Reid

It’s the year 2018 AD. Mankind continues to astound with endless technological achievements, each more impressive than the last. We’ve put a man on the Moon, domesticated fire, mapped the human genome, and, for some reason, even cloned a sheep. So why are there still intelligent people who insist on using radio traffic alerts?

I ask myself this question every morning on the schoolrun as I scroll through half a dozen sub menus looking for the setting that’s supposed to deactivate traffic announcements forever (but never does). After I fail, I routinely sit there in my own local traffic, listening to someone tell me to stay away from other traffic in a part of the country that’s nowhere near me, and which I have absolutely no intention of driving through.

It’s become a source of genuine frustration and confusion for me. On national radio stations, an announcer will actually interrupt the music to indiscriminately tell listeners what the roads are like on a completely arbitrary basis. Stay away from junction 14 of the M25. Oh, and you’re a maniac if you’re thinking of using the Rodney Street Tunnel in Edinburgh. The A487 in Wales is fine now, though, because that overturned lorry’s been towed away. How can this be of any use? And to whom? Why does this system even exist?

Local radio broadcasts that focus their traffic reports on the approximate county you’re in make a bit more sense, but the fact these reports seem to happen every half an hour means every report is almost certainly old news. By the time I get to that traffic location (if I’m even headed there at all), th the tailback will have disappeared, or moved to the road I might ha have considered as a detour. Look, I get it. In theory th it’s a great concept, and once upon a time in the Eighties, E the service was probably useful, as radi radio was the only way to get traffic

info across to the motoring masses. Radio stations may even have made a few quid from brands sponsoring their traffic updates, which gave them reason to persist. But times have changed. We have GPS, the internet. We have apps, for goodness’ sake.

We’re literally drowning in hi-tech ways to keep us moving on the roads, all of which will even suggest a route around the problem. Apple CarPlay, which lets you see a simplified version of your phone’s user interface on the display in your car, now gives you the choice of several different mapping systems including Apple Maps, Google Maps and Waze, all at the touch of a button. Even the humble GPS system in your car probably does some form of traffic avoidance.

These systems are so effective that it’s now got to the point I almost always have the satnav running, even if I know where I’m going, because they’re just that good at circumventing traffic.

So why do we cling so vehemently to systems as archaic as radio traffic alerts? Let’s just get rid of crap we don’t need. In-car cigarette lighters and ashtrays – they can sod off. OK, a few people smoke in their cars, but who doesn’t have a lighter? And what sort of maniac discards the ash inside their vehicle? CD players can do one as well. I’ve got access to 45 million songs on my phone; I don’t want to root around in my doorbin for a CD that’s probably not even in the case.

I don’t use public telephone boxes anymore because there’s a better way. I don’t use dial-up internet because there’s a better way. The same goes for chequebooks, typewriters, pagers, fax machines, phonebooks and floppy disks – there’s a better way.

So (and this is a message to whoever it is that’s in charge of such things), the time has come to kill off radio traffic alerts. They’re annoying, they’re ineffective and they’re hideously outmoded. Turn them off. We shouldn’t have to do this anymore. We can clone sheep...

“I’ve got access to 45 million songs on my phone; I don’t want to root around in my doorbin for a CD”