YOUR VIEWS
LETTER OF THE WEEK
WRITE TO autocar@haymarket.com
Gross overestimation
I would like to clarify that in his reply to my letter about the Toyota Yaris Cross (10 August), John Popplewell quoted the gross weight of the car (1690kg), not the kerb weight (1175kg) as I had done.
Richard Lofthouse Via email
Incompetence or negligence
I wholeheartedly agree with Andrew Bailey (7 September). I’m fed up with motorway gantries having reduced spend limits when there’s absolutely no justification based on the traffic.
All too often, I see the same ones on the M62 near Leeds and on the M60 in Manchester permanently lit, no matter what time of day or conditions. This clearly suggests that the people who are supposed to be monitoring the motorways and managing live traffic events can’t be bothered to do that and just leave them on regardless.
No doubt National Highways will counter that at some point the carriageway will get busy and so it leaves the signs on in anticipation. That’s not their purpose, though: they’re there to update road users on live situations, not probabilities. Also, how often do we see the smart motorway gantries increase the speed limit from, say, 50mph to 60mph, yet at the very next gantry, some 200 yards up the road, it drops back down to 50mph or even 40mph? That to me is either incompetence or negligence, and one day there’s going to be a serious accident caused by this gross mismanagement.