It's not fair!

Right from an early age we all have a built-in awareness of what is fair and what is not - just ask any young child. The proposal to make car drivers automatically at fault in any collision with a cyclist completely goes against this innate notion of fairness. Putting the onus on the car driver to prove that they are not at fault also goes against the idea of innocent until proven guilty. Yes, cyclists are more vulnerable than motorists, but they are no less likely to be the ones at fault if an accident happens. If the ones cycling around Edinburgh are anything to go by, they may even be more likely to be the ones causing the accident, given the way in which they frequently jump red lights, cycle across pedestrian crossings and otherwise ignore the highway code. Not that Edinburgh's drivers are paragons of virtue - Calton is quite glad that his normal mode of getting around the capital is above street level, giving him a bird's eye view of what is going on down below. What is really needed to reduce cycling casualties is for all road users to become a bit less aggressive and a bit more tolerant of other road users, regardless of how many wheels they are on, and for everybody to obey the highway code. Automatically blaming the bigger guy is not the answer.

Pay now, travel free later

Calton is all for free bus travel for pensioners but he does not understand why it starts at 60 when nobody gets their state pension at that age now and nobody will get it before age 65 in a few years' time. We are giving away free travel to working-age people right now and, unless the policy changes, the number of working-age people who benefit from it will rise as the state pension age rises. It just does not make sense. It's not as if it is difficult to work out when someone reaches state pension age. You can do it yourself by clicking on this link. Edinburgh has a reasonably good, cheap bus service but other towns and rural areas are not nearly so well-served. Small consolation to struggling workers paying higher fares on fewer buses to know that they will get the last 5 years of their commuting free.

Heartwarming and earwarming

It is heartwarming to hear that Stonehaven has been inundated with offers of help, gifts and furniture after the floods earlier this week. Donations can still be handed in to Stonehaven Town Hall. On the other side of the country, the A890 has reopened after the Christmas Day landslip, which is good news for the people of Lochcarron. In other good news, Harris tweed production topped 1 million metres of cloth in 2012, reversing the decline of previous years. Calton is not surprised - he quite fancies a tweed jacket himself and a deerstalker hat to go with it, especially now that Messrs Smith and Cumberbatch have gone some way to removing the old man image of such items. Calton may not be in the first flush of youth but he doesn't want to look old before his time!

Happy Boxing Day!

Calton now has a new woolly hat - a red one - from Santa and has found that there is at least one church still resisting the trend to update the words of old carols and so two of Calton's Christmas wishes have been granted. Unfortunately a third is under threat from an influential section of the American public who think that the answer to the USA's gun problem is more guns. Doh!

Calton's Boxing Day sympathies lie with the residents of Lochcarron, who, once again, find themselves cut off from Plockton and Kyle due to another landslide. Yet another reminder that the best engineering of man is still vulnerable to the vagaries of the weather. It's time a long-term solution is found to the problems of this road.

Finally, Calton is glad to see that we haven't yet reached the same stage as Santa Monica, where public nativity scenes have been banned, and so the nativity scene in Dalmally phone box can be enjoyed, not just by the residents of the Argyllshire town and their visitors, but by people worldwide thanks to the Dalmally Phonebox facebook page. Happy Boxing Day!

Last of the sour grapes?

We are nearly into Autumn and there are still sour grapes around, probably due to the lack of sunshine to sweeten them! This time it is Virgin Trains who are not happy about losing the franchise to run the West Coast Main Line. Whether or not they are justified in taking court action over the decision Calton doesn't know, however the policy of periodically putting rail franchises up for competitive tender has always seemed to him to be fundamentally flawed, along with the split between Railtrack and the rail companies. Infrastructure like our railways needs long term vision and investment, something which cannot be achieved in a 13 year timeframe. Good old British Rail was inefficient and costly but the solution was to improve it, not chop it up into bits. In a similar vein, it seems utterly ridiculous to be replacing Northlink with another operator on the Northern Isles routes after just a few years just to satisfy the gods of privatisation and competition. Calton is no communist but some things should be owned and run by the people, for the people.

