Strange gifts, queues and a thank-you

Somehow I've got signed up on the Radio Times mailing list; I'm not sure how and I certainly don't recall giving them my address, but still the odd freebie comes through the door. A little while ago it was four money-off vouchers; the first for the previous week, the copy of which I was already using; the second for the current week, which had been published two days before and which I'd already bought; which left two, both of which I put down and promptly forgot about. Anyway this morning I had another gift - a pair of earplugs. Are they commenting on their content perhaps. There was some bumpf with it, but I was heading out the door for work.

I needn't have hurried, I drove out straight into a queue of traffic. The way some people behave in queues fascinates me. We've a lot of cars in this country and a poor infrastructure to support them, you'd think by now that we'd all have learnt how to behave when stuck in a traffic jam; well you'd think we would have.

The first thing to note is that you're not traveling very fast, the speedometer doesn't even register that you're moving at all in most cases, as such you don't need to leave the same amount of space between you and the car in front as you would if you were traveling at say 30mph. The second thing is the gap between you and the car in front only needs to be enough for you to get past if they suddenly freeze-up on you, sure if it's a big van or lorry leave some extra space, but for a normal car a gap of about three car lengths might be considered excessive.

The big problem is junctions, you can almost guarantee that if there's a queue then it'll extend just past the junction you're trying to pull out of. Just as predictable is that if you scan along the queue you'll find a couple of stationary cars with a gap between them large enough to be filled by a double-decker bus. I can almost hear their thoughts

Why bother moving forward, it's a waste of petrol and I'm not really getting anywhere

Meanwhile I'm stuck at a junction I needn't be if they just moved forward a tiny amount. Finally a neuron fires and they start to edge slowly forward or, in the case of boy racers who've been fiddling with their mobiles or stereos, surge ahead. This slowly propagates down the line and at last you can pull out. At which point either a new car appears and joins the queue; traffic starts coming down the lane you're trying to cross; or, as is more likely, both; and you're back to square one.

What caused this jam, well several things; firstly the intelligent traffic light system on the bridge. It has sensors on either side of the roadworks extending for the length of the bridge. This would be great if the roadworks were centrally positioned; they're not. As a result coming from town you have four sensors and going into town you have two. So a queue two sensors long leaving town is equal to a queue two sensors long or greater heading into town, it can't tell the difference. Not a problem if there was more traffic leaving town then going in, but it flows back and forth from morning to evening.

Secondly, the position of the holes they've dug. Heading into town the first hole is behind the traffic lights, you simply switch lanes then pull back in and pass the next set of lights on your right. Now they've dug a second hole. This too is in the same lane as the first, but further down about a car length and a half from the next set of lights. So before you had plenty of time to swing back into the correct lane, or on leaving town plenty of room to swing around the lights, now you've only got a narrow window to slide through. Everyone slows down.

Finally the delivery van further up, parked on the double-yellow lines directly next to the sign telling him that he can't load or unload between the hours of 8 and 9 and directly opposite the disabled bays. Some of the wider vehicles were having a serious job getting through. Police in sight? Ha, as if.

The thank-you goes to Daniel, who pointed out I wasn't allowing anonymous comments. This has now been rectified. Fire away, but if it gets nasty I'll need a hug from someone.