Project is very worst example of gesture politics

Firstly, my High Wycombe reporter Simon Farr used his initiative and made a Freedom of Information request to the police, asking how many motorists have been penalised for illegally driving in the lane over the years.

We were stunned when the figures came back telling us only 34 people had been given fixed penalty fines over the last 12 years.

That’s not even three every year – and this flew in the face of all previous anecdotal evidence which suggested widespread flouting of the regulations.

I knew that some critics of my campaign to remove the lane might suggest this figure of 34 proves motorists adhere to its rules.

Therefore, I asked reporter Jade Coulon to step outside and physically count the traffic abusing the lane during rush hour on Tuesday evening of last week. I told her to stay there for exactly one hour and to take care to exclude any taxis which can legally use the route.

Jade, and a work experience reporter, looked slightly bewildered at my odd request as they stepped into the cold – hardly cutting edge journalism, they must have thought.

But an hour later they rushed back looking as if they had uncovered Watergate. “Guess how many vehicles illegally drove in the lane?” they gushed, before telling me it was 81 in an hour (plus 16 buses, to be fair).

I wasn’t surprised because I had carried out a similar exercise a few years earlier. But to be sure, I sent the dynamic duo out into the field again on Wednesday morning, during the restricted period of course – the lane operates from 7am to 10am and then from 4pm to 6.30pm.

This time I joined them briefly and we were all stunned by the constant stream of traffic happily using the lane as if it didn’t exist. They counted 108 on this mission, making it a grand total of 189 in two hours.

Now please don’t misunderstand me. I don’t want enforcement on this lane; I just want it scrapped.

But while it exists, this chaos is a hazard to us all.

Anyone driving legally in the middle lane is presented with a nightmare when they try to turn left because there are all sorts of vehicles blocking their path.

This came home to me again last Friday – the day the latest revelations were published in the Bucks Free Press. I was driving home in the middle lane but needed to turn left into Chestnut Avenue. The lane ends just before the turn.

A car driving illegally on the inside was blocking my path, leaving me with the option of cutting him up or ignoring the turn I needed to make.

But luckily, he suddenly graciously slowed down and let me in, thinking he was doing me a giant favour and no doubt being surprised when I failed to thank him.

Several weeks ago, dozens of readers of this column in the South Bucks Star backed me in my campaign to abolish the bus lane, and I promised I would pass their comments to Cllr Peter Hardy, the county council cabinet member in charge of transportation. I followed up this promise by presenting Cllr Hardy on Wednesday with a dossier of all your complaints, as well as the facts and figures to emerge last week.

I do hope this prompts some proper action at County Hall and not just a few weeks of frantic enforcement where drivers get penalised but then it all peters out again. I also hope that councilors can resist the option of cameras which will blight High Wycombe by putting off drivers from coming here for fear of being caught out by Big Brother.

There is only one option in my book: scrap the lane and move on.

I can’t help feeling the London Road bus lane is one of the very worst examples of gesture politics. It was installed almost 15 years ago, and all the various organisations must have slapped themselves on the back and praised each other for their green-friendly policies.

And then they just left us to years of lawless anarchy, not bothering to fully monitor the progress of their outlandish scheme as they no doubt moved on to the next tree-hugging project.

They should all be ashamed of themselves.