I SEE pleas for yet another ‘relief road’ in Weymouth with despair at its futility.

During the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, we were all used to getting a local bus to the nearest bus station and then another bus to the town or village we worked in. In my case I biked 7 miles each way in all weathers for years.

Companies had company buses and football teams hired their own coaches. A Park and Ride in Dorchester was ignored 10 years ago and closed. Nearly every car has only one occupant. Our residential streets have turned into car parks.

We’re already experiencing total gridlock in Dorchester most weeks and anything you do in Weymouth to speed up things there will only mean that you will wait even longer to access the Dorchester bypass.

Time to buy sleeping bags? Can you remember when the new road avoiding Upwey and Dorchester Road was completed? Drivers finished up waiting near the council offices for 20 minutes.

Rather ridiculously, a 20 mph speed limit on that marvellous new road (which incidentally brought misery to houses en route) would have eased the new congestion at Weymouth.

No wonder people avoid shopping there. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link.

If everyone was obliged to forego using their cars for just one day a week, it would take 20% of traffic off the road and make people car-share. We’ll soon be dying alone choking on exhaust fumes, swallowing anxiety pills and watching adverts for the latest models of SUVs on our iPhones.

Has anyone else noticed that an increasing number of cars now resemble tiny fortresses and fill car spaces almost entirely preventing access by fellow travellers with suspect backs to their own vehicles? They each comfortably seat 6 people driven skid free in air-conditioned comfort in the Arctic at minus 20 degrees or alternatively across Death Valley, U.S.A. wearing business suits at 50 degrees in the shade.

Is this conspicuous ownership or preparation for global warming? You tell me! Time to get my bike out and risk road rage.

That’s if I’ve been left enough room to access the road safely without wearing my armour plating, face mask and hand gel!

Mike Joslin

Dorchester