PLENTY of people in York get terribly excited by dual carriageways. Not me, though. Simply seeing that leaden word 'dualling' pushes me into a torpor.

This perennial call was made again in The Press last weekend. Someone poked me with a stick, so I woke up and read the story. This reported that assorted business lobby groups and politicians had come together yet again to demand that the outer ring road, the A1237, should be doubled in size.

Thinking about this – the things I do for this column – it occurred to me that this is one of those situations where outcomes desperately wished for may not always turn out as desired.

Another example of this tendency to seek a simple answer to big problems, much bigger than the need or otherwise for more lanes on a road round York, is whether or not we should leave Europe.

It might seem a long jump in search of a parallel, but stick with it. Those hot-faced Ukippers and others who want Britain to leave Europe tend to see it as an easy equation: quit and everything will be better and verily will the sun shine on us again.

Yet the truth, for better or worse, is that it would be a long, convoluted and horrendously complicated business, beset by endless legal wrangles and furious squabbling, with no guaranteed outcome in any particular direction. Many more uncertainties attend this matter than the quitters would have us believe.

So let's return to that traffic-clogged artery known as York's outer ring-road. Those who call for this stretch of tarmac to be turned into a dual carriageway assume that to do so would solve so many of this city's problems, not least bringing in more money from business by speeding everything up.

Well, nothing much will get speeded up if all those roundabouts remain – a point made in this column some time ago. It is possible to argue that the roundabouts slow traffic far more than the lack of a second lane. If they'd built flyovers or underpasses in the first place, there wouldn't much of a problem now, would there?

That's as much as my brain can take of this, other than to observe that as this is a soap box of sorts, I'm happy to go on record as follows: mostly a Yes to Europe and mostly a No to seeing building more roads as the answer to all our problems. Yes, I have a car; but, no, I don't think the needs of drivers should always be paramount.

A final thought. Have you noticed the way that views on traffic often shadow political opinions? Right-wing free-marketeers believe in no obstructions, even traffic lights, so that the traffic can flow where it wants, probably through someone else's front room, if it's the quickest way from A to B. And left-wing, socially worrisome types believe that traffic needs to be marshalled for the greater good of the community.
 

LAST week I introduced you to my father, who at the age of 82 still plays violin with the Stockport Symphony Orchestra. Prepare now to meet my mother, who is the same age.

My parents divorced decades ago and have separate adventures in life. In my mother's case, this has involved a fair bit of travel with her partner, who is a little younger than her. Their latest escapade is a walking holiday in Ethiopia, of all the unlikely seeming places.

They were due to have gone earlier in the year, but my occasionally accident-prone mother fell over in a shop and cracked her ribs. During our customary Sunday phone chat, I suggested that she take things easy this time round before her departure.

Well, as if and all that. She went out with one of her rambling groups, tripped and fell and gave herself a black eye. Otherwise uninjured, she flew out. So should you happen to be passing through Ethiopia and catch sight of a small, cheerful elderly woman with a hiking stick and a black eye, that'll be my mum.