IT is fair to say Tendring Talk has a bit of “previous” with Essex County Council and the A12.

Regular readers will recall how, a few months ago, a fire station van carrying an acetlyne torch canister caught fire on the A12. The health and safety crack commando regiment arrived and the county ground to a halt for a day and a half.

At the time we said while we appreciated the dangers and had no wish to see anyone hurt, it was hard to imagine what would have happened had it been a lorry load of such cylinders – presumably the evacuation of the whole of the South of England.

We subsequently received a strongly worded letter pointing out Essex County Council was not responsible for the A12 or the reaction to the incident.

Imagine our surprise then when it announced it was spending our hard earned money on a study on how to improve the road. Fair enough though – we are always magnanimous – anyone travelling south in the morning and north in the evening knows something needs to be done.

We therefore awaited with interest the findings of the high-powered probe.

The conclusions are interesting and can largely be summed up as this: 1: Forget trying to make it all three lanes, it isn’t going to happen. The country is skint.

2: Cars going too fast cause accidents.

3: Lorries taking three miles to overtake each other block up the traffic.

4: Joining from some of the slip roads is more hazardous than a night out with Amy Winehouse and Pete Doherty. Anyone who has joined northbound at Hatfield Peverel knows it is like playing 70mph Frogger.

5: People should be encouraged to take public transport (presumably on the roof of trains as it is standing room only at present at rush hour).

6: The worst stretch is the bit they have not resurfaced and improved – fancy that!

It also suggests revolutionary ideas such as putting gaps in the crash barriers so emergency vehicles can actually get to incidents, and, one we particularly like – putting a blue flashing light on the top of a tow truck so it can reach broken down vehicles rather than being stuck in the resultant jam.

All these are eminently sensible and we would not like to be thought of as churlish for suggesting that you do not need to be a transport expert to think of most of them.

What is most contentious is the fact that a 60mph speed limit should be introduced on some stretches. It is ironic that slowing down traffic can actually make everyone go faster, but the reality is 90 per cent of the time outside rush hour, the A12 runs relatively smoothly, so why should all drivers be penalised for a problem that occurs when there are so many cars on the road that doing 60mph is a pipe dream anyway.

Call us suspicious, but recently traffic monitors were installed which gauge average speed and flash warnings to drivers if they go too fast. The promise was made that these were educational and would not be used to penalise drivers... how long will that now last?