Afternoon!

 

Finally got around to writing a complaint email to the BBC about their handling of the traffic news and apparrent lack of co-ordiation between stations with shared boundarys. It'll be intereseting to see what they say and really helpful if they sort it out a bit!

 

To: [email protected]

 

Dear Sir / Madam,

I commute from St Helens, Merseyside to Ramsbottom, Lancashire. For this route The traffic alerts for BBC Merseyside, Lancahire, and Manchester are relvent and my car radio will switch to any of these and BBC Leeds for traffic alerts.

I presume radio station staff manually trigger a broadcast feature that allows my car radio to identify traffic news and switch to it, and this information is encoded in the BBC Lancashire transmision as it does not swap to independant radio and likewise if tuned to an independant I do not recieve BBC traffic news.

While I can accept occational mistakes delaying the trigger to say the news is finished I find it irritating when it appears to be delaid to promote a later show, or indeed for the entirety of the sports news as is often the case with Merseyside.

It is equally greaving if once the traffic alert is triggered the shows presenter engages in chit chat with the traffic news presenter rather than letting them get on with it.

While this may seem like a petty complaint I'm sure that I'm not alone in having a commute that crosses radio station boundarys. Most would love a commute that stays within on stations range! Considering this it seems illogical that the triggers aren't managed more tightly - especially as for an unknown reason the local radio stations seem to broadcast traffic alert in overlapping slots.

The combination of these issues means that drivers are forced to regularly take their attention from the road to cancel traffic alerts to try and catch the one that is most relevant. This is an increased risk which could be mitigated by better planning and co-operation between local radio stations.
 

Yours Faithfully,
 

Wesley Brooks

Edited 7 December, 201510 yr by WesBrooks

Get a Sat Nav that provides real time traffic conditions.

Usually the local radio is just plain wrong with their traffic news.

 

Non-existent holdups / accidents are a regular thing. Might as well throw the runes.

There is a button on the satnav in my Superb which puts up a screen with local traffic problems, I use that.  :sun:

Usually the local radio is just plain wrong with their traffic news.

Non-existent holdups / accidents are a regular thing. Might as well throw the runes.

Id rather non existent hold ups to what we get - got stuck in a 2hr tailback one day recently on way to site because the aa roadwatch lady never mentioned the 3car accident on one of main approach routes into/around cork city.. i couldve turned off the DC approach and back roaded it in in 15mins if id known

I can't say I have EVER listened to traffic information on the radio in the UK; if it is anywhere near as inaccurate as the warning signs on Motorways it will be worse than useless.

 

As someone has already suggested, if it is that important, splash out on a decent SatNav.

 

 

ps - to the OP, it is "apparent", "boundaries", "interesting", "relevant", "receive", "occasional" and "delayed". God alone knows what "equally greaving" means?

I suspect that the BBC email server will flag your email as Nigerian SPAM

 

 

pps - Have you ever thought of investing in as entirely free spell checker?

Edited 7 December, 201510 yr by vxh26

I can't say I have EVER listened to traffic information on the radio in the UK; if it is anywhere near as inaccurate as the warning signs on Motorways it will be worse than useless.

 

As someone has already suggested, if it is that important, splash out on a decent SatNav.

 

 

ps - to the OP, it is "apparent", "boundaries", "interesting", "relevant", "receive", "occasional" and "delayed". God alone knows what "equally greaving" means?

I suspect that the BBC email server will flag your email as Nigerian SPAM

 

 

pps - Have you ever thought of investing in as entirely free spell checker?

Yours didn't pick up your PPS error.

 

For what it's worth, I agree with the original post. I find the BBC traffic news very helpful, and the inability of the studio button-pushers to get it right is annoying.

Yours didn't pick up your PPS error.

<SNIP>

Quite correctly - Post-Post-Sscriptum

I meant the "as" here -

 

...

 

pps - Have you ever thought of investing in as entirely free spell checker?

