This is the main road between Douglas and Ramsey if you don't go over the mountain.  It's the Manx A2 and runs within a mile or so of the office.  OK, the photograph was taken earlier in the year - not even on the Isle of Man do daffodils flower in July - but the amount of traffic it gets is fairly accurately shown.

We recently visited the UK and were horrified by the volume of traffic.  All the time! 

We're what the Manx call 'come overs', in other words immigrants, so, moving from the UK, we were not unused to UK traffic.  But surely it's got a lot worse?  It's dangerous.  It's noisy.  It smells.  It wrecks the countryside.  It's unhealthy.  I had an asthma attack when we were there because of all the pollution.  The last time I had an asthma attack was nearly thirty years ago.

It's not for me to say what should be happening in a country I no longer live in, but... come on!  How many ordinary people voted for turning England's green and pleasant land into multi-lane highways?  Who decided that good farming land should disappear under tarmac? 

Forget windfarms - if you want to be really green then catch the bus.  Or in our case, the tram.  The senior partner is out at the moment delivering to a customer using public transport built in the nineteenth century.  Cars are useful, of course they are, but they don't always have to be the vehicle of choice.  And if someone else is driving (bus driver, motorman) you don't have to find anywhere to park.  What's not to like!

Incidentally, the UK A2 connects London with Dover and is a major highway.  I prefer ours.

Ellen Goodman (Pulitzer-prize winning journalist) said:  'Normal is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for work, driving through traffic in a car that you are still paying for in order to get to a job that you need so you can pay for the clothes, car and the house that you leave empty all day in order to afford to live in it.'

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