Biologist Mr Redmond, who is based in Stroud, Gloucestershire, smashed straight into one of the newly-installed white bollards which he said were difficult to see as they were camouflaged against a white line on the path. He said: "I've cycled that route to and from Parkway station hundreds of times over the years, and am used to carefully avoiding pedestrians, but came a cropper over this totally unnecessary hazard.
"The new bollards are solid cast iron and painted white, and so in any conditions of limited visibility, they are almost perfectly camouflaged against the white line separating the cycle-way from the footpath. "As a biologist, I am familiar with cryptic colouration, which works well for Arctic hares and polar bears, but I'd never considered it a suitable characteristic for traffic bollards." Mr Redmond escaped with minor injuries but warned that other cyclists might not be so lucky.
He said: "This winter, people will be cycling this way in fog, rain, sleet and – worst of all – snow. They will often be weaving around gaggles of commuters, maybe in the dark – clearly it is only a matter of time before there is a serious accident. I urge the council to remove these bollards, which serve no useful purpose. But if they must have them, surely they should be clearly visible in all weathers and ideally made of a flexible material – traffic bollards on roads are designed to minimise damage to cars – why don't cyclists get the same consideration?"
5 comments:
I don't get the idea behind erecting something like that. What possible purpose does it serve? Aside from a trap to cyclist, I mean.
An attempt to keep motorists out of the bicycle path maybe?
That's probably it, but I can't recall the last time I saw a motorist going down a bike path.
I think the rare motorist is going to be easier to see and avoid than a bike bollard.
Hmm, I'm surprised no-one's mentioned yet that the painted bicycle is upside down!
Curious thing on the new comments Kev (I've been away a while, so I apologise if this has been covered already in a post I've missed), there doesn't appear to be a way to get email updates of new comments subsequent to mine. I don't have to register with Google or OpenID do I?
Heh, I'd not noticed the upside-down bicycle, Mark!
I've checked through all the settings, and sadly, to get email notification of replies you have to be logged into one of those or Blogger.
I remember now why I first opted out of Blogger comments, almost 6 years ago. Mind you, back in those days you had to have a Blogger account in order to leave a comment.
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