Did I mention....?

One thing that I've been meaning to write about is what it's like to share this road with even calm drivers. My previous writings have focused on the insane, but they're clearly not the majority of drivers using this road.

It takes me about 10 minutes to ride through this stretch of road. During that time, if it's night, my eyes completely adjust to the darkness. This means that when a car comes towards me it completely blinds me and I can't see where the edge of that road is. The driver thinks that just because they've dipped their main beam I'm OK. Well that's just wrong. Plus, after the car's gone, now my eyes can't see in the dark either, having adjusted some to the lights.

The end result is that if I'm riding in the dark and I see a car coming, I just stop and pull over.

The speed limit is set to the National Speed Limit, which for a single lane in the countryside has, if I'm right, a limit of 60mph. Let me tell you this: when a car comes past you with a gap of a few feet and it's doing 60mph it's TERRIFYING. It's especially scary since you know that in about 5 feet there's a hole 12 inches wide that you've got to go round and the drive neither can see it nor cares nor is expecting you to have to go round it and so only leaves 3 feet space.

The end result is that if I'm riding and I hear a car coming I start maniacally looking over my shoulder ever 3 seconds to see how fast and close the oncoming car is.

What I'm trying to get across here is that ever single vehicle using this road makes life very hard for cyclists.

February 26th 2010

As dated above, the following vehicles drove straight through the Longstanton / Oakington airfield road, without stopping and thus violating the "No Motor Vehicles" road sign:

• B518DFT Blue Skoda
• SC04WSE Grey Peugeot 207
• JT53TAY Burgundy Ford Fiesta
• YP02VHN Black Golf
• GY53TAE Van from O'Dell
• S315BJE
• RC04THC Red Mazda
• RJ52NXF
• AJ04HLV
• FH51NCD
• R761GEW Black BMW
• C18TLB Grey Mazda 6
• AZ51EGP White Van
• E929MJO Micra blue
• LT53AWV white van
• AE52CHZ Blue Ford Ka
• PJ151TXK Red Passat
• YA56GYY BWM Estate overtook me at speed on blind bend!
• T388UEB VW
• Y553CAV Red
• AJ04XHP
• AFZ8ECV Suziki Silver

February 25th 2010

As dated above, the following vehicles drove straight through the Longstanton / Oakington airfield road, without stopping and thus violating the "No Motor Vehicles" road sign:

• GNNOHZ
• LC08XHA
• R747XRJ
• AG53FGS
• The incredibly stupid Y726GTC overtook me at speed in the rain on a blind "S" bend missing me by mere millimetres.
• CA07PYZ
• TJ51PXK
• S38SCE
• YF07BWW
• KW59BXF

February 24th 2010

As dated above, the following vehicles drove straight through the Longstanton / Oakington airfield road, without stopping and thus violating the "No Motor Vehicles" road sign:

• White truck RE04FWP
• Red Honda Civic N733PJO
• Grey? Honda Accord RE54PJU
• Yaris EE52UKP
• YA06YSU
• OY03FXJ
• EX52WML
• Red Golf P393HRP

Oakington Airfield Road

I cycle through Longstanton quite often, though at quite varying times.
The road from Longstanton to Oakington goes past the former airfield of Oakington Barracks.
The road there, used to be crossed by an actual runway, but isn't any more.
Because of the history, or maybe for other reasons, the law excludes all motor vehicles (except Taxis and Mopeds) from the road.
Note that there's an exception to that exclusion: 'Except for Access'.
There's a farm, some stables and the former airfield gets raced on during the summer.
So the only vehicles supposed to be driving on this road are either taxis or those going to these specific destinations.
What is explicitly excluded is drivers going straight through from Longstanton to Oakington, using this road as a short-cut.

Also of note is that this road is National Cycling Route 51. There are nice signs telling you so and according to the map I just linked to there, this section of Router 51 is allegedly Traffic Free!

Since the law excludes vehicles from routinely driving on this road, those responsible for such things never repair the road: it is pothole city! In fact, in the last year, the road approaching the "No Motor Vehicles" sign was re-surfaced, but the re-surfacing stopped just short of it. :-(

So cyclists using National Cycling Route 51 have to ride a lot nearer the middle of the road than they normally would - no problem, there are no cars to avoid right? ;-)

With any luck you'll understand the points I'm making here:

1. The road is a rat-run between Longstanton and Oakington.
   
2. The vehicles that drive along it do so at great speed (keen, I'm assuming, to get off the illegal road ASAP, or because of point 1 above are in a rush and are choosing to break the law to save some time).
3. Cyclists riding down the road have to move about the road quite a bit to avoid potholes: this drives the illegal motorists absolutely crazy!
4. Everyone responsible for this road (the Police, the local Council etc) disavow any responsibility for the conflict that inevitably arises.
   
5. Cyclists are regularly forced into either potholes or the grass verge to make way for homicidal motorists driving aggressively and at extremely excessive speeds for an unmaintained road.
   
6. Cyclists daring enough to attempt to avoid potholes when there are cars on the road are met with daily threats of violence, highly aggressive and extremely vulgar language and vehicles deliberately swerved into their path.

Regarding point 6: I myself have been threatened with death many times, I was rammed off my bike once by a white van and there's a black Audi S-Line RJ52NXS who drives East to West most mornings who's decided I'm the devil and slows down to spit vulgarities, insults and threats at me every single day he sees me. I've since found out that this utter moron is going to work at J. Kilborn & Son, on the High Street, in Longstanton. I certainly would not want that human being working on my house.

There's a very dangerous blind "S" bend in the road where drivers still overtake cyclists at great speed. They know fine well that should they meet a car coming in the other direction their instinct will be to swerve left away from the path of the oncoming car but straight into the cyclist they couldn't wait 20 seconds to overtake safely.

For me, the most shocking thing is not that drivers break the law and drive along the road in question. What's moist shocking is that so many of those who choose to do so, do so and then take it several steps further, becoming insane with rage, aggression and violent behaviour.

Thus I propose:

1. A series of severe speed bumps would at least slow down the illegal traffic.
   Not just one at each end - drivers will simply speed up in between.
   
2. Repair the tarmac so that cyclists can use this road without having to choose between potholes and veering into the path of speeding, illegal motorists.

The Longstanton Life is a magazine targeted at residents of Longstanton and published every other month. The Letters page is currently hosting a debate where cyclists point out how the law is being repeatedly broken and drivers plea their case that they be allowed to brake the law as there are allegedly no victims and it would destroy the environment and local economy if they were stopped.

Until it happens, I'm going to document all the occasions where it seems clear to me vehicles are breaking the law (driving straight through the road, talking on mobile phones whilst driving etc).

Introduction

I'm a semi-frequent cyclist in and around Cambridge.
This blog will be some rambling thoughts, accounts of scary incidents and a few well chosen missions centred on being a cyclist who rides a bike where I ride a bike! :-)
I hope you either enjoy it or are at least stimulated by it.