Has anyone mentioned the 'scientific analysis' system to Mike Jackson and his team?

I also confess to having muttered to myself what Herself calls ‘new words’ on the rare occasions on which I use them in her hearing. I’m a bit old fashioned like that but it’s something I’m not ashamed of and just wish that others were the same.

Anyhow, this bloke I was following must have thought he was somewhere between a Green Lane and a school at chucking out time because I doubt he touched 20 mph the whole of the time I was behind him.

I should have known better because this is the season in which retired farmers and their mates (or spouses) drive round and round the country parishes, from the cotils near St Catherine’s to those near where the Lobster Pot used to be at L’Etacq checking on how the spuds are doing. Those of a certain age will understand when I describe such motorists as weekend and Thursday afternoon drivers. For those not of that certain age and who are perhaps interested, when Jersey was the place it still could be now had money not spoiled it, it used to be half day closing on Thursdays. Indeed, that used to be the day on which people either got married or went to the Muratti.

I was thinking about such drivers – in some respects almost as dangerous as those who drive too fast – when I read the bits and pieces that have been published about speed limits and it reminded me of a chat I had very many years ago with one of that lot in the Big House who served on what was then I think the States Main Roads Committee; something which existed until they started changing department titles into the sort of fancy names we’ve got now, presumably to match the fancy wages they were paying the staff.

I had asked him why they put those strips of rubber across roads and expressed curiosity as to what was in those little boxes to which these strips were attached. He told me that it was to measure traffic volumes at certain periods of the day or week and, when I pressed him, admitted that it also recorded speeds, although it couldn’t identify individual vehicles.

As he explained, it was used to determine speed limits and suggested that, contrary to what cynics like me thought, the limits were not determined on a whim or by the president drawing numbers out of a hat but by scientific analysis. I thought immediately about who else sat on the committee with him and how they would receive reports containing scientific analysis but decided against any comment.

Basically, the system, as he explained it to me, was that they could determine what were ordinary road conditions – no traffic holdups or the like – and looked at each vehicle’s speed. They then discarded the top ten per cent in terms of speeding, on the basis that that percentage of drivers probably drive too fast, and discarded also the speeds of the slowest ten per cent, presumably adopting the weekend and Thursday afternoon rule on slowness.

They averaged out the speeds of the remaining 80 per cent and said that, given that most people actually drive at a safe and responsible speed, the average – or as close as they could get to it – was probably about the right figure for a speed limit for that particular stretch of road.

I wonder if anyone’s mentioned the ‘scientific analysis’ system to Mike Jackson and his team of experts up at South Hill?

Like everyone else who shells out far more than I really want to in the direction of the bloke on the ground floor of Cyril Le Marquand House, I cannot say how delighted I am that our government is urging those in its employ to Go Green and save money.

We are told that departments will have to ensure that their staff switch off lights and computers, turn down heating, open windows rather than turning on the air conditioning and stop taps dripping and that can only be good news for those of us who foot the bills.

Quite so, I told Herself as I was reading the article, quite so. However, just a couple of minor points, given that lot in the Big House’s track record when it comes to spending our cash. Whenever I read phrases like ‘departments will have to ensure…’ why is it that I think immediately that in civil service and political speak this task will lead inevitably to the creation of yet more public sector supervisory jobs, as if we haven’t got at least a shed load too many of those already?

Furthermore, because I said there were a couple of points, can whoever dreamed up this wonderful initiative – and is presumably now back to the daily grind of pushing paper around a desk – please tell this simple country boy (and thousands of others like him) why on earth all these things are not already the standard practice they should have been for decades?

As people keep on saying, they wouldn’t last ten minutes in the real world of the private sector where for many, in case the pinstripes need reminding, pay rises are something you get if you work for the government, job security is non-existent and the prospect of redundancy hangs over the heads of thousands like the Sword of Damocles.

As the trendies might say, it’s time someone in government started smelling the coffee.

AND finally . . . My thanks, and those of many, I suspect, to Chief Minister Terry Le Sueur, for representing the Island last week at Philippe Lesaulnier’s funeral. It was a nice gesture by a compassionate man.