Road Closures

[Excursion UK]

Signs are usually pretty crap. Just says road closed at a junction but usually you find it's just some road going off further down, not the main road at all. I just ignore 'em until I reach an actual barrier. Sometimes ignore those too as bugger all going on anyway.

...and out of working hours, the locals will move the signs/cones and carry on using the road as usual assuming there's sufficient room for a car to get through. Which there is. In fact there's normally enough space for a juggernaut to get through so no need for the road closure in the first place

[ravenshaw]

I want out for a little ride earlier through the lanes from Wells to the pretty little village of Wedmore.

So, 7 miles along said road I see the dreaded Road Ahead Closed sign - there was no warning at the point that I joined the road whatsoever.

Anyway, I assume as a cyclist I can still squeeze through or even dismount and push my 'bent past the roadworks.

Right?

Noooope....

...A big yellow sign at the line of cones across the road announces Covid-19 Restrictions - in the interest of the safety of our workers, no cyclists or pedestrians are permitted past this point (they were removing cones to let local residents drive through in their cars though).

I don't know where to begin with this one but forgetting the fact that 2 metre social distancing is over, it was raining so I was in my banana suit* and that I have a specialist cycle on which I am enclosed in an extended nose cone such that there is no chance of any exhaled virus laden saliva droplets reaching the idle feckers that need a whole road closed for an entire week to fix one manhole cover, I'd say this is none other than a manifestation of the Covid Nazism that many freedom loving commentators warned us about.

Yes, jobsworth Nazis. And it comes as no surprise to me that it should be a bunch of council road workers that wins this accolade. For they have form - a pre-covid run in with another roadcrew in similar circumstances saw me prevented from passing because the the jumped up little foreman suddenly decided his road was a designated building site and there was no way I was getting past without a hard hat and a pair of steelies.

I said it from the start that these restrictions on our liberties would embolden the Little Hitlers and if you give these types a little power they will always, always abuse it. It's an absolute disgrace.

* affords similar levels of protection as a hazmat suit

Inneresting.
They must have remembered you from three years ago.

Ok, leave your prejudices behind and ponder this situation.

You've just plunged 400 feet down the side of a very steep escarpment via a country lane that you turned onto some 5 miles back to come face to face with a sign announcing that the road is closed.

To reach your destination, the only alternative route is to turn around and go back up that hill. Not an option since I'm knackered, it's getting dark and my fella is waiting for his noshi.

So, you pedal onwards hoping that either it's one of those spurious road closed signs that one often encounters or that you and your cycle can squeeze past the works.

Normally one of the two outcomes does indeed come to pass but not this time. My way was blocked by a jobsworth workman from hell. There was no way he was going to let me past.

I needed a hard hat and hi viz jacket apparently and my cycling helmet and one piece yellow number didn't cut the mustard.

I was absolutely apoplectic and got home to find my other half had gone up the Toby Carvery.

You see, people say Nazi Germany could never happen here. I beg to differ- that works foreman would have been at the front of the queue to apply the electrodes to dissenters' genitals. And I'm guessing there's a few of you who'd agree with him and I dare say you'd also be marching round in brown shirts in a parallel universe.

As an aside, why are there so many roadworks at this time of year? Are councils really doing it to use up their budgets or is that just a myth?

[AtW]

Will no Mod rid us of this tiresome sockie?

[jamesbrown]

Will no Mod rid us of this tiresome sockie?

And the rest

https://www.contractoruk.com/forums/...er-sockie.html

[d000hg]

Who knew "road closed" doesn't apply to bikes...

[Excursion UK]

Who knew "road closed" doesn't apply to bikes...

A bit of common sense would help perhaps?

I'm hardly putting their lives in danger as a cyclist or a pedestrian am I?

Though I'd love to see the petty martinet that denied me access impaled on the sharp end of my nose cone