Sep 30 2008
impulsive Waites
The Observer, also known as The Gaurdian, reports that:
Reading is ‘worse than Beirut’, claims Terry Waite
Former hostage Terry Waite stunned Women’s Institute members in Reading by telling them that dealing with their town’s traffic was worse than being held captive for almost five years, after being delayed on his way to speak to them.
Do I think Terry is exaggerating a bit at the detriment of our glorious town’s already overly maligned reputation?
OH YES!
The town traffic may indeed be a bit slower than the executive’s posh car, or Fiat Panda, can travel. It is, however, a reasonable, leisurely, pace for the good and even-tempered people of the town to go about their honest toil.
Even the BBC doesn’t cite Reading’s roads as main UK traffic black spots. No wonder those members of the Women’s Institute were stunned to hear such ill considered twaddle uttered from a professional public speaker and humanitarian.
Outraged-Wendy-citizen-of-Reading
impulsive Waites
Oh - but Reading traffic is really, really bad. We now live on the same side of Reading as we work to avoid the horrible ‘London Road Slog’ (TM).
Ah Sarah, really really bad depends on what your benchmark is. Yours may not be based in a breadth of experience of different commute routes in England, outside of Reading.
The RAC (Royal Automobile Club) published the top 5 A roads for commute congestion alerts produced when the traffic speed drops below 30mph.
http://www.racfoundation.org/files/CongestionReportVol2.pdf
London Road (A4) was not one of the top 5. The A3 at Hindhead is in the top five and a whole class of bulldozed-fermented horseshite worse than the A4 in Reading. Numerous other English commute roads not cited in the RAC survey are on a grander scale of stand-still-ability than the A4 ‘London Road Slog’ (TM)
Congestion isn’t the only criterion. Rank bad driving must count pretty highly. Especially through pedestrianised areas!