Gaelic road signs should be scrapped

John and Jackie Paddison, White Craig, Drummore. Sir, On a recent trip up to the West Coast, we came upon a van on the A82, south of Crianlarich, which had lost a front wheel, in a rather large pothole in the road, and had come to a halt nose down in the verge.

The driver was unhurt and was waiting beside the road for the recovery company. Later in the afternoon, on the A85, we hit a similar sized pothole which dislodged pipes under our campervan, spraying a tank full of diesel all over the road, and bringing us to a halt near Benderloch.

We also had a wait by the roadside for the recovery man and, unable to reach our caravan site that night, had to slowly make our way back to North Ledaig Caravan Park.

During our week’s holiday, we did a bit of driving around between Crianlarich, Oban, Fort William and so on, and could not help noticing the dual language road signs. We could not help noticing the signs because they were not very helpful and made navigation more difficult when you are strangers to the area.

We assume that Gaelic-speaking locals do not even look at the signs as they already know their way about the county. These new signs must have cost an awful lot of money – money that could have been better spent filling in potholes, flattening bumps, straightening out the excessive number of bends and erecting crash barriers at danger spots.

As we mentioned, our campervan ground to a halt outside the village of Benderloch on the A828. A resident of the village was walking by and asked if we were okay, had a recovery company and if we had a signal for our mobile phones. We thanked him for his concern and he went on his way.

Fifteen minutes later he returned in his car with warning triangles, which he put out on the road. He then made sure that we had food and water. Parking his car off the road, he said he would stay until the recovery van arrived as he didn’t like to think of us being stuck there on our own.

Unfortunately, we did not get his name but, through your newspaper, we would like to send him our thanks. In a world where most people are only too glad to pass by on the other side, it was wonderful to meet a true good Samaritan.

Our thanks go to him, the recovery man from Stag Garage, the staff at North Ledaig Caravan Park and the staff at the Bunree Caravan Club Site.