YOUR VIEWS: Emotional HMS Exmouth flag-raising and NC500 danger road
HMS Exmouth flag article full of emotion
Dear friends in Wick, David Scott’s wonderful article on recent events honouring the “souls lost on HMS Exmouth” prompted me to want to write to thank each and every person involved in making this happen - both from the local community and indeed from further afield.
There are too many to mention and so, with the exception of our faithful representatives John and Joan Cormack, I won’t try to list you all. Suffice to say that the support and commitment of the people of Wick and from the far north continues to be greatly appreciated by the families and friends of the HMS Exmouth 1940 Association.
I live in Kent at the opposite end of the island but reading the article brought events to life and once again provided a deep sense of assurance that the sacrifice of the men of the Exmouth is not forgotten and that the custody of their memory is safe in your hands, as it has been since the discovery of the wreck in 2001.
The sight of the White Ensign hoisted over the Exmouth brought a tear for sure and to know that the protection of the site means it remains “full of life … and a fine resting place” is all that we could ask.
Showing the article to my 87-year-old mother, who lost her dear father all of those years ago, was a highly poignant moment. Thank you for publishing the story.
We will remember them.
Sue Eastwood
Secretary
HMS Exmouth Association
NC500 road danger needs to be addressed
Picture a warm summer day where you are driving your car towards Thurso on the coast road, A836. You drive east from Melvich down a long straight at 60mph which is the legal speed limit.
The road starts to bend to your left down towards the Halladale river. The verge is overgrown making the visibility splay to your left very short and there, less than 100 feet in front of you, are two cyclists blocking the lane, riding perfectly within their right.
You prepare to swerve around them into the oncoming traffic lane, but suddenly you see an empty log lorry coming the other way, so you immediately do an emergency stop to avoid ploughing into the cyclists.
Luckily, nobody was hurt. It’s a good thing that you know this road very well and have a distinct awareness that cyclists can appear at close danger on blind bends in numerous places on the road.
But what if you were a tourist driving a rented camper van, in the rain, where the cyclists were wearing dark clothes, maybe in a light fog. What if the cyclists were just in the absolutely wrong place? It’s a statistical probability until there is either a cyclist or pedestrian death on the north road. Why is this so?
Until the NC500 popularised the route, the occurrence of cyclists was very low, the traffic was very low and tended towards slower speeds knowing that the road has poor visibility and dangerous blind bends.
Locals know where pedestrians are likely to be in the lane at Strathy or Bettyhill, and they take safety measures; such that the probability of an incident was negligible. But someone creatively exacerbated this unsafe situation by popularising the route to tourists, and suddenly the probability of an incident is significant, just waiting for bad luck.
Someone did not take safety measures such as warning signs of blind curves, “think bike”, “think pedestrian”, no pavements have been installed to keep the slow traffic off the lane; sloppy planning has gambled with the lives of the road users and risks an incident given the increased traffic.
Just the other day, I came very close to the rear of cyclists on blind bend near the “wee shop” in Westfield; fortunately there was no log lorry so I was able to drift around the cyclists safely without a screeching emergency stop.
If someone were not gambling with our lives, they would fix the road safety hazards BEFORE dumping volumes of tourists on to the roads. Someone is being negligent with local lives by playing Russian roulette on the A836 without investing in safety.
It’s predictable that a blind bend, an uncut verge, oncoming traffic and just the wrong situation arises to cause a severe incident. It’s not the tourists’ fault; it’s not the cyclists’ fault; it’s not the lorry drivers’ fault; nobody is speeding either. It’s the fault of authorities pumping volumes of traffic onto a road that is simply not designed to safely accommodate those numbers.
Those authorities should have installed the pavements and the safety improvements BEFORE increasing the traffic volumes. They are gambling with people’s lives for a profit. Since they’re only intent on increasing the traffic, who is responsible?
We don’t need police running speed traps; we need actual investment in road safety – pavements; off-road bike lanes; signage; verge maintenance, and a way for pedestrians and cyclists to not put their lives at risk to scores of vehicles with no experience of driving this road.
Improving profits for businesses by putting people’s lives at risk is a tragic reality of the NC500, and it should not be. Can’t they do statistics? Don’t they know what preventive safety is? Some authority has to take responsibility and sort out these blind danger bends before it’s too late… please.
Davide Khalil
Aultiphurst
Strathy
• Letters of up to 300 words should be emailed to editor@nosn.co.uk. Please include your address and a daytime telephone number. Letters will be included at the editor’s discretion and may be edited.
