IT’S no wonder overtaxed and beleaguered motorists feel put upon. For decades there has been no sensible or coherent policy on roads and vehicles, with successive governments doing more U-turns than London cabbies during rush hour.

At the start of the millennium, the then Labour government introduced tax breaks to persuade us all to buy diesel cars – the very thought of which had previously been anathema to most self-respecting motorists. Diesel cars were considered to be as naff as elasticated-waist jeans.

Millions of us fell for the wheeze, however, then watched diesel outstrip petrol in price, while we unwittingly spent the next 15 years slowly poisoning the rest of the population.

For it now emerges that all those diesel fumes pumped out by our vehicles produce four times more nitrogen oxide than petrol vehicles, along with a noxious 22 times more particulates – harmful particles as found in dust, smoke, soot and pollen, to name a few not-very-good-to-inhale things.

Labour MPs, we learn, have subsequently admitted that the policy was a huge mistake.

But what to do about this poisonous problem with which we were lumbered by Tony Blair and his acolytes? Why, introduce a so-called “toxin tax” of course, whereby vehicle owners who were taken in by the diesel myth all those years ago are to be charged up to £20 a day to drive their dirty, noisy, smelly diesel-powered machines in some urban areas. Well, isn’t that just charming? Talk about adding insult to injury.

Thankfully, the government is now looking at other ways of cutting pollution on our streets; and the most sensible idea that’s been mooted by traffic organisations is the removal of speed bumps – or sleeping policemen as those of us with longer memories still call them.

Constant braking then accelerating to negotiate these irritating (and often entirely pointless) humps causes diesel vehicles to pump out massively increased amounts of nitrogen dioxide, according to research by scientists at Imperial College London. Surely, then, it stands to reason that they should go.

Speed bumps have bred like rabbits on our roads over the past few decades, contributing to pollution (we now know), damaging our cars and having an at best questionable effect on road safety. Far more children, I would hazard a guess, have been harmed by ingesting noxious substances by the lungful as a result of millions of diesel cars clogging up our roads than have been knocked down by speeding motorists over the past 15 years or so.

Next in the government’s sights as an anti-pollution measure should surely be the near-scandalous increase in the number of cones and traffic lights left on busy roads for no discernible reason whatsoever. How many toxic fumes are pumped into the atmosphere as frustrated motorists sit with their engines running while they wait for the lights to change when said lights are far too often serving no purpose at all?

Last weekend in Askam is a case in point. Work on the A595 near the level crossing was suspended for the weekend, the road being cleared entirely of any associated works vehicles or paraphernalia. The cones and traffic lights, however, remained utterly pointlessly in place until the workmen returned on Monday morning. I doubt I was the only motorist left fuming by the situation. Would it be so difficult to remove the lights and cones to the side of the road for the weekend?

Just to add to Askam motorists’ high blood pressure, at the same time the road over the railway was also left coned off for the entire weekend. Again, no work was being carried out and there was no reason for the road to stay closed. Result? More noxious fumes emitted with drivers having to make entirely unnecessary detours to get from one side of the village to the other.

The great diesel disaster; proposed toxin taxes; speed bump proliferation; and countless hours wasted sitting at traffic lights during non-roadworks. It’s enough to drive us motorists to distraction.

By LOUISE ALLONBY