The Not The Alton 20mph Zone

Where can I possibly start, I guess with the words of my counsellor ringing in my ears I guess I have to start at the beginning,

I have a problem.

I am disappointed with a number of things in life (whoa there cowboy, how can that possibly be, you’re are as happy as Larry, and he is a gay old chap) and it is about time that I got one or two of them off my chest,

Well, this particular diatribe is about the 20 mph limit in Alton. (What, just that, you had me worried there for a moment old chap - deep dark secrets ed)

Alton, a small market town in Hampshire, England, United Kingdom, just off the European mainland, that is until we cut our ties and lifeline and sail off into the dark blue horizon of the mid-Atlantic, where storms abrew and the winds of trade are harsh and unforgiving; unlike the bosomy Germanic warmth  of the European Union, where they take our taxes and thanks us snidely in a host of magnificent but incomprehensible languages.

Ponder on my works ye mighty and despair.

Alton, or rather the Town Council in hand with that rapacious supermarket chain, Waitrose, or as it is seen from Alton Station WAITROSE, as the neon letters for rose have lost their lustre.

Many a-time I have stopped on the railway footbridge to WAIT as instructed, but then felt decidedly dim as all the other passengers carried on without waiting at all.

Perhaps I am the only one that noticed the lack of light in the sign and decided that I should wait, perhaps I am the one true acolyte of the great supermarket chain of “WAIT”.

Anyhow and whatever, with a little everwhat thrown in on the side, there was money to be had by the Town Council from allowing WAITROSE to build a unimpressive box like structure next to the station. This money was to be used to improve pedestrian, road and bus access to the Alton Railway station (location of a thousand sunrises and sunsets if you follow me on Instagram).

This would help Alton to become the, “Gateway To the South Downs”, or as the Waitrose management team were concerned, “Allow better access to our upmarket, expensive and did I mention expensively up its own wazoo store, conveniently located next to a busy London commuter station” (is there the slightest hint of cynicism there?)

Improvements.

Over the last year, and I guess what I mean is, through 2017 a number of improvements have in fact been made to transport in Alton, sadly none to the betterment of the pedestrian, where we still suffer with the short end of a very short pointy stick.

There is now the, “Yellow Brick Road”,  from the Town Centre to the station that will take all incomers from the station into the throbbing heart of the our wonderful Hampshire market town (and vice versa, but us commuters are not so easily pleased by the ephemera of yellow paving stones); where sly cafes marketing themselves as places where, “Jane Austen ate toasted tea cakes here”, emporia, will extract the hard earned Great British Pounds from unsuspecting visitors looking for the rides of Alton Towers

(Note; the railway station has taken down the sign that said, “If you are looking for Alton Towers you are at the wrong station” , now it simply says, “Looking for Alton Towers, then take a cab but stop off at the Not Alton Towers Themed play park and give us your cash”)

In reality Jane Austen lived in Chawton, a small village, on the wrong side of the A31, just outside of Alton, though if truth be told her brother did own (part own) a small bank in Alton; for a short while whilst she wrote a book or two.

She lived there at a time when banks were banks and not rapacious money grabbing, customer ignoring, tax defrauding, money laundering, worker ignoring, small business loan denying, lying, cheating businesses,

Though I am sure her brother acted with the greatest of probity being the brother of the greatest woman writer that Chawton and Alton have ever known.

Strangely, Hampshire and many, many other counties (apparently she, “Got about a bit”) are known as “Jane Austen” counties… somehow I expect the music of, “The Big Country”, to pop into my mind when I read that on various signs. Or perhaps I am thinking of the Magnificent Seven.

Did I mention 20mph zones (or back in the Zone)

Da Governmunt (™) changed the law a couple of years ago, allowing local councils to, without any recourse to Actual Democratic Oversight (™), change the speed limit in the town, villages, hamlets in their areas.

This has subsequently meant that a host (no Golden Daffodils were injured in the writing of this post) of Town Councils have introduced a,

“Lower Limit of no more than 20 you speeding, ignorant of the law morons”,

rather than increasing the,

“Already Too High Limit, that is 30mph, to a Substantially higher Pedestrian Lethal Limit of 40mph).

Why is this annoying me?

Well for one, (I suggest standing back from your screen as I may not be able to contain the number of spleens that I feel the need to vent [This has been a Spleen Explosion Warning (™) , brought to your courtesy of the  #PutPedestriansFirst movement] ...

...there was been absolutely not a jot, not a hint of a jot, not even a tease of a hint of a jot of Enforcement Of The F***** Limit. Apologies to those of a timid nature, but it has to be said. Said LOUDLY and OFTEN.

What is the point of the Town Council spending someone else’s money to improve access to the “Gateway to The South Downs” so as to make it a veritable pleasant experience walking to and from the train station leading to pedestrians in Alton being given First Class and safe experience, rather than the dangerous and fearful experience it was before the change and what is now simply exactly the same.

What am I saying.

The majority (and believe me I have stood and counted the cars going passed me in the So-Called-20mph Zone and there is absolutely no doubt that it is the vast majority) - are either Wilfully Ignorant, Really Not Paying Attention or simply Breaking the Speed Limit In Full Knowledge of their Actions, because the speed limit is well and truly not enforced by anyone.

The #PutPedestriansFirst movement (of which I am a founding member, treasurer, secretary and Grand Chairman) has been created to take back the speed limit from the police, the highways authorities and local councils and Enforce The Bleedin’ Law; as without the law, the Road Bullies, the Petrol Headed Fuckwits Who Know the Right Speed for all road Conditions will triumph and pedestrians will be stuck where there are today and have been since the introduction of the motor car, with the Short and Shitty End of the Stick,

As I walk to and from Alton Station I have taken my first steps in fighting back against the rising tide of wilful ignorance and I catch each driver in the eye (no, not with a stick, a stone or even a laser pen) and if they are driving within the limit, I give then a massive Thumbs Up and a Beaming Grin.  However, if they are breaking the limit, they get the same eye contact but a Thumbs Down, a rueful shake of the head and a sad face.

With these simple free tools, and until the movement burgeons and I can extract money from people (stage 2-5 require funding above and beyond what I alone can afford), we can start to take back control of the streets, roads and lanes of our beautiful country from the Vehicular Nazis who currently stalk it and try to make it a cleaner, greener and more pleasant land for all pedestrians. After all, when a motorist gets out of a car, they become pedestrians too.

Small aside

I drive a car and drive within the speed limit. What really did my head in recently was driving in the Alton 20mph zone and being overtaken by a Range Rover driving Knob Head,  as we came up to some humps in the road. The Eejut had memorably number plates (available on demand for all law enforcement agencies) and proceeded to speed his away (no doubt it was a he, could tell by the way he was holding his phone), through the chicanes designed to slow cars down and headed out into the 30mph zone doing significantly more than that speed as well.