I've done a fair bit of travelling in the past few weeks, and since both cars in the family have whizzy radios, I can turn on that travel announcement feature and get local travel news interrupting all of my albums. A useful feature, if you happen to be travelling a long way. Indeed, a couple of times on the way home I've been warned of a nasty blockage and managed to avoid it. However, more often, one of two things tends to happen.
- I get the travel bulletin 5-10 seconds after passing the junction I needed to get off at before getting stuck
- I start shouting at the poor sod who's trying (and failing) to pass on the relevant travel information
Now I must admit I do get a bit annoyed when the "too late" bulletin rings in my ears, as it did the other week, causing me to get stuck in an extra 30 minutes worth of traffic on my way to a site, but I get even more annoyed when I have to sit through the same inept travel report many times over because I wasn't warned in time.
While travelling northbound on the A34 between the A34/M4 junction and the A34/M40 junction, I had to listen to the BBC Radio Oxford ("95.2 Efff Emmm" - gee, I love that jingle) repeatedly announce something similar to the following:
"Now, on the A34, Abby has called to tell us that it's looking slow northbound now between the Abingdon junction and the Peartree Interchange, er, now. And, er, now, thanks to Brian, who says that the A34 is looking very slow both ways, now, between the M40 junction and the Peartree Interchange, at the moment. Thanks to, er, Brian for that one."
This was repeated three times during the time I was in range of the station. Three times, almost identically. And this guy isn't unique - the Birmingham travel fairies are all the same, all fumbling for words, all emphasis in the wrong place, maing it almost impossible to get a clear idea of what's actually happening. When I'm driving, I don't like to have to listen really carefully to a bunch of irellevant facts. I want clear, concise information. I want to hear the following:
"A34, standard rush-hour delays mean it's slow Northbound between the Abingdon junction (the A415) and the M40 junction. Slow Southbound between the M40 junction and the Peartree Interchange (whatever road that is)."
or:
"A34 northbound - an accident just after the Abingdon junction (the A415) means that there are delays back to the Didcot turn (A4130). Rush-hour delays mean it's slow near to the M40 junction. Southbound, rush-hour delays between the M40 junction and the Peartree Interchange (whatever road that is)."
Now, am I just being picky? Firstly, I don't know which junction the Peartree interchange is (the AA weren't kind enough to include road or junction names on my map), but why the hell should I _have_ to know which junction the Peartree interchange is - I use the universal system of road numbers when I travel outside of my local area, which means I _need_ to hear road numbers.
Secondly, I don't give a damn who gave you reports of delays; I don't care for Abby or Brian, I don't know who they are, what they do, nor do I give a damn. What I _need_ to hear is whether there are any abnormal delays, whether I need to find an alternative route, or whether it's just rush-hour traffic that I expect to meet on a Friday evening. I also don't want to hear two sets of information about the same stretch of road told from two different angles ("northbound between a and b, both ways between c and b" should be "northbound between a and c, southbound between c and b"). And there is _no_ point in saying "now" or "at the moment" or similar - if you are warning the public about future delays, then say "expect delays this weekend in a, b, and c due to a dog show" to distinguish it, but don't waste air time with pointless waffle.
As I ranted about this to James, he raised the interesting idea of reformulating these bulletins a la Shipping Forecast, and giving everyone a set of rules about how to report travel news in a particular area, and it struck me that this is a splendid idea. Anything has to be better than the irritating and pretty much pointless waffle that all local travel reports seem to use.