BRITAIN'S bled-white motorists, paying for the dearest petrol and cars in Europe, have just received evidence of where the £30 billion a year they pay in road taxes does not go - on roads themselves.

For the government's own annual report on the state of the roads admits that their condition is the worst since surveys began 21 years ago.

They are so bad, in fact, that more than 6,000 miles are in need of total reconstruction despite the relentless above-inflation raid on motorists' wallets.

Personally, I do not need apprising of this fact since my daily drive to and from work is one long exercise in pothole avoidance.

But if the stealth-tax robbery that drivers are victims of is wicked, when just £2.5 billion of that £30 billion sting is spent on road maintenance, will some wiser soul explain to me why there never seems to be a shortage of money for the vast amount of roadworks that motorists do not want?

Such as mini-roundabouts, crazy-golf chicanes, cycle lanes that are hardly longer than a tandem and road narrowing schemes that snare ambulances and fire engines in traffic crawls?

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.