BARELY a driver in Northern Ireland has not felt frustration at being caught behind a slow-moving vehicle such as a tractor.
The annoyance is particularly strong when you are reduced to 20mph on a major inter-urban route.
It seems hardly believable that two years ago, motorists between the two biggest cities on the island — Belfast and Dublin — were routinely trapped in this situation.
Getting caught behind an extremely slow vehicle is still a problem on large sections of some of the most important A-roads in Northern Ireland which remain single carriageway, including the Belfast to Londonderry road.
Such frustrations are set to grow, partly due to an increase in older drivers. Research in GB this week found 1 million drivers over 80.
It is a huge advance for mankind that medical progress has enabled older people to retain the freedom of the car until late in life. But it is leading to a growing incidence of people travelling at 40mph on single carriageway roads where it is safe and legal to travel at 60mph. Delays, caused by tractors or slow drivers, tempt motorists into the most dangerous manoeuvre on the road — overtaking.
Unless a road is flat and straight, and has barely any openings off it, or traffic on it, I am now loathe to overtake — or not unless necessary.
As I get more experienced my overtaking confidence has declined, not improved. I have seen enough near misses, and reported enough inquests, to know that in a second a simple overtaking might end in horror.
Why make this point at length?
Because I am trying to explain why upgrades to dual carriageways are generally worthwhile. Every extra mile saves lives.
In Northern Ireland we have hundreds of miles of single carriageway that need upgraded.
Motorways or high-quality dual carriageways have around one seventh of the fatality rate of single carriageway roads. They eliminate the two most risky moves — overtaking and right turns.
Five years ago, there were four road stretches in the province where people were continually dying:
l the last single carriageway sections of the A1 round Newry
l the A4 between the end of the M1 and Ballygawley
l the A6 Moneynick Road between the end of the M22 and Toome
l the A26 Frosses Road between Glarryford and Ballymoney.
Two of these roads have now been upgraded — the A1 and A4, making travel between Belfast and Dublin or Enniskillen safer. There are concerns about some motorists travelling the wrong way down the new A4, but already the accident rate on these new roads has fallen.
The two other upgrades have not even begun — the A26 or the A6. This means that the Belfast to Coleraine or Londonderry routes will continue to have lethal sections for years to come.
Neither scheme was included in an announcement on new roads yesterday but other rural roads, such as parts of the A5, were.
There are political or personal reasons why some people would prefer to see one road prioritised over another — the A6 over the A5 or vice versa, for example.
But anyone concerned principally with efficiency and safety will welcome the upgrade of any, and ultimately all, of these routes.
Improvements to roads are one of the key reasons why road death rates in Northern Ireland are lower than they have ever been. In 2010 55 people died, and last year 59 did so. Previous annual death tolls had always been over 100.
Anyone who argues for more roads can seem like an environmental vandal. France shows that this need not be so.
It has high speed rail (tax funded), motorways (toll funded) and fabulous unspoilt countryside (strict prohibition on bungalows).
France is a huge country, but even comparing like-for-like — a region the size of Northern Ireland — it has more motorway or expressway. Pro-rata, an NI-sized part of France would have almost 200 miles of such road. We have improved, but are still only around 140 miles. France and Northern Ireland have similar population densities, so can justify similar mileage of top roads.
There is an ecological case that we should greatly reduce car use altogether. But unless or until that happens, there is nothing environmental about having crowded, single carriageway roads on major routes.
They do not prevent people from travelling the route, and are every bit as noisy — and far more dangerous.
NR Greer returns next week