 

but a spell checker wouldn't spot that, probably only proofreading would. I presume you meant "an". 

True that, I did indeed mean "an entirely free spell checker" - mea culpa

Ahh that rule about being a grammer nazi...

one must make a grammatical/spelling error while highlighting such an error made by someone else

I can't say I have EVER listened to traffic information on the radio in the UK; if it is anywhere near as inaccurate as the warning signs on Motorways it will be worse than useless.

 

As someone has already suggested, if it is that important, splash out on a decent SatNav.

 

 

ps - to the OP, it is "apparent", "boundaries", "interesting", "relevant", "receive", "occasional" and "delayed". God alone knows what "equally greaving" means?

I suspect that the BBC email server will flag your email as Nigerian SPAM

 

 

pps - Have you ever thought of investing in as entirely free spell checker?

 

Careful now, you'll make yourself look like a cross word loving waste of space. Sure your not! ;-)

 

Happily use the spell checker on my Engineering PhD thesis, can't be arsed on a quick email. Have better things to do with my time!

 

[Edit: besides I highly expect this email to get ignored, at which point I'll write a letter which would get checked before print. Gmail normally shows errors, for some reason it didn't that time.]

 

Highly irritating how people seem to think it's acceptable to make fun out of symptoms of dyslexia etc, but see the sense in not doing so for other more physical disabilities.

Edited 10 December, 201510 yr by WesBrooks

Careful now, you'll make yourself look like a cross word loving waste of space. Sure your not! ;-)

 

Happily use the spell checker on my Engineering PhD thesis, can't be arsed on a quick email. Have better things to do with my time!

 

[Edit: besides I highly expect this email to get ignored, at which point I'll write a letter which would get checked before print. Gmail normally shows errors, for some reason it didn't that time.]

 

Highly irritating how people seem to think it's acceptable to make fun out of symptoms of dyslexia etc, but see the sense in not doing so for other more physical disabilities.

 

I'm not entirely sure what you are saying here and have absolutely no idea how Gmail and emails come into it.  However, it is nearly Christmas so I will try to be helpful.

 

If you are using a 'phone to access and post on a forum, you are probably beyond help - a wood chisel makes a lousy screwdriver!

 

If however, you are using a Browser (Microsoft Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, Opera, etc.) you could try Googling for "British English dictionary" or "British English spell checker" and utilising a suitable on-the-fly add-on. This advice is particularly pertinent if you happen to suffer from dyslexia.

 

ps - Good luck with your Engineering PhD

"Finally got around to writing a complaint email...." Gmail is a web based email service. The email creation tools often have inbuilt active spell checking.

 

Should have been 'used' rather than 'use'. Gained the PhD a few years ago, but thanks any way.

 

I'm aware of many spelling tools but there are very few people who would fail to understand what I meant. I'm not going to continue this aspect of the conversation (way off topic) any further than reminding you to consider whether you'd directly mock someones physical disability to them, or perhaps suggest to them they'd walk better with a stick? If not why mock spelling or grammer when the original intent of the message is so clear?

Edited 10 December, 201510 yr by WesBrooks

"Finally got around to writing a complaint email...." Gmail is a web based email service. The email creation tools often have inbuilt active spell checking.

Should have been 'used' rather than 'use'. Gained the PhD a few years ago, but thanks any way.

I'm aware of many spelling tools but there are very few people who would fail to understand what I meant. I'm not going to continue this aspect of the conversation (way off topic) any further than reminding you to consider whether you'd directly mock someones physical disability to them, or perhaps suggest to them they'd walk better with a stick? If not why mock spelling or grammer when the original intent of the message is so clear?

Bcoz he be tryin 2 troll youze init..

A station needs to announce the EON protocol on RDS (assume there's a similar protocol on DAB)

I get BBC traffic when listening to absolute Radio, and often also get local stations like Huntingdon when in that area.

A station as I understand needs to announce it broadcasts TP for EON to pick it up.

See - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Data_System