From Cliff Bennett, Yarmouth:

I HAVE been a truck driver on the Island for more than 30 years and Monday, August 12, was the worst traffic congestion I have ever experienced.

Wherever I tried to get to, every route was gridlocked in every direction.

There were several contributory factors which exacerbated the situation.

The weather was foul and people were driving around aimlessly not knowing what to do with themselves.

However, the biggest single factor was the ludicrous decision to close Pellhurst Road, Ryde, to traffic; effectively cutting off the route to the east and south east Wight.

Such diversion signs as were in place were so ambiguous that even I couldn’t follow them and I’ve lived on the Island for 40 years.

The Island is saturated with roadworks on every major route with the extra delays incurred at temporary traffic lights.

The new generation of traffic lights that are being installed are already shown to have phasing problems, with not enough time being allowed for a substantial amount of traffic to clear them before they change again.

The Island was, in fact, totally gridlocked for most of the day. Standing traffic produces more greenhouse gasses as catalytic converters do not work effectively when an engine is idling.

I would think this is making the Island a very polluted region.

The people who advocate a fixed link should be careful what they wish for.

Traffic on the Island is regulated by volumes that can be brought by the ferries and is distributed between three ports usually on an hourly basis. This means the traffic has time to dissipate before the next ferries.

A single-point entry and exit destination will concentrate all traffic in one particular area.

Add onto that the extra volume that is likely to come and last Monday’s scenes will be just a drop in the ocean.