Other people Gah!

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Many of you know I’m a member of our local Toad Patrol, helping toads (and other amphibians) get to and from their breeding ponds in spring without being squashed and smeared all over the road. I’ve been part of the group for ten years. We’re not an organisation in any formal sense, just one coordinator and a group of volunteers who respond to emails and texts when needed. For the past couple of years I have been saying that we need better signage. Every evening when we patrol, we put out extra warning signs, but the signs are the standard warning triangles with an image of a toad. So they warn of the possible presence of toads in the area but not people. Of course many drivers have no idea about toad patrols so they are surprised to see people wearing high-vis clothing, with torches and buckets, walking up and down the verge. And now we have a new road junction just opening a couple of miles down the road plus several hundred new houses recently built so the traffic speeds and volumes are only likely to get worse. I have suggested several times that we get some better signs, but you would not believe the number of people who suddenly want to get involved and come up with any number of excuses why we can’t! They are worried that the public might complain; the Highways authority might prosecute us for using the wrong sort of signs; our signs might be illegal; that we haven’t had approval from the right people; that if we have signs warning of pedestrians it might give the impression that we are walking in the road and that we would invalidate our insurance and would be ordered to shut down by Froglife (the charity that oversees the scheme); that we would be deemed too hazardous to be allowed by the county council… honestly you would think they preferred to put their lives at risk from speeding traffic There’s even another patrol about 10 miles away who are always being held up to us by certain people as the model of the perfect patrol. So I contacted them to ask what signs they used and whose permission they had sought and they replied that they never asked permission from anyone, they just put up signs and they have never had a single complaint in more than 20 years! But still the nay-sayers didn’t agree we could do the same. Finally one helpful person managed to put me in touch with someone in the right council department. And luckily she happened to contact us on a day when I was able to respond straight away. So before anyone else could jump in and muddy the waters I immediately emailed spelling out exactly what we wanted, why we needed it, when we would be using it, where we patrol and what kind of thing we are looking for. And to her credit she responded the same day suggesting the sign shown which would be perfectly allowable as long as we didn’t place it anywhere that obstructed any traffic (motor vehicles, bicycles or pedestrians). Hallelujah! Surely now the pain-in-the-behind people can’t complain if we get signs that are exactly what the council highways department suggested! Of course we still have to find a supplier and pay for them somehow, but that seems fairly easy compared to the objections and obstacles produced by our own group Honestly, if it wasn’t that I don’t want to see toads squashed all over the place I would just leave the group to get on with it Just had to get that off my chest!