There are times where you are left scratching your head while driving around Kent’s roads – and perhaps none more so than when approaching Dover.

During the week, I found myself heading along an almost completely empty A20. For those not familiar with it, it’s a broad, sweeping dual carriageway which picks up where the M20 ends in Folkestone and whisks you along the coast to Dover.

Except, whisk would be too strong a word.

Because one of those traffic schemes the county so loves was in force and the speed limit was capped at 40mph.

Welcome back, Dover TAP – the catchy acronym for the extraordinarily dull titled Dover Traffic Assessment Project.

It is, in short, designed to control entry into the town itself when traffic levels increase or there are delays at the port. It avoids the town becoming choked by the hulking great things heading to the ferry terminal. Very sensible and, when things are busy, totally necessary given the port’s capacity shortcomings.

But, boy, is it frustrating for local traffic.

And, just in case you were thinking ‘oh well, no-one will notice if I stick my foot down a bit, given it’s early afternoon, the weather is good, visibility so clear I can almost see France and there are literally no other vehicles ahead, alongside or behind me’ there are those pesky average speed cameras in force.

We are in danger of becoming the speed trap of Europe rather than the gateway to it.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for speed limits, but after you’ve driven mile-upon-mile of dual carriageway at 40mph, you can’t help feeling you’re the subject of some sort of elaborate joke you’re not privy to.

I understand the reason it comes into force. And I understand the need to control speed for safety’s sake. No one, after all, wants to find themselves bearing down on a stationary juggernaut at pace. But the road allows you to spot such a thing from a long way out.

Needless to say, only the last few hundred yards, as I approached the Western Heights roundabout, actually had any HGVs – held by bored-looking police before being released port-bound. I’ve traversed this road in the past when TAP is active and there were no lorries at all.

So why not just impose the speed limit on the mile or two stretch ahead of the queue? That would give everyone a chance to be cautious of what lies ahead. Technology is, surely in this day and age, capable of adjusting that as the length of the HGV queue expands or contracts?

We are blessed to be so close to the continent - truly fortunate to have the wonders of mainland Europe a short ferry or Le Shuttle ride away - but we are also cursed by the transport restrictions which swing into force each and every time the school holidays kick in.

I dread to think what image it gives of the county to those who only pass through it en route to La Belle France.

After all, for anyone heading to Dover on the A20, they will have just traversed a 13-mile stretch of the M20 where the Easter bunny has once again brought us Operation Brock for the season with its enforced speed limits.

Kent is a wonderful place, full of history, culture and glorious days out. Yet for those of us who live and work here, we pay an almighty price for providing the ‘quickest’ route to Europe.