Fitaloon at MicroShaft

Country Roads. Don't Risk It. Deaths by Age

Driving to work this morning, we heard one of the latest adverts on the radio about driving on rural roads. I wasn’t driving as  I car share, but both myself and my driver muttered about how it wouldn’t happen to us, just as he put the brakes on for a corner and we slid for a bit as it was icy, a nasty moment but thankfully not a serious issue as we regained control before things got worse. When I look back at it we could have avoided the issue. We knew it might be a bit “skippy” this morning but it wasn’t normally slippy where we were as it is normally well salted and gritted, but we had just discussed the lack of salt on the roads.

However it does make you think. I drive or am a passenger on these roads at least 5-6 times  a week on the way to work. Yet every day on the 30 odd mile trip to work on the ‘B’ roads is different, It may be snowy, it may be icy, it may be wet, it might be dark, it might be light, it might be twilight, it can be a multiple of all of these on the one journey. The temperatures outside can vary by 10 degrees centigrade over the whole route. The roads can also present their own problems with currently many potholes and a good covering of gritty sand left over from the bad weather, many times the roads are slippy with mud from the fields, many times there are animals on the road from pheasants, rabbits, hares, foxes, badgers, birds of prey and onto the more dangerous deer. Many times there are obstructions on the road, branches from tree, whole trees, rubbish , hay bales or parts of them, broken bits of car and so on. Many times there are also  the moving obstructions called traffic, either going too slow , too fast, or just plain stopped or turning off onto some track or minor road. Many time there are the natural obstructions like narrow bridges, buildings and strange corners for no apparent reason.  Many days are simple, the drive done with seemingly no effort and little problems, but then there are the bad days when the weather is bad or the traffic is bad and you need to concentrate even harder.

What I do know of doing this journey for the past six years is that if you switch off your concentration you will have a problem.  Suddenly you will arrive at a corner or situation where your speed is too high and you have to react. Hopefully all is fine and you get back to the drive to work or home. Happily this has always happened for me so far, but this morning was a reminder that at any time the situation can change from good to bad and you may have a big problem.

I’ve driven over 100,000 miles on these roads and many more in preceding years, I have the benefit of experience and yet today it wasn’t used. Many younger drivers don’t have the experience and don’t think about the outcomes.

So it’s good to see a website trying to make you think about these problems. To try and make you see that what is safe one time may not be safe all the time. To try and make you think what just might happen if you get it wrong.  Too often we believe nothing will go wrong but the statistics are there to prove the opposite, and whilst experience does help it is not always a a cure. The graph at the top of this page shows who is being killed on the roads near me. Whilst there are a lot of young drivers , there are still too many experienced drivers killing themselves and others.

Have a look at the website, have a think about what it tells you, and then apply it to the road. It might save you, and it might also save me if you get into trouble.

Country Roads — Don’t Risk It Home.

The local news and radio is full of this story about the attack and serious injury of a 27 year old disabled man. Now maybe in the cities and towns of Britain this is par for the course but up here in rural Aberdeenshire this is extraordinary and a sign that we are living in a society that is broken.

Maud, is these days, a sleepy little village, it used to be a lot busier but the railways closed and the Cattle Mart is now derelict. So now the only source of employment is farming or out to the big towns. I pass through it occasionally on my way to other places and haven’t stopped since I bought my car there some 6 years ago. My family lived around here back in the middle of the 1800’s farming. It’s the kind of place where you can still  leave your doors open and nobody will steal anything

So when an attack happens on a disabled person here it is a big shock, that the person attacked should be disabled makes it a huge shock. The cowards who perpetrated this attack then stole their victims car, Bastards.

What can I say. Just that it  all points to the fact that we are living in a Broken Britain and it’s Time for Change. We must get rid of this tired, corrupt,  indecisive and discredited government.  We need a strong and firm government that can make the decisions that can fix Britain and bring us back to the nation we were.

Time for Change.

The BBC has this

A serious attack on a disabled man in his Aberdeenshire home has been branded “particularly nasty and cowardly”.

The 27-year-old victim was left in hospital with head injuries after the incident in Maud’s John Morrison Crescent on Saturday into Sunday.

His grey Volkswagen Golf, registration SY08 YHB, was also taken and was later found crashed.

Grampian Police Det Sgt Kevin Goldie appealed for anyone with information to contact them.

BBC News – Disabled man’s attackers hunted.

Global Warming in Tarland 31-01-2010

Global Warming is getting a roasting in the Blogs and Press as we find out the lies that abound spouted by supposedly reputable sources.

Up here in Deepest rural Scotland we are freezing out the Global Warming theory. We managed to get one day without snow on the ground in January after the falls in Mid-December and then back to the weather we see in the photo above.

According to the BBC:

Scotland has suffered some of the coldest winter months in almost 100 years, the Met Office has confirmed.

By combining the temperatures of January and December it showed they were the coldest since 1914 – the year data started being logged.

Elsewhere, it was the coldest December and January in Northern Ireland since 1962/63 and the coldest in England and Wales since 1981/82.

Sub-zero temperatures and snow blew into the UK from mid-December.

The average minimum overnight temperature for January is usually at freezing point, but in Scotland it was regularly below -5C.

BBC News – Scotland records coldest winter.

BBC reports

Major travel problems are being experienced in Aberdeen as police deal with the discovery of a “suspicious package” near the city’s rail station.

The area was evacuated and trains to Aberdeen are terminating at Dyce and Stonehaven after the find by a member of public at Guild Street.

Bomb disposal experts have arrived at the scene.

Members of the public have been reporting serious travel problems to the BBC Scotland news website.

Update 12:30pm – Looks like this was a false alarm, you just can’t be too safe .

BBC News – Major disruption in Aberdeen over ‘package’.

Apparently Gordon Brown is also selling a large hole., unfortunately it is in our finances. It is believed that the IMF are looking into it.

Rubislaw Quarry is apparently for sale at the price of £30,000. You won’t get much apart from what is apparently Europe’s largest hole, some wildlife and it will require to be kept safe.  It is it’s history that is important. As the BBC says:

A famous quarry credited with giving Aberdeen its name of the Granite City is being sold on the open market for the first time in 150 years.

Rubislaw Quarry, believed to be the biggest man-made hole in Europe, closed in 1971.

The five-acre quarry is 466ft deep and 394ft wide and now full of water. Offers over £30,000 are being sought.

Possible uses suggested include using it for water sports, or draining it and using the quarry for climbing.

Rubislaw Quarry is in the heart of Aberdeen’s west end.

Interestingly Aberdeen Council sold it back in 1778 as they thought it wasn’t a good source of building material! Obviously their level of decision making hasn’t changed much in the last 200 odd years.

The quarry closed back in 1971, but I remember before this going to a rickety old viewing platform that hung out over the quarry, which seemed to consist of a couple of planks and some scaffolding, and being amazed at the size of the quarry and pinhead men who were working at the bottom.

Here is a link to some archive footage of the Quarry.

BBC News – Aberdeen’s ‘Granite City’ quarry goes on sale.