ROAD TO REDEMPTION Part III

LIFE ON THE ROAD

The way things were a hundred years ago

The third part of the story about living by the side of A519 in
Staffordshire stays firmly in the year 2004 … these are my musing
about the deadly criteria for getting flashing speed signs and a letter I
wrote to the county’s chief constable asking for help. The chief
constable never replied to me…

June 2004 … The only way we can begin to get any kind of recognition
about the hell of living on the A519 is to start sacrificing ourselves.
This is how it works, it’s a trade off you see: If we want to get
flashing 30mph signs at either end of the village, three of us must die.
Those are the rules. Three people must die to convince the people in
power that we need £5,000 worth of flashing 30mph speed limit signs.
That means they value an individual at approximately £1,700.
Shall we put out a village appeal for martyrs? We could put a
poster up in Mr Paige’s post office.
A few weeks ago the villagers demanded a traffic count. They did
one, on Barn Common, a relatively new estate at the top of the village,
perhaps traffic-wise the quietest part of the village. The count apparently
showed that we didn’t have a problem. There were slightly more than
10,000 vehicles a day going past Barn Common. I suppose that isn’t a
problem if you don’t live there.
But the villagers were amazed, not least because a good proportion
of the traffic turns off the A519 before it even reaches Barn Common, so
the reality was really far in excess of the figure they recorded.
So we asked them why the count was done at the top end of the
village?
Here is the official answer - because it was too dangerous down at
the bottom end.
Guess where the bulk of the roadside houses are? Yes, in the area
of the village where it is too dangerous to carry out a traffic count. No
health and safety for us then.
Next we petitioned them to set up a speed trap. They did. On Barn
Common again. The traffic coming into the village immediately hits a
bend and anyway, they can see if a speed trap is there because it is always
positioned on the top of a grass bank.
Traffic coming in from the bottom end of the village has to
negotiate the cars parked on either side of the road outside the post office.
Post office parking is actually the perfect solution to the traffic problems
we have. Parked cars cause a natural chicane and massive wagons simply
can’t get through.
The traffic monitors caught six people in an hour.
However, we filmed the road and caught 52. The film also showed
up to one car a second travelling through the village.
Here’s a letter I wrote to the Chief Constable of Staffordshire, Mr
Ron Gifford. It was copied to Mr Bill Cash, MP.

“Sir

I am the victim of road crime, day in, day out, seven days a week. And I
am asking for your help.
I live on the A519 at Woodseaves, Staffordshire. Life here has
become unbearable because of the vast number of six-axle wagons
thrashing through the village from midnight ‘til midnight.
Thrashing through a village from midnight ‘til midnight, I am sure,
is not a definable crime.
But I am sure that travelling at twice the speed limit is.
I am sure that disturbing the peace is.
I an sure that the indescribable noise of tyres and diesel engines
and the sound of air being sucked out of your house - noise that is so loud
that people cannot sleep in the early hours – should be a crime.
Damaging property is a crime.

I am sure that driving on the pavement is a crime.

Tailgating is a crime.

Intimidating fellow motorists and putting lives in danger are terrible

crimes.

Sir, I have either been witness to - or victim of - all of these crimes this
week.
For instance on Tuesday, 19th I was driving through the village at
30mph when the driver who had been flashing his lights aggressively at
me for a couple of hundred yards overtook me near to the bend outside
The Tavern. He was gesticulating madly, mouthing obscenities at me, as
he hurtled blindly towards the bend.
On Wednesday the 20th, my fiancé was nearly wiped from the face
of this earth at Sutton Bank by a six-axle wagon which was coming round
the S-bend on the wrong side of the road.
That evening: a lorry driver sitting six feet above my head blasted
his horn at me because I had the temerity to be walking along the
pavement he wanted to drive on.
But the worst, Sir, happened at the end of the previous week. I was
driving in the direction of Newport at the regulation 30mph when out of
nowhere a gigantic sand-coloured quarry truck with private plates – I
remember the first part was JUG - appeared in my rear-view mirror.
It bounced and lurched closer to me until it filled the mirror with
its headlight cluster and part of its grill. I estimate that when the haulier
finally braked he was less than 2ft from the rear of my car.
I slowed down marginally - without braking - to take the bend
outside The Plough.
But that was enough for the driver of the quarry truck to hit his
brakes so hard that he skidded across the road, regained control and still
managed to overtake me blindly across the bend.
He could have died, I could have died. Any driver coming the other
way could have died. Indeed, the driver could have smashed into the
houses killing the inhabitants.
These are just examples. The tyranny is constant.
I have been writing this letter for less than an hour now, but in that
period the floor under my chair has rocked as if it has been hit by 12
separate earthquakes. 12 separate earthquakes caused by the vibration of
these lorries.
 Nobody can sleep in this village with their windows open anymore.
Sir, if a band of wild men, travelling in a convoy of massively-
powerful vehicles, rained down on a village every day and proceeded to
use that village’s main street as a race track – and they disturbed the
peace and they intimidated residents and they created a danger and they
put people in fear of their lives, then you would do something to stop
them.
Well, the only difference is that these wild men are road hauliers.
Why can’t you stop them?

Yours truly …”

I can find no copy of a reply to this letter.