What I’ve seen in some places is a …

Comment posted Overnight closures for Connel Bridge for repairs to damage caused by high truck by Robert Wakeham.

What I’ve seen in some places is a hefty steel pipe suspended from cables over the road – no electrical system to go wrong, but a driver would have to be deaf or drunk not to be aware of a ‘hit’. (having said that, I wonder what was the driver’s excuse at Connel if – as it would appear – he ploughed on for some distance after hitting the first girder?)

Robert Wakeham also commented

• In that case perhaps a reliable stop light system with flashing ‘overheight’ warning would be the obvious failsafe system – the flashing speed signs at the southern entrance to Inveraray and on Great Western Road near Drumchapel are very noticeable.
• At the risk of Ferryman accusing me of not being a regular user of the Connel Bridge (I plead guilty) I’d like to know why – to the best of my knowledge – there’s no form of overhead warning barrier that triggers stop lights if an overheight vehicle approaches the bridge? This type of ‘fail-safe’ precaution is common enough in some European countries – for example, at level crossings where there’s an overhead electric line.
  In this country any construction site involving traffic under low power lines will be legally required to have ‘goalposts’, and it leaves me wondering if the trunk road authority is asleep – or maybe their managing agents get a percentage of the cost of repairing the likes of Connel Bridge? I just can’t believe that the cost of repairs – and disruption – is outweighed by the cost of fitting effective safety warnings.

Recent comments by Robert Wakeham

• Walsh to lead all but Lib Dems, Conservatives and George Freeman
  Talking of Conservatives, and bearing in mind the ornithological wonders of this part of the world, has anyone yet spotted a swivel-eyed loon? – or is it an imaginary creature?
• First Minister’s choice not to condemn mob behaviour proves Farage point
  Farage was in Edinburgh to raise the profile of UKIP – don’t underestimate wee Nige.
• Walsh to lead all but Lib Dems, Conservatives and George Freeman
  This reads uncannily like a description of Tommy Sheridan’s erstwhile political buddies – although they, thank goodness, have never managed to grab the reins of power.
• Finally, SNP Government delivers a passenger ferry capable of seeing off Western Ferries
  There’s a quite accurate measure of economic activity if you look around at where tower cranes signify construction in progress, and there are more in London than in the whole of the rest of Britain. Last autumn at a do in London I suggested to a senior Canary Wharf construction executive that London was increasingly behaving like a separate ‘city state’, with an economy that operated independently to that of the rest of Britain.
  He was dismissive of this idea, but I’m not so sure.
• Amazon given government grants
  It’s worse than that – Amazon has been instrumental in destroying many small bookshops, which being ‘captive’ local businesses paid national and local taxes and employed local people. I doubt that they qualified for much in the way of government financial help at all, but I do know that they became browsing places for Amazon customers who – once they’d decided what they wanted – went on line to buy from good old Amazon.

  The really grotesque icing on the cake is that – while multinational sharks like Amazon, Google and Starbucks are free to claim, quite legally, that technically they make little or no profit in Britain – Britain has at the same time, by reason of the culture of business deregulation, become the country of choice for the world’s most corrupt, least transparent companies.
  No exaggeration – just read the 6-page feature ‘Where there’s muck there’s brass plates’ in today’s ‘Private Eye’.

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