According to Kent Online, there were no fewer than eight separate accidents on the Thanet Way this morning, one of which tragically resulted in a fatality. The cops have told people in the area 'not to even try getting onto the Thanet Way'.
Rather tellingly the report adds that Kent's finest ordered Kent Highways to grit the dual carriageway following the accidents, although that didn't happen until 9.40am. So was the road gritted last night, the coldest night of the year so far (and widely predicted as such)? I think we should be told.
Meanwhile KCC have announced the average council tax bill this year will be above four figures. The Tory council's ruddy-faced leader claims front line services (like gritting, perhaps?) will be protected, but makes no mention of savings that could be made, such as the £2m spent on Kent TV, the £6m on pointless spin, and £50m poured into dodgy Icelandic banks!
Click here to read Thanet Way story on Kent Online
Click here to read council tax story on Kent Online
Update: According to the Gazunder's website, Kent County Council's district highway spokesman Phil Scrivener said: 'The road would have been salted.' Presumably what Phil means there is that the road would have been salted, if Kent Highways had salted it.
9 comments:
I'm sure KCC Highways will give full details of any failure to grit and the resulting death in their weekly full page advertisement in the Kent on Sunday and Saturday Observer newspapers in which they preach their plans and successes...or perhaps they won't !
ECR - you informed us a while back that the national Highways Agency did not regard itself as responsible for the A299, hence we have the fools from KCC in charge. Is it not time now to call for the A299 to come under the national remit?
Well I drove from Ramsgate to Hernia Bay along it this morning at 8am. Not a sign of anything major, just a bump between the Ramsgate and Margate round-a-bouts.
It was good to see that everyone was driving sensibly too, except a couple of (female) drivers doing about 40 creating rolling lane blocks!
IMHO everyone should have skid training before being allowed to drive.
Just how are gritter drivers supposed to get into work in bad weather ?????
Nige
I drove from Margate to the st Nicholas round-about (around 7.25am) and no where did i see any signs of gritting. There was a build up of snowy ice along the road where the wheels of the cars do not touch - most people where driving very carefully. As soon as you made it out of Thanet the roads had that salty dusty build up that comes from gritting and no trail of ice like i mentioned before.
The idiots who run KCC would have to be pictured and filmed actually running over the head of a baby in a monster truck and the images viewed by a billion people before any burnt-out shonky old press officers would admit that KCC is responsible for any of the many deaths and injuries frequently occuring on Thanet's roads.
It doesn't help that Thanet is largely made up of alcoholics, drug addicts and mentalists either.
It doesn't help that Thanet is largely made up of alcoholics, drug addicts and mentalists either.
Hmmmmm sounds kinda sweeping statement that. I spend a fair amount of time with the afore metioned and they are human beings often with tragic stories who need and deserve more help than most people seem prepared to give them. often living in sub standard housing owned by "normal" people. but maybe they deserve treating badly by others because they dont fit into "normal society"
Should there not be an inquiry into this with a view to ascertaining whether Kent Highways should be prosecuted for criminal negligence?
6 crashes that morning, 1 fatality. The A299 was gritted around 3pm the previous afternoon, I drove past them. Plenty of time for the grit to get blown off the road. Who is responsible?
Don,
it seems to me like you had been swigging a bit of booze you stole from your 'clients' before you wrote that.
Actually, I drive all over the country with my job and sometimes I dread heading back into Thanet beacause we have among the worst drivers I have seen (and I've driven in Egypt).
People here drive far too fast, they don't seem to be able to predict things very well, they pull over suddenly without indicating on double yellow lines and look completely baffled when I bib them and gesture that they like to indulge in self-pleaure.
You might be right though, it might not just be the drink, coke and heroin. It could just be because our average resident is a good 25 IQ points lower than even down the road in Canterbury. Stupid people shouldn't be allowed to drive, there should be some kind of test or something....
I hear that Phil Scrivenerstein doesn't ever visit Thanet in case he gets lynched for allowing the roads to become lumpier than Chris Wells' chin.
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