"Lawrence Jenkins" wrote in message
...
|
| "Chris Smith" wrote in message
| ...
| Joe Egginton wrote:
| I wish to ask the advice of the eminent people of this discussion
group,
| that know about grocks, do they invariably walk on the wrong side of a
| country road without pavements?
|
|
| Sadly, people are no longer "taught" to walk anywhere - we live in a car
| dominated culture so it's little wonder people don't know how to behave
| when they do visit NoPavementLand
|
| --
| Chris
|
| It's a sad comment and contradiction. We are nowadays health and safety
mad
| and yet here we have an example of individuals taking no personal
| responsibility for their own safety, let alone others.
| No doubt the motorist would be held to blame in the event of an accident.
|
|

My understanding of the law is that (with some exceptions mentioned below)
the road is a *public highway*.

To put it bluntly, that means we ALL have a legal right to proceed along it,
whether walking, riding cycles or horses or (having paid the appropriate
taxes) in a motor vehicle.

There are a lot of motorists who think that no-one else has any right to use
the road at all, and are expected to vacate the road when motor vehicles
approach. While this might be a wise course of action, given the
selfishness, impatience and stupidity of too many drivers, it is not a legal
requirement. The tax motorists pay is for maintaining the road to the
standard their vehicles require (and which other users would not need), as
well as for the use of certain roads (Motorways in particular) which are not
available for general use, only to certain types of motor vehicles and
drivers. Motorists do *not* pay road tax for *exclusive* use of the
carriageway.

If driving along a road without pavements/footpaths, you must be alert to
the possibility of encountering pedestrians and be prepared to *slow down*
(terrible thought I know if you are driving a BMW, 4x4 or white van, but
such is life) so you can overtake them safely. If you hit a pedestrian you
will very likely face criminal charges - and rightly so. Their error of
judgement will cause little harm to you if you are paying attention and
driving responsibly. Your error of judgement could cost a pedestrian
his/her life or cause them to spend the rest of their life crippled.

I live in the New Forest. About 200 of our ponies are killed on the Forest
roads every year, in spite of warning signs and general knowledge that the
animals have absolute right of way under the ancient Forest laws - and in
spite of all the main "A" roads now being fenced off to exclude the ponies.
Very few, if any, ponies are killed by "grockles" - they generally respect
what they have come to see. It is the impatient locals - and all too often
they are also "incomers" fleeing from the "pressures" of city life - who
cause the carnage. All too often they don't even have the decency to report
the accident (an accident involving horses must, by law, be reported
*anywhere* - it is not particular to the Forest), leaving the wretched
animal to die an agonising, lingering death. Regrettably, there are some
who have treated human pedestrians the same way.

If you are not prepared to respect the rights of others to use the roads,
then in the name of public safety do us all a favour, tear up your driving
licence and sell your car. It might also save you from agonising years of
being unable to sleep at nights from the memory of having killed or
seriously injured someone.

If having to drive slowly along country roads infuriates you, go back to the
city where you belong and stick to the motorways if you have to leave its
boundaries.

And yes, I do drive a car, and even inside the "protection" of that I am fed
up with being endangered by the selfish, impatient and stupid drivers
mentioned above. This in spite of it being my normal policy to drive as
fast as is both safe and legal to avoid delaying others who may have urgent
business - yet I am still regularly overtaken while travelling at the speed
limit for the road. The situation is not helped by the police round our
part of the world being more concerned with boosting their "performance
figures" by catching loads of people on speed cameras doing 34mph than
patrolling the high speed main roads trying to deter the idiots who overtake
in the face of oncoming traffic. We have had a number of several hour road
closures round here during the last few years while the carnage resulting
from such stupidity is cleaned up.

Sorry to write with such feeling, but I also know someone who had their life
ruined while crossing the main road running through our village. He was
crossing the road at the one marked "safe" place at the time (there are
several more through Ashurst, now, but then we did not even have the one
traffic light controlled crossing) and was hit by a speeding motorist going
the wrong side of the traffic island attempting to overtake other traffic.
The lad was in his late teens at the time and has hardly had a life worth
living ever since.

Is not someone else's life worth just a few seconds of your time?
--
- Yokel -
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OO 0 OO
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