Road blocks

Going over West Hill this morning, I came across two cheerful chaps from Thames Water digging a hole in the middle of the road, a hole which was big enough to warrant shutting the whole road down. Something about a broken valve which needed to be fixed. Valves being, in water board speak, things which are open or shut. A bit like a kitchen tap and nothing to do with the more complicated valves that used to be in radios.

So the hole was where the orange spot below Kingswood House school is. Cars were steadily coming over the hill, then realising the road was blocked, turning around and going back down again.

I get down the other side of the hill, to where the right hand orange spot is, to find a sign saying that the road ahead was closed. Some, but by no means all, the cars heading up the hill, from left to right that is, got the idea.

I then wondered what it would take to improve on this result, that is to say with most people either turning left at the first orange spot or right at the second, both affording a way around the blockage. Perhaps a helpful policeman or even a hi-vis Thames Waterman who could tell cars what was going on and helping them decide what to do?

Speaking for ourselves, we often ignore such signs on the grounds either that the blockage has gone and they didn't bother to take the sign down or that some later evasive action will be possible. So maybe, instead of shelling out on a real-live person (possibly a former boat person on minimum wage), signs with white space to say what exactly was happening, like 'blockage before the Manor Green Road turn-off' would be helpful? Issue the hi-vis Thames Watermen with big felt-tip marker pens?

Then moving in to hi-tech, if all cars were Internet interrupt enabled, a big central computer could send alerts to all cars moving into the danger zone. Perhaps the computer could borrow the irritatingly loud and cheerful ladies' voice that they use at Epsom Station?

Or even more improbably, the central computer could talk to the on-board navigation aids, with the result that cars just did what they were told and the drivers did not need to think about it at all.

The sort of conversation that one might have on the nineteenth hole of the better sort of golf club. Don't suppose TB would be good for it these days. Not enough craftsmen left who are interested in how things work. Current clientele too young.

I carried on round the short Screwfix circuit, checking on the pyramid orchids outside what was the Tchibo warehouse on the way, last noticed back at trolley No.697 a couple of weeks ago, otherwise reference 1. Sadly, the main clump, the one noticed last time, had been mowed, but there were still a couple left, protected by some small trees.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/06/trolley-697.html.