Fancy trying a showerloo?

And nowhere is that more certain than first thing in the morning after you lurch out of bed to begin your daily ablutions. But now some cheeky but practically-minded students from the University of East Anglia are suggesting that we all take our first wee of the day in the shower to save water.

The Go with the Flow campaign dreamed up by 20-year-olds Chris Dobson and Debs Torr says that if all 15,000 of their fellow students at the Norwich-based university took a leak while soaping up in the shower, it would save enough water to fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool 26 times.

And if everyone in the UK took part it would save a staggering 720m litres of water, say the students, who have undertaken extensive research to prove their point. And they stress it’s not unhygienic either – urine is sterile when it leaves the body and as long as the shower water is in full flow when you get the urge to wee, there’s no health risk.

According to the BBC website, the students reckon they want to change conventional behaviour and start a debate about a resource that we take for granted. But like Marmite, you either love or hate the idea.

Their campaign has proved to be divisive with those in the "that’s so yuk" camp utterly horrified that anyone would even contemplate being so utterly disgusting enough to deposit your wee in anything other than a lavatory bowl.

While those who are happy to go with the flow think it’s a great idea and a valid contribution to the saving of the planet. But they’re probably the ones who are already doing it anyway and think nothing of leaping over the first five-barred gate they come to if they get caught short.

But there again, given that a survey has shown we spend an average of eight minutes in the shower – using almost as much water and energy as the average bath – are we really saving water when we shower in the first place?

An average shower apparently uses 62 litres of water while 80 litres slurps down the plughole after a bath. Power showers use even more water than a bath does, so maybe we’re not being that eco-friendly after all when we step into the shower stall.

So perhaps there is something to be said for saving that first toilet flush of the day and pointing Percy down the plughole rather than at the porcelain…

SO North Yorkshire has the worst rural road deaths than anywhere in the country, according to Department of Transport statistics.

Around 50 people a year are dying on our countryside highways and byways, which is truly shocking. And while the circumstances of many of those deaths may be put down to the actions of the drivers involved, perhaps we should also look at other contributory factors such as the state of the roads themselves.

I don’t know about you, but I reckon that driving on country roads where solid white edging lines have been covered over by pothole filling, or worn away over time, makes driving more hazardous than it need be, especially at night.

The lack of road edge guidance that the solid white line brings, particularly on roads wide enough to take line markings down the centre is disconcerting at least, and downright dangerous at best.

Yet the solution is so simple. To help transport bodies decide whether there is a business case for safety investment – and let’s face it, everything has a value these days – the Department of Transport has come up with a figure that says the societal value of a life saved by such investment is around £1.7 million for each one.

Being simplistic that suggests that the annual cost to society of those 50 rural road deaths is a staggering £85 million. So if North Yorkshire County Council invested a couple of million quid in making sure that road gangs did their job properly and put the white line back instead of wiping them out with Tarmac patches when they’ve mended all those potholes, then maybe there’ll be far fewer families getting the death knock on their front door…