 instead of receiving an £80 fine and three points on my licence. I went on the course, and it was most enlightening. It was a whole day affair in a sweaty little conference room in the middle of summer, the facilitators were almost like concentration camp guards in their attitude to attendees and spent the day showing videos, lecturing and belittling us. It was crammed with facts and statistics such as number of deaths from drug and drink driving, but there was one statistic that was missing. I held my hand up to ask about it and was prompted to speak.

“So, this is a speed awareness course, we’ve seen and heard lots of statistics about road deaths of different types, but I’ve not seen a single statistic relating to the number of accidents/deaths caused by speed.”

The look on their faces was one of shock. They didn’t have any figures and glibly said that they would have to get back to us.

“But this is a speed awareness course, right?”

The look on their faces swiftly changed from shock to sheer anger, and it was so long ago, I cannot remember what their retort was, but it was sufficient to stop me in my tracks and put me back in my box. Essentially, it was dissent is not tolerated, and if you don’t conform, you’ll fail the course. From recollection, this could mean my having to stump up additional costs and taking the points.

Next time I’ll take the points, rather than indulging a pair of KCC gestapo officers thank you very much.

The French closing their border with the UK at 11pm on Sunday 20th December has caused chaos in the South of England, this has been widely reported. I live locally and witnessed events unfolding, the scale of the problem was overwhelming. There were thousands of people stranded away from home for the Christmas period, many without food, all without proper sanitation.

There’s a lot of public and media conjecture about Emmanuel Macron’s motives for the closure, with the main themes being it was either genuninely for COVID security as was the official line, or it was to force the UK into a weakened position in the run up to the final Brexit negotiations and increase the chances of the UK receiving a bad deal. I won’t dwell upon which I think it was, but the resulting fallout for thousands of drivers has been hideous and as I type this, continues to be, albeit with reduced numbers.

Often, these drivers are low-paid workers that travel hundreds of miles away from their families, and they are critical to maintaining the UK. Without them there would be shortages of food and goods. Now, you can get embroiled in a finger pointing blame game regarding how they were put in the position of not being able to get themselves home for the Christmas period, but that will solve nothing. These men and women have found themselves in a position not of their doing, and I’d consider, irrespective of blame, we owe them a duty of care as human beings. I never ever considered that the UK Government on a central and local level could be so incompetent and uncaring.

Thanet District Council (TDC) announced on Christmas Eve that they thanked people for their offers of support, but requested that people didn’t get involved, and instead contacted local charities and stay at home. I’m glad that people ignored this message, as dusk arrived on Christmas Eve, I witnessed people distributing food to the drivers and they appeared full of gratitude. There were young families walking along the lines of parked trucks throughout Kent distributing, there were people climbing the Manston perimiter fence and passing food and drink over. There was clearly a very large demand for this. At this point, there was nothing new about this crisis, it had been rolling on for four days at this point.

This was a fantastic opportunity for TDC to co-ordinate the volunteers, but they chose to dissuade people from helping. They also failed to make an official comment on the situation at Manston. Considering this, maybe they should have just not said anything instead?