Over the clouds to Skye

On a recent Business Scotland programme about Skye, several of those interviewed said that air links with the rest of Scotland would give a boost to businesses on the island. It is therefore a welcome development to see that transport body Hitrans is going to assess demand for commercial flights to and from Skye. Given that Skye is now connected to the mainland by a bridge, the resumption of flights at Ashaig airstrip would also benefit Kyle of Lochalsh, Plockton and other areas of the mainland. And given the high cost of petrol in that part of  Scotland, as previously highlighted by Calton, perhaps flying to Inverness or Glasgow instead of driving is beginning to make economic sense. Of course Calton can fly up to Skye any time he wants to but he is aware that not everyone is blessed with wings the size of barn doors.

Doing a U-turn on the A9

Calton doesn't mind going the extra mile or seven to get cheaper fuel however he has discovered that, at the moment, there is no difference in price between Broadford and Shiel Bridge which means that
a) his two independent local sources on petrol prices were wrong or
b) the Broadford garage is not passing on the 5p island fuel subsidy to customers or
c) mainland filling stations have had to cut their prices to match those on Skye or else face losing business.
Calton's money (quite literally) is on b) since he had to pay 144.9p per litre of diesel today, however he may be wrong. He may also be mistaken in thinking that dualling the A9 is not a priority - having driven the length of it from Perth to John O' Groats recently and had a couple of near misses on single carriageway stretches with oncoming overtaking idiots, perhaps upgrading to dual carriageway is not such a bad idea after all.

Going the extra mile

Calton has discovered that if he goes a few miles out of his way while on holiday and buys his petrol in Broadford on Skye instead of the mainland he will save 5p per litre due to some scheme whereby islanders get subsidised petrol. This seems to apply even although Skye is now connected to the mainland by a bridge and has been for some years. No doubt the intention behind this was laudable and Calton would be the first to acknowledge the difficulties faced by islanders in general, however life is not exactly easy for those on the mainland in this part of Scotland, particularly with the ongoing discussions on how to safeguard the Plockton to Lochcarron road for the future, all of which are either costly or would involve further road closures if the council go for the cheaper option of just repairing the road when necessary. (And remember that the road was closed for a considerable length of time last winter due to a landslide.) Is dualling the A9 or improving Berridale Braes really more important than keeping a vital lifeline route open at all times? And why should petrol be more expensive at Shiel Bridge than Broadford?

A ferry tale

Calton has fond memories of the Glenachulish and her sister vessel, the Glenloy, in the days when they plied the narrow waters between North and South Ballachulish.Then, however, the detour was not so great if the ferries were unable to run or had stopped for the night. Now we have a whole community dependent on just one of the ferries to avoid a 140 mile detour and get their kids to school. Hopefully the Glenachulish will be back in service by tomorrow after grounding last week, however a long-term solution needs to be found, either in terms of a bridge or substantial improvements to the road. Given similar problems of landslides now regularly closing the 'rest and be thankful', perhaps some of the money which the Scottish Government has earmarked for infrastructure projects should be directed towards helping keep these vital lifeline roads open as a priority over dualling the A9, which would be nice but is not essential.

More on the cost of island life

Further to his earlier post on the cost of island life, Calton is pleased to see that more money has been made available to avoid huge increases to the ferry fares which hauliers have to pay to take goods to the Hebrides. It may seem unfair to those who live in the central belt that we should be subsidising islanders but when the alternative is considered it makes sense. Otherwise the islands will become empty (apart from sheep and windfarms) and there will be even more competition for scarce jobs and scarcer housing in the central belt. Calton is not a fan of large-scale government intervention however there are times when it is necessary. Communities cannot always be left to the mercy of the free market economy.

The cost of island life

Coming originally from the west coast, and with relatives on the islands, Calton is all in favour of the Road Equivalent Tariff (RET) because living on an island is not cheap, even for a sea eagle. He therefore welcomes the announcement that it is to be extended to more islands and more ferry routes, however it seems that Transport Minister Keith Brown is giving with one hand and taking away with the other, since larger commercial vehicles are facing a 172% rise in fares from April 2012. Given that hauliers are already being hammered by the high cost of diesel, such a price hike will only end up being passed on to island consumers, who already pay a premium for the necessities of life. Pensioners and families are not paid extra pension or child benefit because they live on an island. Poverty is not just an urban phenomenon. If we don't want to see our islands depopulated we need to give them some support and continuing RET for HGVs seems a sensible way to do it. Hopefully Keith Brown can be persuaded to agree.