Transport and Transformation

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In many respects I’m a fan of public transport, and if I can find a green way of doing something, I’ll do my best to accommodate. I’ll take the train rather than the car any day of the week. I’ll walk and cycle rather than take the car where I can. I’d rather walk than take the tube or a taxi.

Trouble is, whichever mode of transport you take, you suddenly become public enemy number one to those who’ve taken an alternative method.

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Take walking to work. I get into Cannon Street and have a ten minute walk from there to the office. I have to cross two major arterial roads in the centre of London, neither of which have designated crossing points for pedestrians. I’ve lost count of the number of times a car (usually 4×4 owners in my experience) will deliberately pull up too close to the car in front to prevent pedestrians squeezing through the gap. What’s the point of that? I can only assume it gives them some evil psychotic thrill to impart a bit of their traffic-jam misery on innocent bystanders.

Cyclists are worse though. Despite being road users, they appear to pay no attention whatsoever to the rules of the road; running red lights, overtaking on the inside, using the pavements, running down the outside of traffic even though there’s a cycle lane on the inside and cycling far too fast (especially in the wet), so if the unexpected does happen in front of them, the consequences are inevitable.

Of course, when you’re in a car, pedestrians are a right nuisance, milling around aimlessly with their blackberrys and iPhones, wondering into the road without looking, banging on your car roof and generally being extremely anti-social. Cyclists deliberately hide in your blind spots for fun, and then emerge so they can revel in the opportunity to chuck some fiendishly inventive profanity at you, shake their fists and wobble on to their next altercation with wonderful green aura of planet-saving righteousness.

Having said that, when you’re on a bike, cars are suddenly driven by absolute numpties who never look in their mirrors, have no conception that they’re sharing the road with anyone else and deliberately aim at cyclists hoping to intimidate them into submission. Pedestrians seem to assume that they have right of way just because they’re on the road and often try to ‘handbag’ cyclists out of pure spite.

What’s the solution to all this mayhem? Well, it’s quite simple really. We all need to be a rather a lot less selfish, show a bit of courtesy… and grow up.

Drew – Author, Astronomer, Anachronism, Ashford

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