Just walked the dog and feel lucky to be alive. In the space of 100 metres of a small country road without a footpath but with a 30 mph speed limit I was the victim of three clear cases of bad and over-fast driving bordering on the dangerous.
Heading west on the right hand side of the road between Pockthorpe and Lyng, just past the 40 mph limit for eastbound traffic (30 for westbound) I am approached by a vehicle accelerating off the unsighted Wensum river bridge. I use it regularly and there is dangerously limited vision eastwards. The car is accelerating out of the 30 into the 40 but has already reached 40-plus. I flag it to slow but it passed me at I estimate 45-50.
Its passage makes me turn which is fortunate as I had not heard the 40-mph gearbox tractor and its vast trailer entering the village. While the restrictions on its roadworthy gearbox should restrict it to 40 it has come downhill and is still at well above that speed as it passes the 30 mph boards. I again flag it down and am rewarded with brake lights and it passes at a more sedate rate. A minor victory.
Transitory indeed as I now find a vehicle again leaving the bridge ahead of me and accelerating hard. I found out why when it swerves past me only to turn in tight behind me. The driver has decided my life is not worth the slight delay of waiting while the held up four vehicles behind the tractor to pass me. I am the obstruction and I am on his side of the road. A prosecution for driving dangerously would be a shoo-in. The Highway Code is absolute - you must give way if the obstruction is on your side of the road.
But like all good stories I have saved the best (worst) to last. I am by now only 20 or so metres from the river bridge and aware that I am in the unsighted area for oncoming drivers. I walk virtually on the grass verge. And suddenly a silver Toyota appears at speed hugging his inside kerb as he accelerates through the slight bend. Aware that he has clearly not seen me I step up onto the impossibly harrow and steep verge dragging my dog with me. Metres from he wakes up, swerves away at about 45-50 by this time and continues his merrily incompetent way.
So who is to blame for all this? Clearly the drivers bear a huge responsibility. The Highway Code, which I doubt many or any have read, makes it mandatory that at all times a driver is required to drive at speeds and in a manner to suit the road, traffic and weather conditions. It is against that test that the offences of driving without due care or of driving without reasonable consideration are judged.
Beyond sheer speed and manner of driving the same code makes it mandatory that drivers should give precedence to pedestrians on roads without footpaths. This further requires them to give way to oncoming traffic when the obstruction (pedestrian) is on their side of the road.
We may also question whether the speed limits are suitable or located correctly. The 40 coming in to Lyng is quite late and the 30 restrictions is very close indeed to the river bridge and after the hamlet of Pockthorpe.
And there is no doubt at all that the absence of any footpath on either side of this road is what places any pedestrians at risk.
But the bottom line is that as a nation we have stopped any attempt to encourage or require good, safe and competent driving. The years of bleating ninnies who decry what they chillingly call "the nanny state" have won out. Lessez faire, first enunciated in the 80s, now rules.
We need to return to the acceptance that left to their own devices enough ordinary people will behave very badly indeed to ensure that the rest of us are at risk. There is no alternative to strict rules and strong implementation if our ordinary roads are to become safe again.
And that will also mean more money for the business of telling drivers to behave properly. Signs exhorting "ITS 30 FOR A REASON" and "SLOW DOWN - THAT COULD YOUR CHILD". And, like so much of Europe, speed humps or chicanes on the entry to every village - not just a favoured few. And timed flashing lights and variable speed limits close to schools and playgrounds And much, much more.
Oh and by the way all this happened the day after a serious accident not 100 metres further into the village which required police attendance.
(This sent to county councillor Bill Borrett and our MP George Freeman)
LYNG
