For quite some time now, especially over this last year or so in particular, it has become an absolute curse to the folk in the Dalmuir area of Clydebank to have to put up with the unnecessary use of ambulance sirens as they make their way to the Golden Jubilee Hospital in Dalmuir.

It is not the case, I have to point out, that I have any particular grievance towards the ambulance service, but would be interested to hear of other people's points of view, particularly those in close proximity to the hospital itself.

When the hospital was taken over by the NHS, everyone local thought - great at long last a general hospital with accident/emergency facilities on our doorstep - wrong.

The public was not told that it was going to be a new heart/stroke hospital and that the people living nearest were going to have to put up with the total insane misuse of 'siren happy' ambulance drivers constantly throughout the year.

Consider the facts, the councillors must have known what the change over was going to mean in allowing it in the first place.

Were the public given a vote? - No.

Council policy again put into place, if we rail road it through and the public don't find out until it's done - too bad.

The hospital is supposed to be for heart/stroke emergencies, yet neither the councillors or the NHS have actually monitored the approach roads to the hospital for a set period of time.

If they did, they would actually witness the sheer lunacy of maniac ambulance drivers who have their sirens switched on from some considerable distance away right up until they turn into the hospital approach roads before switching on sirens close to elderly pedestrians.

Last but not least, why have the traffic police not stopped these maniac drivers/crew for continuing this practice?

Have they already forgotten about the two police cars badly damaged on Dumbarton Road, both within a quarter of a mile of the approach roads at either side of the hospital in the last year.

But the supposed investigations of the nature of their emergency call-outs or indeed the 'thorough' investigation reports were never shown to the public - yet the public know exactly what the were responding to and have to fork out the costs for - strange or fiction?

I would thoroughly encourage every pedestrian, motorist and pet owner to read up on the highway code's relevant sections to emergency vehicles response speeds and, in particular, correct use and misuse of two-tone sirens on the roadway or nearby areas.

It does say clearly to use them only when involved in congested traffic and not prolonged or unnecessary use, which they clearly abuse.

As a final note, maybe the councillors who do not live adjacent to the hospital should get away from their tea and biscuits and actually sit in their cars for a month or so before railroading problems onto their constituents without checking things out.

They will probably say never mind because of the mindless misuse of ambulance sirens.

They won't need to send them out to emergencies in future because the majority of future heart patients will be within a stone's throw of the hospital and crews can carry them.

But those police cars involved in those accidents?

Maybe we have to get Mulder and Scully to investigate that one.

X-Files, Dalmuir