OT Nice new village roads

No. I've seen the same thing. It's amazing the amount of work that goes into providing a good road surface for the TdF and TdY, when other roads are left in atrocious condition.

My heart sinks whenever I hear the TdY route, because I know those roads will suffer for years after with "me too" events. I've no problem at all with small groups of a few friends going out to do all or part of the TdY route, but I bitterly resent large races of maybe 100 riders, riding several abreast and in a large peleton with no gaps for cars to leapfrog past groups of riders one group at a time, and not getting into single file whenever there are faster vehicles wanting to get past. Public roads which are open to all traffic are *not* places for races, whether it is cars, bicycles or marathon runners; roads which are closed to traffic for part of one day are fine.

The worst was when we got caught up in a race (not TdY) as we were coming home one day, and their race cars would not allow anyone past, so we had to do the last three miles at about 20 mph all the way, slowing to 5-10 mph on a steep hill. That is just selfish. That race should never have been allowed to take place on public roads.

Those must be worst two words in the English language: "shared space". There need to be clear rules as to who has priority over whom in all situations (eg wheeled vehicles have priority over pedestrians on all roads except at zebra crossings, traffic lights and for an indeterminate distance on a side road where joins a main road; at roundabouts, you give way to traffic coming from the driver's side; at lights, the stream of traffic with a green light has priority over everyone else). A shared space turns it into a free-for-all where no-one has priority over anyone else, so everyone has to slow to a crawl and play "after you, no after *you*" - or more likely in today's times, everyone thinks they have priority and you get shunts, crashes and fatalities when there is a misunderstanding. Junctions and crossings should be designed to cause *minimum* not *maximum* delay to all road users.

I would have interpreted that brick pattern as a roundabout and applied/expected roundabout rules there.

What about these pedestrian crossing points:

That's shocking! You must have wasted about six minutes! Mind you, I've often waited that long for a flock of sheep around here. Clearly roads should be reserved for car users, others are mere parasites.

One year's TdY used some roads in York twice on the same route, so those people were blocked in twice (and I think the road may not have been opened in between the two passages of the race traffic).

Where we are living at the moment, last year's TdY passed the ends of all three roads into the village at one time or another, so we had to decide whether to go out early in the morning and stay out for the day or else stay in until the race had passed.

I wonder what arrangements are made for emergency vehicles to access properties that are on a TdY route - fires and heart attacks etc are no respecter of TdY road closures. Even an air ambulance would have to make sure there was somewhere to land on the same side of the road, and to avoid the filming helicopters. Apparently late-stage pregnant women in York were advised to go into maternity hospitals as a precautionary measure in case they happened to go into labour at the wrong time.

Some years ago, a motorist wrote to the neighbouring Parish Council complaining that he got held up every morning by cows crossing the 'back double' he used and demanded that the cows wait until he had passed. The Parish Council replied that cows had been crossing the road at that time of day for tens, if not hundreds, of years and suggested he found another way to work.

Here we have a similar problem wwith the 'Prudential Ride London'. This is now in it's 7th year. Someone even had to cancel a wedding when her village Church was cut off.

It's actually very difficult to go up a hill as slowly as they were going, even in first gear, especially in a petrol-engined car that has very little torque at iding speed. I realised the problem that I would have, so I parked at the bottom until I could see the last of the racers had reached the level part at the top and then went up at a normal speed.

I'm a lot more tolerant of farmers who are letting a herd of cows or a flock of sheep across the road, than I am of cyclists who should know better than to block the road and not let anyone past.

People who use the road considerately have every right to be there. People who won't let anyone overtake (cyclists, tractor drivers etc) are being selfish. When I'm cycling, I try to be aware of what's behind me all the time and to pull over if it's a large vehicle which will not have enough road width or enough acceleration to get back safely onto its own side of the road after overtaking me. I may even put on a sudden burst of speed to get to a place where I can pull off as quickly as possible. But that's because I'm a driver so I can sympathise with the needs of a driver: I do to them what I would expect them to do to me - cause as little obstruction as possible. I also *never* overtake on the left in a queue of traffic (if I get impatient, I get off and walk past them) and I always, always, always stop at non-green traffic lights and occupied zebra crossings.

Tractors in recent years seem to be much less willing to pull over into laybies than they used to be, and tractors tend to be used for long-distance journeys between farms many miles apart when I think they should use a proper road-going lorry that can achieve a reasonable speed (40-50 in a 60 zone, 50-60 in a 70 zone). Obviously you've got abnormal loads like combine harvesters, which have no choice, but I'm talking about tractors that are towing teetering loads of straw bales or open trailers of grain - the other day I followed one which probably lost 25% of his load of grain that was falling and blowing from his trailer: the road was white with grain for about 2 miles until I caught up with him and discovered what had caused the white road. Some roads, like the A61 between Ripley and Ripon, have marked pulling-over places

The worst is the Seamer Fair which causes horrendous delays on the A64. Some of the gipsy caravans are towed by a horse that is *walking* (not even trotting or cantering) along a road where there is no safe way of overtaking. If you get behind one of those, you are stuck for the duration. A neighbour took an hour to travel from Malton to Welburn crossroads, a distance of about 3 miles, because the man leading the horse was signalling cars not to overtake even in the few places where it is safe to do so - if his horse was so nervous of traffic that overtaking would scare it, it was not safe to allow on the road. When we lived in Welburn, I knew to avoid the A64 at busy periods or in the days leading up to the Seamer Fair, and to go the back way via Coneysthorpe, but non-locals would not know about that.

