Most civilised countries have laws forbidding obtaining money by deception/false pretences. It would be most surprising if, given its status as an internationally approved recognised jurisdiction, the Bailiwick of Guernsey does not have such a law, or something along those lines. Yes, it is true that the BoG (or “Bog” as it should be known given its traffic Gridlocks) has been criticised regularly by the global finance watchdogs, but their criticisms have never, as far as I am aware, noted the absence of such a Law. So I am going to assume that it exists here.
So why are they not being applied to the BoG’s politicians, especially those who are responsible for traffic management? I’d assumed that these were Guernsey’s Committee for Environment and Infrastructure? [E&I]. These are Adrian Gabriel (President), Sally Rochester (Vice President) Andy Cameron, Alexander Snowdon and Bruno Kay-Mouat. They all command a bigger salary than most people earn. Add in the civil servants under their direction and that figure increases massively.
I’ve had an email from Adrian Gabriel, somewhat belatedly given all my observations, denying that his Committee is directly responsible for traffic management, which potentially contradicts what other deputies have told me. But if AG is right, then who is in charge of political oversight? He didn’t offer that up, and no other deputies have said “er actually, it’s us over here”
One would think that traffic management would fall into both, never mind either of those two categories (“Environment” and “Infrastructure”). But I do recall, a few years back when the States of Guernsey [SoG] was structured slightly differently and the Committee charged with overseeing traffic management was called “The Environment Department” one politician, Jack Honeybill, saying “Yes, [David] De Lisle (the Environment Department’s chairman at the time) is an environmentalist, but the last thing you want on the Environment Department is an environmentalist – it should be called “The Planning Department”
So there is some wiggle room for Gabriel. But the former Chairperson, Lyndsay De Saumarez, never said that or denied responsibility when I went to her with my traffic moans. And she’s now our most senior politician. I think it’s fair to assume that E&I are indirectly responsible. Nobody is suggesting that the E&I5 should be standing on the streets directing traffic, after all. The old argument – politicians dictate policy, civil servants implement them. But the latter decides what’s policy and what’s operational. Even if E&I’s policy is “let’s keep as many roads open as possible” it seems to me that they are sitting back on their publicly remunerated wallets and letting the civil servants decide what “as many as possible” means
I have said before that the SoG should have a stand alone Department of Transport as the UK does. It is the biggest, most time consuming job that there is. Those directing and managing it should not be charged with other important responsibilities.
Furthermore, traffic management is a poisoned chalice. Nobody wants to do it. That in itself is a problem, because it means that however inept those on the relevant Department are, other deputies, ie those empowered to remove them, are reluctant to remove them because they know that it is unlikely that any other members of the Assembly will put up their hands to replace them.
But surely there comes a point when the committee (or any other committee for that matter) can be so useless that it is the duty of the remainder of the Assembly to remove them from their roles.
After my last blast at political traffic management last week I didn’t think it was possible for them to perform even worse than it has to date when it comes to traffic management but they managed it.
It’s bad enough that they are not doing their own job, but they also seem hell bent on stopping the likes of me from doing mine.
On Friday 31st October, the creeping menace which is the upward progress of the Grange roadworks shut off the Grange’s junction with Victoria Road. So overnight the Couperderie was switched back from reverse flow to it’s normal one way flow from Victoria Road. This caught out a lot of motorists, who either started doing multipoint turns at the Couperderie/Cordier Hill/Vauvert junction and heading back down Vauvert, or carried on through the Couperderie in the wrong direction (which had been the right direction in previous days) regardless, assuming/hoping that they would then be directed own Victoria Road. Result? They ended up doing multipoint turns at the Victoria Road/Couperderie junction and heading back the way they had come, or tried to drive down Victoria Road! Absolute chaos. And even once people had got the idea what they could and couldn’t do later in the day, it resulted in half the island descending through Vauvert onto Trinity Square and causing a log jam throughout the day.
By early evening Friday the whole situation was absurd. We had cars parked outside the takeaways at the bottom of Vauvert, and no one could pass them because of the traffic jam coming downwards. Furthermore there were numerous young kids, in black Halloween costumes, in the dark, running about in the area “trick or treating”.
Not a traffic cop or warden in sight. Where was the Chief of Police’s insistence that his officers have to intervene in our lives (aka look for trouble) there?. The Kitchen can’t stand the heat so stays out, apparently.
