Monday 7 January 2013

Cycle Lane Hogging - Cambridge Style!

The cycle bridge down by Cambridge Station really is a good facility - cyclists on one side pedestrians on the other. And no cars. Its a key part of joining our city up for cyclists. Here's an image from Geograph (a cool resource, this contribution copyright of a chap called Finlay Cox)




The entrance from the Rustat Road entrance has had a bit of a problem with the wooden bollard here being knackered, but thats a triviality really, I mean no one could possibly mistake the covered bridge labelled as a cycle bridge as anything else. Could they?


View Larger Map

I mean, its pretty bleeding obvious that this is a cycle bridge. Pan around a bit on that street view above. Look at the markings. And then ask yourself why a guy in a Jaguar decided to try to drive over it.

Genuine mistake? Maybe. But once he's gone up there it sounds very like he's just kept going - he got at least to the top of the bridge before going back. So a mistake compounded by what, hoping that it'll all just work out okay somehow? 

What strikes me most about this is that even where we do okay for cycling facilities, there is nothing that can be created for cyclists that some motorist won't try to mess up for us!

UPDATE: Gosh, but look, Cambridge News have worked out why this happened. And apparently the motorist was 'unobservant'.

Interestingly, when the local police were staking out a section of pavement cyclists were using beyond the completely unlabelled end of the cycle lane, no mention that they were 'unobservant' or indeed anything other than unquestioning reporting that the cyclists were in the wrong. And where cyclists are legally using a different cycle bridge in Cambridge, the same local paper seems to be trolling for more anti-cyclist sentiment.

Doesn't take a genius to see what side our local paper is in the phoney war on Britains roads, does it?

3 comments:

  1. I read this story on the BBC earlier on - absolutely hilarious! I hope he had lots of people ringing bells at him and shouting at him to get on the road! ;-)

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  2. I like how the Cambridge News headline is 'Bollard theft allowed car onto bike bridge', as if the fact that it hadn't been physically prevented was part of the problem.

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    1. Quite, its as if you have to have a bollard otherwise bewildered motorists just appear out of nowhere :)

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