Thanks for giving reasons for the bollard nightmare in Kingston - the longest time I've ever known for roadworks.

which is why ours is going to spend millions on a road bridge over a railway line to bypass a level crossing. I wonder how many councillors will benefit. (This is Guildford - once again in Private Eye's Rotten Boroughs column)

Southend seafront also has a "shared space" and a 20mph speed limit (average speed camears) but between 4pm and 6pm the same road becomes a major commuter route east/west through the town. However I believe the only very serious accident has been between a pedestrian and a cyclist.

No they don't, who taught you to drive?

I wouldn't, there are a lot of other things on a roundabout that aren't there.

Zebra crossings start on the pavement, there is no need for a pedestrian to step onto the road before its a legal requirement for cars to stop.

So you break the law.

Well people are people and they do silly things, just like people driving cars do silly things. You just have to be aware of this and avoid them. I have had to stop on a motorway more than once to avoid a pedestrian as well as drivers staggering around after they have crashed. Just because its illegal for pedestrians to be on a motorway doesn't mean you can run them down.

If you mean Ash then this bridge has been a long time coming. (No, it won't affect me but I live within 10 miles)

Next years council tax bill.

Ditto Barry town council, but then a freak July thunderstorm occurred and a torrent of water flooded through the town centre, and got underneath all the block paving, washing them up into 'waves'.

Holton road looked like the sand dunes along the coast.

It's how you work out where the freemasons live :-)

For the first Velo, very little notice was given - in fact all I saw were some metal road signs warning that this road will be closed and the time and date. Which, I *knew* nobody would pay attention to. And lo ! nobody did. So when they started coning off the route Saturday evening, a few thousand people had a rude awakening. And then put metal debris on the course.

This year there were leaflets and a decent website. Personally I couldn't give a toss, as our road is clear :)

The leaflets did say that there had been provision made should emergency vehicles need access.

Of course, all of this overlooks the case where someone who has been out of the country for a few weeks returns (May 12th) and discovers they can't get into their own home.

That'll be the County Council.

Actually a police Class 1 driving instructor (who had retired from that and become a normal instructor).

A wheeled vehicle is not required to stop for a pedestrian who is waiting on the kerb to cross the road or a car that is waiting to pull out from a side road, except in specific situations which I listed: zebra crossing, traffic lights, roundabout "priority from the right", "give way" or "stop" signs/lines.

That's different from good manners and being considerate: if I see a pedestrian waiting (not at a designated place) or a car waiting to pull out of side road or turn right into the side road, I *may* slow down to let him cross/pull out. I never do it if there's no traffic behind me: he can wait an extra few seconds and then cross when there is no traffic, rather than subjecting the car behind me to unnecessary braking; if I can see a long queue of traffic waiting to turn, blocking other traffic that is trying to go straight ahead, I will usually let him go ahead of me. But I try to make that decision as far away as possible and flash my lights to let him know that I am giving way to him, so I can slow down slightly to create the space, without actually having to come to a complete halt (if the only way I can let him know that I will wait for him is to stop, then I will not stop - I'm not *that* considerate!).

Obviously if a car has already started to pull out or a pedestrian has already started to cross (or looks as if he is about to do so, despite not being somewhere that he was priority over me) I will move heaven and earth to stop. That's obvious common sense.

But a road where pedestrians have priority over cars *everywhere* is one where cars would never be able to get above walking pace - just in case one of those who appears to be walking along a road suddenly turns and crosses without warning.

The one place that I, as a pedestrian, will *never* cross in front of close traffic, even though I know that I (perversely) have priority over traffic, is when I am crossing a side road close to a junction. I value my life too much and I am too considerate of drivers who have many other things on their minds (making sure there is a space in traffic) to have to suddenly stop for a pedestrian, making the car stop in the middle of the road. That is the one road traffic law that I would change: the automatic right of pedestrians to cross in front of traffic at a side road - I think it is perverse and highly dangerous. As a driver I expect to to happen, but it annoys me every time I have to do it.

Do *all* mini-roundabouts have a white-on-blue sign in advance and/or direction signs with a circle in the centre? How do you distinguish between a brick circle in the middle of a road and a white painted one where almost all the paint has worn off? Full-size roundabouts have a raised central island and *may* have pedestrian refuges at each entry, but mini roundabouts may not. I'm wondering what is missing in the Bodmin case which should have told me that roundabout rules did not apply, *despite appearances to the contrary* (the circle on the road).

But it isn't. It's the Borough Council