No escape from lazy drivers

IT’S time to clamp down on illegal parking, or it would be if we were allowed to use clamps in this country. The Royal Burgh of Wick Community Council has aired its grievances about lazy motorists parking all over the town’s Market Square and precinct when it’s illegal. The community council thinks the rules need to be clarified but people probably know the rules and just break them anyway.

The inconvenience caused by lazy motorists in Wick’s precinct is nothing compared to the hazard caused by lazy drivers double parking outside Jim Bews in Thurso’s Olrig Street – because they can’t be bothered to walk a few metres for a paper or a packet of fags.

Drivers coming round the corner from Traill Street to Olrig Street have to be extra canny in the morning as there is a stream of able-bodied adults reversing their cars into a few centimetres of double-yellow lines in order to avoid a lengthy trek of a few metres or so from a legal parking spot.

When there are no tiny, illegal spaces left, people simply stop their cars in the middle of the road (opposite a main bus stop) and create a bottleneck, or go round the corner onto Princes Street and park on the double-yellow lines at the corner, creating a hazard for pedestrians trying to cross this busy junction. Further up Olrig Street, yet more able-bodied adults reduce the main A9 to one lane by parking opposite the Bank of Scotland when they need to get money from the cashpoint and all the spaces next to the bank are full.

Large lorries going to and from Scrabster have to negotiate the bottleneck and other cars have to give way so people without mobility problems can avoid that horrendously time-consuming walk to the cashpoint or the shoe repair and locksmith shop, A.T. Sinclair.

What could be worse than having to walk a few metres to get some cash? Maybe we should install cashpoints in every building to avoid this inconvenience.

If it were people with mobility problems or elderly people, it would be understandable, but it never is.

Even in quiet Castletown there is no escape from parking problems, as vehicular lawlessness takes hold and regular snarl-ups occur at the village shop while the car park opposite is empty – and all for a hot steak slice and a pint of milk.

The Highland Council recently spent money laying a car park and installing bollards outside Castletown Post Office and, yes, you guessed it – people reverse their cars on to the pavement behind the bollards and park on the street to avoid using the new car park nearby.

Stingers will be the only effective line of defence shortly. I have seen the steely expression on the Wick traffic warden’s face and if that isn’t enough to scare drivers away from illegal parking then desperate measures are called for.

LAST Friday evening was sad indeed as it marked the end of my first season of sea paddling with Caithness Kayak Club.

The club spends a good part of the year on weekly paddles from Ackergill harbour, plus other trips, but due to the nights drawing in the emphasis now shifts to pool training and occasional trips at the weekend if the weather is reasonable.

Having only been in a kayak once or twice in my life before last winter’s pool training, I can really recommend taking up a sport like this, as it is great fun and so rewarding. You don’t have to be a gym bunny or a sport snob either, which helps.

I have now seen the coast from Ackergill along to Noss Head from a completely different viewpoint. It varies considerably depending on the tide, weather, visibility, and the mood of the sea. Sinclair and Girnigoe Castle still speaks its history when seen from the sea, and you can clearly imagine the bloodshed that took place long ago, particularly on a dark, misty evening. I will never again look in the same way from the shore out to the waves, and am unable to pass an enticing sea without wishing I were out in it in a kayak.

SEPTEMBER 8 was International Literacy Day, focusing on the link between literacy and peace. A far more worthy topic than the monumental rehash of September 11 faux-analysis some media outlets have subjected us to of late.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, which organises the day, has released data showing that 793 million adults, most of them girls and women, are illiterate. A further 67 million children of primary school age are not in school and 72 million adolescents of lower secondary school age are also missing out on their right to education.

Closer to home, in Scotland, the Scottish Survey of Adult Literacies (SSAL) 2009 represents the biggest survey of adult literacy levels undertaken in Scotland. The survey measured three dimensions of literacy skills: prose, document and quantitative for almost 2000 people living in Scotland.

The survey found one person in 28 faces serious problems with literacy. Some 73.3 per cent of the Scottish working age population has a level of literacy that is appropriate for a contemporary society. Around a quarter of the Scottish population may face occasional challenges and constrained opportunities due to their literacy difficulties, but will generally cope with their day-to-day lives.

The survey also found one of the key factors linked to lower literacy is poverty, with adults living in the most deprived areas in Scotland more likely to have worse literacy.

Corrina Thomson is on Facebook and Twitter @corrinathomson

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