Birdbrained venture

The very fact that a bus was forced off the road by one of these huge rigs should have been enough to bring a halt to this crazy situation, but the transport operators have got around the width restrictions and the dangerous pantomime goes on.

There is at least one trailer still running which is overwidth, but the sheer stupidity of this venture beggars belief.

There are many points which one could raise which underlines this; I shall endeavour to raise some now:

These trucks are leaving town via the Black Gaet, which adds three miles onto the travelling distance to Sumburgh, and the route passes through Gulberwick, Quarff, Fladdabister, Cunningsburgh, Sandwick, Channerwick, Levenwick, Dunrossness.

All of these have rather steep climbs with the road passing high over the villages, so in the case of an accident, the thought of one or two 15 ton boulders crashing down the hillsides does nor bear thinking about.

Environmental impact is also an issue – given the hilly course of this route, these trucks will do well to better more than say 3 – 4 miles per GALLON.

Multiply that by hundreds or even thousands of movements and you can imagine the size of the carbon footprint that this operation is producing. You could see it from Saturn!

Wear and tear to the roads, this kind of “special types” movement is pretty rare in normal circumstances, I would reckon somewhere about 10 loads per year, so we are getting 500-1,000 years movements of this type all in a matter of a few months – now that’s gotta hurt the roads.

Finally these loads are being moved under “STGOs – special types, general orders”.

Well, I have read the relevant regulations, and in my opinion, and I must stress it is only my opinion, the regulations are not being adhered to correctly. Now this is for other agencies to investigate, as I said, this is only my opinion.

So in conclusion what do we have here? A birdbrained venture which is dangerous, wasteful, environmentally damaging, destructive, and, perhaps of dubious legality.

How can this be allowed to continue?

Geoff McCarron
Setter
Sandwick