ACCORDING to that well-known sage Forrest Gump, life is like a box of chocolates, as you never know what you’re going to get.

For many businesses and residents across the Highlands the quote could easily be used to describe driving up and down the A9.

It is always very busy with cars, lorries and, increasingly, campervans all duelling for space on the notorious road.

Occasionally, your trip north coincides – as mine once did – with a line of horse boxes heading to an equestrian event and there was no way of overtaking even just one, let alone a whole row of them.

The main road from Perth to Inverness is often referred to as the spine of Scotland and it is used by hundreds of thousands of vehicles every week.

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Not only is it beautiful, it is also extremely dangerous and this has become a major political topic in the past decade on account of the fact that it has yet to be fully dualled, despite repeated promises.

When I say it is not yet fully dualled, what I meant to say was that just 11 miles of the 83-mile single carriageway parts of the road have been upgraded since 20011.

Even that famed simpleton Forrest Gump could can work out this means less than a mile per year has been completed since the SNP pledged to fully dual the road by 2025 - all of 12 years ago.

This week, Mairi McAllan, the Cabinet Secretary for Transport, Infrastructure and Connectivity, said a “rolling programme of construction” with sections opened “progressively” would start in the new year.

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The minister told parliament that nearly 50% of the road is expected to be dualled by the end of 2030, rising to 85% by the end of 2033, with the final section expected to open by the end of 2035.

Highlands MSPs expressed some scepticism and they may have a point.

They said their constituents would have little faith in the promises, given previous pledges had failed to materialise.

A promise to fully dual the single carriageway between Perth and Inverness by 2025 was first made in a 2007 SNP manifesto, with plans to widen around 80 miles of single carriageway in 11 sections along the road formally made in 2011.

But just 11 miles in two sections have been dualled in the last 12 years.

Last year, 13 people lost their lives on the A9 and, of those, 12 were on single-carriageway sections. This was the highest death toll in 20 years.

Every single one of them should shame every single government minister for their failure to carry out the pledge.

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Transport Scotland figures say more than 65,000 people travel along the Inverness to Perth section every day and traffic levels can be 50% higher in summer due to tourism and journeys that are leisure related.

The A9 Safety Group said more than 40% of fatal accidents on single carriageway sections between 2008 and 2012 involved overtaking manoeuvres.

The first major revamps of the A9, in the 1970s and 1980s, included bypasses around of more than a dozen towns and villages but most of the road has remained single carriageway.

Few people who make regular trips on the A9 would admit to looking forward to their journeys, and many will be familiar with the warning words “take care on that road” from friends and family.

But still ministers drag their heels and that is simply not good enough.

Increasingly, it appears that Forrest Gump, the colourful character in the 1994 film that saw Tom Hanks win an Oscar, is involved in the transport department at Holyrood, given the number of mishaps.

Apart from the A9 debacle, the A96 from Aberdeen to Inverness also remains undualled, while the A75 from Dumfries to Stranraer is still a horror show, too.

But pride of place surely goes to the A83 at the Rest and be Thankful, which will close again today and tomorrow due to the latest over new landslip safety fears.

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Transport Scotland’s maintenance contractor BEAR Scotland says that the weather forecast indicates persistent rainfall, with a corresponding increase in hillside saturation levels.

The diversion will start at 6pm tonight and is expected to last until Christmas Eve when there will be a further inspection and review of the hillside – like a referee before a big game.

This has been going on for years now and millions of pounds have been spent on temporary measures which simply haven’t worked.

It rains quite a lot in Scotland but our roads network cannot seem to cope, which is a disgrace in the country that gave the world the civil engineering genius of Thomas Telford.

Maybe the best advice for travellers would be to follow Forrest Gump's lead and instead just run long journeys instead.

It would probably be safer and almost certainly quicker, too.