Again this morning, Monday, trying to do my milk round. I tried delivering early to Contree Mansell Stores. Turned in by Trinity Church, intending to take the narrow cobbled street towards Confucius and turning left to the shop. But there was a large car parked over the end of the parking zone on the right, plastic bins on the left and one of those tough bags for recycling glass in the middle. I figured that there was no glass in it because it had blow into the centre, so ran over it and dragged it to the shop. I delivered to the shop, went back to my flat nearby to use the toilet and check the answerphone for any predawn calls, and then found the bag which had disentangled itself from underneath my front bumper just before my shop stop and put it back near where I had found it. Then I walked back to the van intending to go up Victoria Road and turn right into the Couperderie, but no, some of E&I’s -or whoevers – foot soldiers had just reversed their truck a few yards up Victoria Road and stopped by the Sitar restaurant, obviously with the intent of driving the wrong was down Victoria Road after they’d finished whatever they were doing. So my carefully planned route went up in smoke. It occurs to me that had I not done the decent thing and returned the bag, I would have beaten the truck and been able to go up Victoria Road. So perhaps I should be less charitable in future.
Other incidents involved my route to my customers near the model Yacht Pond being blocked by a Ferryspeed juggernaut, far too big to be allowed on our roads in the first place, which had stopped outside Surf and Turf because someone was parked on the unloading bay. My delivery to Guernsey Welfare was thwarted because a cleaning van was blocking it thanks to a parked car on the unloading bay.
Mount Durand, going towards the Prince Albert Road filter I nearly went full tilt into a parked car which whilst parked legally, was not visible because the street light situated above it wasn’t switched on.
I dutifully followed the directions to get to Queens Road Medical Practice in the Grange, where I arrived at 0650, only to find that the entrance to it was sealed off by E&I or whoever’s barriers. It wouldn’t have even mattered if I’d somehow gone the wrong way towards it, the whole entrance to the car park was only accessible on foot. So I had to walk a crate of milk the 200 yards or so through the car park to get to the door. I’d just finished when Gabriel’s men arrived and took the barrier down.
Gabriel has already agreed with me that the road signs do not tell the truth in milk round hours. He never said anything at that point about it having nothing to do with his Committee. And as you almost certainly know, the milk comes from the SoG owned Dairy which employs numerous individuals remunerated by the public. So why don’t the sign men start earlier? The Dairy guys do, and so do the bin men. And sewage men. Maybe the sign men do start early and there are just too many signs to remove or install before I and other customers of the States’ Dairy get going, I don’t know.
But my point is that the traffic management policy seems to be entirely reliant on temporary road signs. But even the dumbest dunce can see that if they are going to close, or sit back and allow others to close, roads as frequently and simultaneously as they do, and change the traffic systems and directions of flow as often as they do, motorists are bound to be confused. And even if we could rely on the signs to tell the truth (I’ve already revamped the Eagles’ hit “Take It To The Limit” to “Take Me To The Exit and could also revise the band’s “Lyin’ Eyes” to “Lying Signs”, never mind Hanson’s “MMMBop” which Radio 2 played this morning to “MMMStop” in honour of Gabriel and his henchmen) it still wouldn’t cut it. For a start, if a motorist finds a sign stopping him from going where he wants to go and suggesting an alternative route, by the time he’s stopped, read it, figured out what to do next he himself has caused a delay to the car behind which then does the same, and so on.
And whilst it’s all very well the signs telling us in advance what road is closed, do the traffic managers seriously think that all motorists know the names of all the roads and lanes? I didn’t know, before I became a milkman, that the Couperderie was called the Couperderie for instance. And only last week, though it was in my leisure time so I didn’t mind so much, I came across a sign, having come off Pembroke (to reach which I had already been diverted by the latest Route Militaire closure) saying “La Moye Closed.” The only La Moye I’ve heard of is the Jersey golf course. So I ended up finding my way to the Bridge (Guernsey’s “second city”) by turning right just after Keyprice and finding my way through the to way narrow lanes which are barely wide enough in places to accommodate a car and a bicycle to get on to North Side. I made it ok, but I doubt that that was the approved route for Bridge bound traffic. Even E&I aren’t that stupid, are they?
It is blindingly obvious that we need traffic cops. Obvious to all that is, apart from E&I or whoever is in charge of traffic management.
So, could the States Members who serve on E&I or wherever else be prosecuted under the “obtaining money by deception laws?” Or under any other Law which may come up, relating to their traffic management or not? Jon Le Tocq has been prosecuted after all – politicians are rightly, even in Guernsey, not immune from the Laws of the land (although when I say “rightly” that is to assume that the increasingly shaky historical tradition, which underpins the judicial framework and relies on Laws being fair and reasonable, is maintained).
I’m not 100% sure of this but it is likely still the case that there is an illusion that an alternative there is an option of complaint against Gabriel’s lot (Customer Complaint Procedure).
I say “illusion” because Governments do not have customers. Only businesses have customers. So it’s useless before it even starts. Like putting an F1 car on the grid without any wheels.
Furthermore, as with all corporates and a lot of institutions like the BBC, the complaints procedure serves to protect their own arses. “look at us, aren’t we good and compliant with global guidelines – we’re allowing you to complain”. Well, how jolly nice of them. It’s not for them to grant us the right to complain. But the bigger point is that they are only allowing complaints on their terms, controlling the narrative. Nobody ever won a battle by allowing their opponents to control the parameters of the battlefield.