Our road tax is not being spent on our roads

Have your car springs broken? I ask because there has been a spate of busted suspension parts in my circle of friends and family recently. There was a time, not so long ago, when it was almost unheard of for a spring to snap.

But in the past six months four cars or vans that I know of have undergone emergency surgery to replace the bounce controllers.

The first was the front offside coil on my admittedly geriatric Seat Alhambra. It disintegrated on the Sheppey Crossing late one night with an almighty bang and embedded itself in the tyre, bringing the car to a shuddering stop.

A week later, my eldest Creature of the Night discovered the front spring of his BMW was broken during a routine MOT test.

A month later Chris, the Rockin’ Decades’ animallike drummer, suffered a spring malfunction on the M2 in his Ford Transit.

And last week, Mrs Nurden’s nippy Nissan ended up in the garage needing a new front offside spring. Stuart, the mild-mannered mechanic at G’s Drive Thru, had seen it all before.

“I seem to be replacing these all the time now,” he admitted. “Some people think carmakers are using a different type of steel. But I blame it on the roads. There are huge potholes everywhere.”

I tend to agree with him. Kent’s roads are a laughing stock. Claims for repairs against Kent Highways are at an all-time record.

It will be interesting to see what Kent’s new road czar, Mike Whiting, will do about it. He has just taken over as highways spokesman on KCC’s Conservative-controlled cabinet. The stark fact is this government is not spending enough of our road tax on roads.

Perhaps some of our Third World budget should be spent on our Third World streets?