Popped out last night for a bit of laning in Surrey. There's quite a long lane which I've driven before, which at its lower end is chalky clayey soil, which has been cut into deep gorges by a river running down it. At the top of the hill it gets muddy & foresty, and this is where they've had problems - the moron element have been ploughing off the track and making big muddy holes. (There's no reason to do any damage at all to the lane if you drive it properly, the damage is down to stupidity.)
It seems the morons aren't capable of doing the bottom end without getting stuck, so the conditions there appear to me to be mainly natural, not
4x4-created. It's a while since I've driven it and there were some buttock-clenching moments - it's the first time I've tried the Traction Control in earnest, and I was quite impressed. It got me out of cross-axled situations a couple of times, where in the 200Tdi I'd have needed a run-up.At the top end, the council have recently put a big metal gate across, with a gap to one side of it about 6" wider than the Disco. They've cunningly put offset humps on the inside run-up to it, which means you have to be a bit careful going through it. I think the idea here, and it seems a good one, is to make sure anybody going through knows what they're doing already - if you tried to get through in a family estate, or if you weren't a slightly experienced off-road driver, you'd come a cropper. I've not seen this before but I like the idea. Not sure if it's working, too early to tell, but it sure beats closing the lane.
I think it's a good illustration of the stupidity of this pre-decided "consultation". Closing the lane altogether would have meant I couldn't enjoy it. But the morons and joyriders would soon find a way to cut through the forest and plough around somewhere nearby, particularly in the knowledge that they weren't going to meet anybody else, because nobody else could get anywhere near.
Tootling along another lane just to the north I met a Zook SJ coming in the other direction - he kindly reversed back and into a gateway. Amusingly he was running with the top off - amusing because we'd just had a short deluge which had flooded some of the tarmac roads. His dog was rather soggy.
Nice to have an evening's gentle entertainment without offending anybody or causing any damage. See, Labour government, it can be done...