Sounds idyllic to me.

Access to colchester is pretty dire, when something happens on the A12 the town gets gridlocked, the one way system in town isn't that at all, it is a 1 way and then divert you away system. Car parks are expensive, Traffic wardens ruthless right up to the exact time when some parking is allowed... Current roadworks planned to ensure continued gridlock and no alternative route past the railway station when everywhere ese is blocked. then the buses can't get through, as the access roads leading to the station are blocked.

Is a great place to live if you love driving with some great local roads and we're within easy reach of the glorious A82 and pretty much everything north of Glasgow is an hour away. There's a few dithery Honda Jazz drivers and tractors between you and open road nirvana but sometimes it's truly empty.

Stop spilling the beans SLO, you don't want all the riff raff up there clogging up the place!

We're pretty much the opposite up here in sunny Ayrshire. Despite living in a large town with circa 65k population there's little in the way of traffic calming aside from a few speed humps around schools. Is a great place to live if you love driving with some great local roads and we're within easy reach of the glorious A82 and pretty much everything north of Glasgow is an hour away. There's a few dithery Honda Jazz drivers and tractors between you and open road nirvana but sometimes it's truly empty.

Sunny Ayreshire does sound nice SLO, but i have to take issue with 'pretty much everything North of Glasgow is an hour away'. That is the kind of statement i'd expect from someone from 'Englandshire'. I live in Peterhead, the largest town in Aberdeenshire. To get here from Glasgow would take a minimum of 2.5 hours. But Peterhead is nowhere near the top of Scotland as the crow fliesI (I grew up in the Shetland Islands).

Peterhead does have its fair share of 'traffic calming' measures, but nothing like as bad as Basingstoke sounds. You have my sympathy Barney!

My folks live in a small town where 2 main roads intersect in the centre. A couple of years ago the road was changed to one of these continental style arrangements where nobody has 'right of way'. What a disaster!, a system like this can only work when drivers have patience and courtesy. Unfortunately in this country, in my experience, most drivers have neither!.

Some councils are (e.g. London Borough of Barnet) getting rid of speed humps (yea!), but to be frank, most love street furniture (its how they justify their department's budget) of varying descriptions. The others just don't bother repairing the roads (only those cra**y infill jobbies) - potholes are a far cheaper way (for them) of slowing traffic down!

Unless and until we break the 'closed shop' of left wing people working for councils and more generally at national civil service level, situations like this won't end. I conversed with a local Tory county councilor, and they practically admitted they can do nothing as the day-to-day running of councils are out of their hands - making sweeping policy changes would just engender strike action (as we regularly see on the railways/Tube).

No you can't be frank I'm frank :-)

I was once sitting in the car in a small business car park when a car with a decorative front valence drove in. There was a speed hump at the entrance to the car park and the valence met the speed hump with a great noise. Expensive !

No need for much in the way of traffic calming here in Taunton - they simply build more houses and few additional or improved roads to ensure congestion provents anyone speeding.

On a narrow country road near here the powers that be have intalled a small give way to oncoming traffic feature. It is completely useless thing in the middle of nowhere and sooner or later some one will not see the few bricks sticking out and have a smash.