Pelican crossing protest

[gilesjuk]

Found this on the BBC:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8662249.stm

[largeallan]

They're lucky, In my village you'd get run over on the zebra crossing..... and thats just by local women on the school run

[hamster]

I have to confess to enjoying pressing the button at just the right time in order to stop someone in a 4x4..

[thirdcrank]

In his declining years, that was something my dear old dad used to do, and he wasn't bothered about what sort of vehicle he stopped. It's fair to say that he had mental health problems.

[GrahamNR17]

He was interviewed on Radio 2 this afternoon. Plainly a very intelligent man who's just about had enough. Don't blame him one bit after hearing what they've had to put up with over the years. And what a clever, and legal, way to make a protest! National/international attention, so surely his local council have to finally take notice of him and the other villagers.

I think he has set the 'traffic protest' gold standard

[[XAP]Bob]

I think it's brilliant - the village is the "shortest" route, SatNav should be far more intelligent than it is..

[cotterpin]

this reminds me of when the bairns were little and i got them to push spent matchsticks into the buttons on the pedestrian crossings ....Excellent

[thirdcrank]

this reminds me of when the bairns were little and i got them to push spent matchsticks into the buttons on the pedestrian crossings ....Excellent

Particularly appreciated by anybody living within earshot when the pelican is bleeping every 90 seconds, all through the night (cue for a song.) Superglue has been used around here to achieve that.

I assume that in this case, the highway authority will eventually switch off the pelican, pro tem.

[gilesjuk]

I have to confess to enjoying pressing the button at just the right time in order to stop someone in a 4x4..

I tend to try and cross the road without resorting to pressing the button. I'd rather get across causing the minimum of delay to other. But when people don't leave enough room between themselves and the car in front you end up with a never ending stream of traffic.

[benm]

The road is the A35 and it is the western end of the Folkestone - Honiton trunk road.

It carries a huge amount of traffic and in Dorset there is very little of its length dual carriageway, owing to the distinct lack of places to widen the road. Past the Bridport bypass it is single carriageway and very up hill and down dale.

Chideock is in the bottom of a valley with the west going traffic having just left the Bridport bypass and crested a hill, the road is dead straight (well almost) and even though there are speed cameras and speed limits vehicles continue to speed through. Sometimes the queue from the pelican crossing can reach back to Bridport (2 or 3 miles?). Traffic coming the other way seems (to me at least) less problematic for some reason.

I am amazed anyone can cross the road at all with or without use of the crossing.

Do I support the protest - well yes and no. The road has always been there and has always had a large volume of traffic travelling along it so presumable people knew about it when they moved. However I can sympathise with the villagers becasue it must be beyond a joke and at least a pelican crossing protest is less disruptive than an accident (which also happen fairly often)

B.

[Tom Richardson]

The road has always been there and has always had a large volume of traffic travelling along it so presumable people knew about it when they moved.

I don't know the road but suspect that is wasn't always as busy as it is now. Motor traffic has increased by an average of 25% in the 15yrs to 2009 (since John Prescott pledged to reduce motor traffic).

[Mick F]

I know Chideock and have driven the road more times than I care to remember from Plymouth to Portsmouth.

It was and still is an awfully busy road, and these days it's a little easier with the by-passes. Dorchester, Bridport, Bere Wotsit(?) - oh yes - Regis(!).

Chideock has it bad.
It was always bad, but it's far worse nowadays, so I don't buy the idea that people knew it was bad when they moved there.

In a similar vein, here in Cornwall we have Gunnislake:
Small village with a main road.
In the 1950's it was terrible with traffic. Can anyone remember the days before the motorways? I know I can, though not down here. Gunnislake was clogged with Emmets every summer and Bank Holiday with cars stuck on the hill, unable to pass in the narrow streets, and breaking down in the middle of it all. Miles and miles of tailbacks were the normallity.

Then the Saltash Bridge opened, and the village was effectively bypassed. Bliss!
Then traffic increased and it became as bad as before.
Then they improved the A30 and the A38, and Gunnislake was relieved again.
Then they installed traffic lights in the village - and due to the reduction in traffic and the Pelican Crossings, village life became tolerable. The trouble is, no-one uses the village any more and we all drive to the shops!
You just can't win!

Chideock, on the other hand, can't be bypassed and the main trunk road just goes through - just like Gunnislake in the 1950s. I have a great deal of sympathy for the residents, and if it were me, I'd be pressing that button every day constantly, I understand that they have 4 mile tailbacks. Good, but the protest is only twice a week.

Super Glue or a wooden wedge would be illegal and frowned upon. Just keep pressing that button and crossing, for hour after hour every single working day! Eventually, the traffic will go somewhere else.

[mw3230]

Constantly pressing the buttton in order to stop the traffic and make a protest is in my opinion leaving the old so and so open to being prosecuted/arrested for causing an unecessary or even wilful obstruction. The traffic did not design the road system and the drivers have a right to free passage along the highway.

Actually, being arrested in the full glare of the local press would be even better publicity for the protest

[benm]

<snip>Chideock, on the other hand, can't be bypassed and the main trunk road just goes through<snip>
...
Eventually, the traffic will go somewhere else.

Err where will the traffic go Mick? there just isn't an alternative, sensible, east west route across Dorset into/out of Devon - you could always go north to what ever bit of the A303 is nearest I guess but that could add an hour on to your journey and another gallon of fuel given the quality of the north/south roads in Dorset.

I don't know the answer, if indeed there is one; I have looked for solutions on and off over the last 20 or so years I have lived in the area. The A35 West bound is so awful that I either don't go to Exeter/Devon at all or if I do arrange to be travelling early/late

B.

[gilesjuk]

I think the original problem is that this road has become busier due to sat nav. Long distance drivers using a sat nav calculated route which is good for them but not nice for the locals.