20 January - Malicious or incompetent?
As
mentioned before, my four and occasionally five trips to Bromley and back each
week have given a greater insight into why Bexley’s roads are so congested. My son once
said - pictured here last week at a crash test facility in Washington, D.C. -
that whoever designs Bexley’s roads is either incompetent or malicious. Maybe it is both.
Bromley may be worse for potholes but the idiocies belong mainly to Bexley. Why
do they think it is a good idea to extend the footpath into the road at
pedestrian crossings leaving the pedestrians in effect standing in the path of
oncoming traffic? In the dark, at this time of the year in a dark coat and with no street
lighting. It seems to go off at about 7 a.m., an hour before sunrise.
Why is that width restrictor on The Green in Sidcup there at all and why is it at an
acute angle to the road? Anything bigger than a motorbike cannot get through it without
swinging into the adjacent Church Road to try to get a straight run at it. My
not very big car can only get through with tyre walls rubbing the kerb.
Fortunately they are quite bulbous and no real harm is done, In the other
direction a bus can get through so what is the point? One might ask what the
point of the whole Highways Department is.
Apart from cars with no rear lights at all,
cars parked on the wrong side of the road with headlights full on, cars emulating
bikes with only one front nearside parking light working, overtaking on
roundabouts and pedestrians in black at night, inconsiderate parking has become a major bugbear.
It
is obvious that some cars are always legally parked on major roads in
the same place every single day causing hold ups even on days when no Council
dustcart has stopped opposite a traffic island. Yesterday, soon after 06:30 I was
lucky enough to get in front of it at a roundabout as it headed on its mission
to create chaos in Foots Cray Lane. Brampton Road, Penhill Road and
Footscray Lane host the worst of the all day parkers in Bexley but Bromley is generally worse. Why
have two carriageways on the approach to Chislehurst War Memorial when in is
a permanent car park and where the junction is now a Yellow Money Box making the
queues far worse than they used to be? There are around 50
regular offenders between Abbey Wood and Bromley every single day.
Why is parking allowed to within two car lengths of give way lines at roundabouts and traffic
lights forcing through traffic into the middle of the road in dangerous places?
But good news. The road by the Sidcup branch of Waitrose has a nice new surface;
maybe the Council will do the opencast mine which is Danson Underpass soon. Actually it
is due to be done in March; and about time too.