Its summer...
and the local authorities are out spraying tar on the roads and spreading loose gravel, in the vague hope some of it will stick - a practice known colloquially as "squirt & scatter"
They put up signs saying "20 MPH " but we all know how effective that is.
The other day, I was driving down one country lane, where the S&S team had done their deed, they had left a line of granite chips two inches high running down the centre of the road, also at the sides.
As I slowed to 20mph, a black BMW behind started flashing me, and at the first opportunity, blasted past spraying the side of my car with chips. Coming the other way, a white van saw me pulling well over to the left, and deliberately drove down the central ridge, again hammering my car.
Thankfully, my Audi has plastic headlamps, unlike my old Volvo - a few years ago, under similar circumstances, I sent the bill for £44 + VAT for my second replacement headlamp class to the highways agency. No response of course.
I phoned a number of different offices, and eventually spoke to some minor official who informed me that "extensive testing had been done" and that S&S is a "perfectly safe and accepted means of re-surfacing the road" and that "other methods would put considerable strain on the public purse" and finally "The granite chips will quickly be dispersed by the traffic."
Too right - dispersed all over my car!
Of course, this particular stretch of road is not far from the Transport Research Laboratory, where they hatch all kinds of daft plans for road markings, mini-roundabouts and Traffic calming. Its interesting to drive past, and watch the employees cycling in to work, many of them don't drive, and those that do "Only use their cars sensibly."