Obstacle course

[Pete]

Well, another 'incident' on the commute perhaps. At the place where I cross a main road on traffic lights, then continue on a short cycle path at right angles to the road, on the far side, I come head-on to a couple of lengths of 2" plastic conduit pipe laid neatly across the path, precisely over the white line marking its junction with the road. These would likely have brought me down. Luckily I noticed them in time...

So I've done an emergency stop with my rear end sticking out in the traffic and the lights about to change. So I quickly shuffle out of the way, then pick the pipes and put them down on the edge of the path out of the way.

Accident? Kiddies' prank? Worth reporting or am I being paranoid? I know, I've heard of worse things, wires strung across roads or paths Steve-McQueen fashion, that sort of thing hasn't happened to me ... yet. What ought I to do?

 

[sheddy]

You could report it to the Council Highways Dept (who should come and pick them up) and at the same time labour the point that because the contractor has been sloppy they could of have caused a crash

 

[Maz]

What ought I to do?

I think you've already done it, pete...

...I quickly shuffle out of the way, then pick the pipes and put them down on the edge of the path out of the way.

Certainly not worth reporting, IMO.
I sometimes stop to shift traffic cones, hubcaps etc that have miraculously appeared in the cycle lane overnight. No big deal.

 

[domtyler]

I had some stupid moron woman up my arse as I was taking my daughter to nursery this morning, she followed us all the way through the 20mph zone with speed bumps all the way along about a foot from my back wheel and then tried to overtake me going through the junction.

Well, when I say overtake she actually tried to just go through us. I then stopped in the middle of the road bringing all traffic to a stop in all three directions and screamed at her to just effing well run us both over if she wanted to. "Fecking come on then do it" I screamed, she just waved her arms around and sat there looking sheepish and going bright red while her daughter sank into her seat! Stupid bitch.

 

[Tynan]

I was going home a month or so ago after evening classes, so 10pm as I got to Tottenham Hale, dark and raining, looked up and though I could see something leanign out into the road over railing, blinked a couple of times and finally realised a couple of navvies had a huge sheet of some sort of metal or perspex propped up on the railings, with the sheet bending forwards over the railings and projecting about two feet into the road at chest/head height, worked it out just in time and swerved round it, a good thirty feet of the bloody thing with a very nonchalant navvy holding onto the far end

nasty fright at the time in te low vos and everything

 

[Pete]

I don't think it was contractors. No sign of any road or building works nearby. Could have 'fallen off a lorry' I suppose and been 'helpfully' put to the side of the main road by another road user. But I think it was kids. The way these pipes were laid neatly parallel and exactly across the path entrance.

Incidentally there are no staggered barriers nor bollards at this cycle path entrance, unlike what thoughtful councils normally install. So I can usually ride straight across the junction onto the path without hesitation.

We did have a wire-across-road incident in our area a few years ago. Could have been very nasty: to make it worse the idiots had hung a heavy steel cogwheel or similar object from the middle of the wire. Oddly enough the first 'victim' to pass that way was a police car, could have decapitated the occupants, instead the impact brought down a heavy wrought iron gate to which the wire had been tied, and the police officers were uninjured luckily. The culprits were never caught.

 

[mrben]

Heh - sometimes I glad I mostly cycle on roads...

 

[Pete]

Heh - sometimes I glad I mostly cycle on roads...

So do I. The path I referred to is a convenient short cut, that's all.