ALREADY, at the beginning of March, rampaging behemoths in the form of utility companies are lacerating our roads with their detestable trenches.

Last year these apparently authorised destroyers ran amok in a sea of flashing orange lights, barricades, bollards, traffic lights with snaking cables, surrounded by orange cones like suppurating blisters. A roads, B roads, mains streets, side streets, no surface was immune from their gaping wounds.

The Scottish Road Works Commissioner can apparently impose a penalty of £50,000 on companies who fail to co-operate responsibly, but I understand that no such a fine has ever been imposed. Why on earth not? Does this bureaucrat consider last year’s monstrous countrywide road shredding acceptable? Was it really legitimate for these Tarmac slashers to go berserk, while drivers sat in yet another long queue hoping for release?

The commissioner should fine these companies heavily on a daily basis, penalise them systematically, squeeze till it hurts, and if they threaten to pass on the extra costs to customers, insist on taking all fines from bloated executive salaries.

It’s time for the commissioner to listen to road users.

Stuart Miller,

32 Priory Road, Linlithgow.