THERE'S not a lot gets up my nose. Apart from ill-mannered drivers, onions, short-head defeats, litter, elf 'n' safety, Madonna, political correctness, empty houses left to rot, mad taxi drivers, back-to-front baseball caps, cyclists, grabbing politicians and nearly every pop song of the past 25 years.

But what really annoys me is the proliferation of old cars with For Sale signs all over 'em clogging up Darwen's already badly-congested streets.

They're everywhere, especially down the main road.

And what is authority in the shape of the local council and the police doing about the problem? Not much, apparently.

A pal of mine complained recently to the council's street trading department. Their action plan seems to be limited to sticking notices "with a special tough glue that's hard to shift" front and back on the offending cars. Tough? Try a couple of minutes with a can of WD40.

The police have shifted quite a few nuisance problems on to councils, noise and parking for instance, so there's not much help coming from that quarter.

Another pal asked the traffic wardens and I asked a couple of councillors. Ah, yes. Tricky problem. Hands tied. Not a lot we can do. And so on.

I spent a very boring hour looking at various bits of legislation that could possibly be used to stop it.

Cop for this lot: Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act 2005, Highways Act 1980, Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1982, Town and Country Planning Act 1990, Road Traffic Act 1988, Trade Description Act 1968, Business Advertisements (Disclosure) Order 1977 (made under the Fair Trading Act 1973) and there are probably several more. I'm no expert.

But the deeper I looked the more obvious it became - too many loopholes and too much trouble, although the Highways Act does seem to allows for vehicles to be towed away and the costs recovered from the vendor or keeper.

One bit of legislation suggested a trader was bang to rights if he had two cars for sale on the same road within 500 metres (why metres - I thought we still used yards?).

Just like the gaudy yellow Renault and the bright blue Suzuki offered close to St Joseph's Church by some guy on the same mobile number. Gotcha! Well, er, no, er, not really.

The blokes I feel sorry for are the genuine second-hand car salesmen. The cowboys don't pay business tax; they don't have overheads.

McKenna Car Sales have done an excellent job brightening up the old Britannia Motors forecourt across from the Belgrave Heights development. But they and their colleagues must be getting increasingly frustrated with the street salesmen.

"They know all the tricks in the book," one garage owner told me.

"I've complained to the council but there seems to be nothing they can do.

"It's all a question of resources, as they always say.

"But they're quick to rake in the taxes."

Finally, there's been a Toyota tank for sale up and down the main road for weeks.

No one wants it. Do us a favour, pal. Just scrap it.