VEHICULAR WOES

The trouble with having a big building project on the go is that it is very stressful. Inevitably there are things that nobody has anticipated, which have to be paid for, so there’s stress about costs. More stressful than that, though, for me is the problem of the builders upsetting people. Our building site is right next to the Primary School, and so there are obvious sensitivities, but the scope for annoying people is just vast, and it is painful to me that my parishioners should be annoyed. One day last week I was almost physically sick with worry at the breakfast table because I could hear a heavy vehicle’s reversing alarm, and it was a time when we should not have had any lorries moving anywhere near the site; I kept imagining the fury of the parents who would be fearful for the safety of their children, and the fury of the head teacher who would have been fielding the parents’ complaints. As it turned out, I was worrying for nothing. It was nothing to do with us. CityWest Homes are doing something to the tower block the other side of the school which involves a crane, and that was where the alarm was coming from.    

Today I helped to supervise the road crossing, where the children interact with the traffic (in practice other children’s parents’ cars). If it helps everyone feel safe, it’s worth it. This has become necessary because our scaffolding (behind its hoarding) occupies almost the whole of the pavement alongside the church, and so after the first day of school, it was felt that it was better to direct the children a slightly longer way so that they wouldn’t walk through parked (or potentially parking) cars. This means they have to cross Rowington Close. Since the only traffic generally at that time is parents dropping children, you would suppose that it should be straightforward, but it seems not. We’re offering a bit of supervision to see that order prevails. The most dangerous thing I saw today was a mother nearly running over her own child (at very low speed).

The very worst bit of parking I’ve seen recently was at Regent’s Park, where I cycle. Hanover Gate meets the Outer Circle in a T junction; this is controlled by traffic lights, and there are pedestrian crossings on each arm. The car was parked between the two crossings, exactly opposite the other arm of the junction; of course it was on a double yellow line. I couldn’t work out why this was a good place to park, because it’s not particularly convenient for anything. You see taxis and minicabs stop to set people down in illegal places, but generally there is some reason for why they have stopped at that particular point, and they will move off again in a couple of minutes. This car, on the other hand, was just parked next to the hedge around the Park, and stayed there for a couple of hours at least, on a weekday evening. Bizarre.

As to bad driving, a black cab on Saturday afternoon worried me. I was overtaken by a young man on a time trial bike, and then by an occupied cab. As it came alongside the bike the cab began to flash its lights, and clearly started to slow down and bear in towards the pavement. The cyclist was forced into the back of a line of parked cars and had to stop. The cab driver suddenly accelerated away; I passed him letting his passengers out a hundred yards further on. Odd and dangerous behaviour.

Totally inexplicable was the 31 bus which, stationary at the traffic lights at the T junction at the bottom of Chippenham Road, suddenly decided to move away during the pedestrian phase of the lights, sailing across two pedestrian crossings where the signal was green for pedestrians. It was not as if he was anticipating his own phase, either, as that was not the next phase. Anyway, the lights were clearly red. Nor was he slipping through at the end of his phase; he was stationary for perhaps a minute and then just took it into his head to go, for no discernible reason. Astonishing.

The traffic is particularly heavy on Chippenham Road up to the traffic lights outside St Peter’s, because of roadworks on Elgin Avenue. Buses are diverted, which makes it all much worse. Every so often, though, you see someone lose patience with queuing and simply pull out and overtake the queue as it starts to move. Perhaps it’s not so dangerous (if you know the sequence of the lights) but it’s just deeply anti-social. Watching this from the Office the other day I was moved to ponder the value of queuing. We always used to say that we thought if the EU was in the business of standardisation then we should all have standardised French bank holidays and British queues. Because the queue really is a thing of virtue, and it is profoundly democratic. I remember being struck, in Bologna Station a few years ago, to notice that the advance ticket window was now protected by an automatic door, so only the person first in line could get there, because I’m sure many of us will have had the experience at an Italian ticket window of someone coming up beside you, or over your shoulder, and engaging the ticket clerk in conversation while they are supposed to be attending to you. Obviously the other person’s business is very important, or urgent, or simple to resolve and so they know you won’t mind; but That’s Not The Point. You wait your turn. That’s how it’s done in a civilised society. You will notice that the airlines strive to maintain class privilege by having a separate queue for club or business class passengers, and we can bear that, because we feel that the basic queue is not being significantly undermined by that, but just marching to the head of the queue is never acceptable. It’s not just the Brits being anal, it’s actually about democracy.