Spend the cash and save some lives

LAST week, I drove a large proportion of the A9 and back in just over 24 hours in order to visit friends in Elgin.

It was, as ever, an unpleasant and arduous task (the driving that is, not the visiting of friends, which was very jolly), made even longer than usual by the introduction of new averagespeed cameras.

Although the signs declare they are being ‘tested’, duping most drivers into thinking they are operational, they have actually yet to be switched on.

Certainly the traffic was slower – but on the A9, the most dangerous road in Scotland, that’s not always a good thing.

Many an accident has been caused by frustration or ill-advised over- taking and, on the overcrowded A9, it is endemic. Campaigners have long demanded the road be dualled – something I can’t help thinking might have been done already had millions not been wasted on the Edinburgh trams – yet the project seems continuously delayed.

Let’s hope these cameras are not yet another excuse to stall a crucial upgrade needed to save Scottish lives.