It was spitting and I figured the rain would get worse so I put my lights on, only to find after a few hundred metres that the batteries were flat in my headlight. So I dutifully turned round, went home and changed them: perhaps I'll carry some spares from now on?
Time passes, the road whizzes by and eventually, after some calm, I enter the airfield road.
It stuns me the amount of morons who think that "Except For Access" means ignore this sign & drive all the way through.
As I'm picking up my bike, a white Escort van pulls up to me allegedly to ask if I need help but he actually hits my front wheel again!!!! It was slight and in hindsight I reckon it was accidental, but give a guy a break will you?
So he pissed off back onto the airfield road (for the second time!) and as I had his license plate in my photo I declined the offers of help from three cars who watched it all happen. Behind them was an 80 seater coach - great big purple thing - and several other cars: a regular traffic jam on a road where vehicles are banned! This guy rammed a stationary cyclist with over 6 cars and a coach all watching him. Incredible.
You know: I fully recognise that my shouting a bad drivers and shaking my fist at them makes things worse. I really should stop, simply out of self preservation, if nothing else. It's just that the bastards beep at me & drive like bloody lunatics all illegally on a road that's basically a glorified tractor, taxi and bike lane. The injustice lights my blue touch-paper.
That is really terrible - will you report it to the Police? Even if they can't identify the driver it might raise the priority for more Policing of the road. It certainly highlights the dangers for cyclists using the road.
ReplyDeleteJamie
I have repeatedly complained to the Police, PC Bradley and PCSO Whiteman regularly drive through the road and I've explained in graphic detail the kinds of encounters I've suffered as a regular user of this road. They either don't care or can't help.
ReplyDeleteI myself am not looking to get heavily involved with the Police, I can do without the hassle or bad press as some kind of agent provocateur. I know that 99% of the drivers given £60 FPN's the other week live in Longstanton so all I would do if I got the Police involved is make all of Longstanton hate me with a passion. For now, my Blog is as direct as my action can comfortably get.
I sincerely think the only solution is to physically close the road or fully open it to normal traffic (but re-surfaced and a reduced speed limit). Either solution would, IMHO, make the road usable and keep all parties on the right side of the law.
In a few years the Northstowe development will get under way and the road'll get cut in half by a dual carriage-way, but with a cycle bridge joining Longstanton to Oakington. It's a shame I'll have to wait all that time for something to force the lawbreakers to go elsewhere, sill, I will win in the end. :-)
And this morning a Porsche Cayenne over-took me on the bloody "S" bend with millimetres to spare! He got "a shout & a fist" too. :-)
ReplyDeleteToday I clarified the details about the Citroën. It was a new Picasso, not a Berlingo, and I added the license plate details.
ReplyDelete