John Gordon Ross

I’ve always been uneasy with tolls. I mean, a toll entails stopping someone at point C who has left A and needs to get to B and charging them money before allowing them to continue. So what is the difference between that and pointing a blunderbuss at your victim and saying “Stand and deliver?” Unfortunately, quite a lot of work comes my way from companies in this lucrative line of business and the translation on my desk at the moment has given me cause for thought (obviously, I don’t mention my clients by name in this blog or give clues as to who they might be, however rat-like they may be). Considering the company’s future strategy in the toll market, the document notes that one policy will be to develop a system for setting the toll charge not, as is usually the case, according to the vehicle’s characteristics, but depending on its “occupancy,” i.e., how many people are travelling in it. Spine-chilling, isn’t it?

I have also learnt that there is a company (not clients of mine, but I won’t mention their name either) which produces an infra-red detector for this purpose, so there will be no point in your getting the kids to hide under the seat.