[mattw]

A few weeks ago I asked for advice on a Toolstation A-board obstrucing a local shared bike/ped path.

I then reported it via the County Council website under “obstructions”, and received a classic slopey-shoulders reply:

Our initial inspection has shown that the issue identified does not meet with our criteria for intervention. The reasons we wouldn’t intervene include if the obstruction or spillage isn’t deemed hazardous or suitable adequate access remains available.

If you spot any other problems on Nottinghamshire roads, please let us know online or give us a call.
 
Thanks for helping to keep Nottinghamshire roads safe.

This is now a few weeks later and the obstruction no longer happens, after having been daily for years.

Does anyone understand this miraculous mechanism and how it works? Has there, for example been a quiet phone call to enquire why it is there?

(For some reason I can’t seem to attach a photo today.)

Cheers

Matt

Topic

[mattw]

Thanks all for the feedback. 

Thanks all for the feedback. 

Matt

[cqexbesd]

brooksby wrote:

If they’re happy blocking the cycle lane, maybe they’d be just as happy obstructing the roadway…? 

Around here there were signs warning of upcoming parking restrictions. They were up for ages and put on the bike path with heavy bases that were just draggable. You could get past on a regular bike but not past all of them if you had, as in my case, a child trailer. I used to stop and drag them out onto the road (often to the stares of other people though no one ever said anything to me). Someone was pretty quick getting them back on the bike path (I went past this spot once per day) but I persevered and eventually they found new places to put them that weren’t the bike path.

As per the OP I should probably have contacted officialdom to complain instead but I have no idea who would be responsible – the council, the sign company, the orgsanisation that was doing work requiring the parking restrictions – and I still had to get my child to and from school in the mean time and didn’t want them to experience the harrassment that you sometimes get by using the road.

[brooksby]

If they’re happy blocking the

If they’re happy blocking the cycle lane, maybe they’d be just as happy obstructing the roadway…?  After all, its easier for a car to legally be driven around it whereas a cyclist would have to go onto the footway section (solid white line, innit).

[jh2727]

JustTryingToGetFromAtoB wrote

JustTryingToGetFromAtoB wrote:

Where there is a handy hedge in the vicinity as in your photo, I’ve slung them in before*.

I have to admit, I do that often with road signs – generally after they’ve already blown/knocked over and serve as nothing but a hazard.  On a related note, I’ve never understood why it is acceptable to obstruct a shared use path, solely to inform motorists of the presence of raod works which are as plain as day.  Or, perhaps even worse, the road signs that they put up to warn of future road works, with so much small writing that you can’t possibly read the sign – unless you are stationary.

[mattw]

I agree with most of that,

I agree with most of that, and normally I’d be cycling in the middle of the LH turn lane there with no problems from traffic at all there, but none of that reflects my question .

The sign is now on the shop car park margin on the other side whenever I check, whicj I will do again today as I am just off for a bike before sunset at 4:30.

We’ve actually just had our first bit of new semi-segregated cycleway just round that corner, so progress is eventually being made.

[mattw]

Personally I’m more inclined

Personally I’m more inclined to hand it in as lost property at a police station 5 miles away, but I understand the sentiment.

[chrisonabike]

As opposed to the official

As opposed to the official obstruction (the support for the road sign right in the middle of the footway/cycle way (presumably this is one where they’ve just painted a line on a previous footway and called it good?).  Helpfully obscured by trees planted right at the edge of the private business development too…

And the fact that we’ve got a whole lane (likely 3 – 3.5 metres wide, in the UK that’s a fine 2 lane cycle path) just for left-turning motor traffic of course – but that elephant is totally invisible to most!

[pockstone]

Compare and contrast  with

Compare and contrast  with Hackney Council’s robust policy on parked cargo bikes.

[JustTryingToGetFromAtoB]

Where there is a handy hedge
Where there is a handy hedge in the vicinity as in your photo, I’ve slung them in before*. I can’t move the bigger ones with the weighted bases though. You are a better person for going through the proper channels.

To answer your question, I think it depends where you are. In Reading, there is an app. It has pretty quick results for things like obstructions
, graffiti etc. I think it goes to a mobile team that respond rather than a committee that assess.

*I suspect my perimenopause is underway and getting out of control. My rage at needless idiocy like this is increasing at a Hulk type rate. I’m about three school drop offs away from borrowing a golf club to twat badly parked cars.

[mattw]

This is the photo of the

This is the photo of the obstruction.

 

[Author]

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