Road rant

Just me spouting.

So yesterday morning I saw an adult with a three-wheeled buggy and child and two young kids on bikes coming from Mitton Gardens. Instead of standing in the middle of that road to cross Vale Road like so many others they turned and headed past the car-park towards Lion Hill.

I mentally applauded them for wanting to use the crossing point rather than risk three lanes of death. Then I took back my applause as they headed to the kerb and popped the buggy down into the middle of the third lane queue before peering around it to see if they could cross the other two lanes. Halfway across one of the kids decided that trying to ride her bike across wasn't a good idea and so stopped to dismount. After managing to cross they then turned and continued down the road towards Lion Hill. Okay I don't want to introduce the penalty of jaywalking, but could someone please slap some common sense into people like this?

In York Street I came to a skidding halt. I wasn't travelling fast and didn't skid far it was more to do with the angle my car was at. See I'd moved into the left hand-lane (assuming there is one) once clear of the parking bays and then had to pull back out to overtake the car parked behind the bus stop (on the double yellow lines) while trying to avoid the three cars parked opposite that same bus-stop (on double yellow no parking and single yellow no loading lines oh and one on zig-zags) the middle one of which was jutting out trying to pull back out into traffic.

At this point we came to an abrupt halt because someone ahead of us was trying to cross into New Street and foolishly believed that as this was an island they had right-of-way over traffic from Bridge Street. This was soon contradicted by the vehicle coming up Bridge Street who assumed that as they weren't indicated they were turning left as that is what everyone else does.

This morning I had a passenger and she complained about the state of the roads particularly around the access points. As I pointed out it would be difficult to put them someone more stupid if it had been intended that way - "Say now we've already going to break up the integrity of the road surface let's put the cover somewhere that all those heavy vehicles can run over it." On one short road I counted four covers all of which where about a foot away from the kerb and thus lined up perfectly with my tyre. Likewise the number of similar points that have congregated makes me wonder why just one couldn't have been placed.

Oh and just a reminder that those pretty zig-zag lines next to the crossing in High Street don't mean please park here. Yep one boxy truck parked 'upstream' of the crossing meaning someone peering out from behind it to see if the traffic was clear. Also not helped by the delivery truck parked on the corner on those double yellow no-parking single yellow no-loading lines.

Just out of curiosity for any local readers (hah) have you ever seen a traffic warden before 9am and after 5pm? You know when the majority of traffic tries to flow through the town at the same point in time and it would be really handy if the roads were kept as clear as they're meant to be?