Wednesday, 25 September 2024
Rough Going
The other day Mrs H and I were perambulating around town when we found ourselves walking behind a chap on an electric mobility scooter. He was faster than we were, but had to keep slowing down because of rough stretches of pavement.
Eventually on a particularly rough section he noticed that we were behind him and waved us past. It’s not something I’d noticed before but some of our pavements are in such a poor state that they aren’t suited to mobility scooters.
I’d noticed the pavements of course, we walk on them all the time, wearing them out many years before the council is quite ready to patch them up again. I’m surprised it’s not a bigger issue, because the chap we saw couldn’t even maintain our walking pace. Admittedly that pace is fairly brisk, but electric mobility scooters are usually quicker.
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7 comments:
As the money runs out and things crumble, expect to be told that this is some deliberate plan to save energy and regulate pedestrian traffic flow.
Near where we live there are seaside gardens with lawns and borders, like most resorts used to have. They are now scruffy areas with patches of scrubland where the borders used to be, but there are lots of new signs saying that it is an attempt to "rewild" the area and encourage native wildlife.
It does, to be fair, get pretty wild around dusk, although I haven't spotted many natives for a while.
It is said that New York was 'rescued' from increasing crime by ensuring that broken windows were fixed swiftly.
Wikipedia:
"In criminology, the broken windows theory states that visible signs of crime, antisocial behavior and civil disorder create an urban environment that encourages further crime and disorder, including serious crimes."
Others dispute this theory but wouldn't it be worth a try fixing our pavements, potholes and vandalised buildings? It would probably be cheaper than many other 'capital investments' being proposed and might be far more effective. Even if fixing the little things had no wider impact at least our towns and villages would look far better.
To be (legally) used on a footpath they should be limited to 4mph. On the road 8mph is allowed. Most of the smaller types have little or no suspension and solid tyres, so can be bone jarring on poor surfaces - guess how I know! The larger and faster ones usually have pneumatic tyres and suspension, and won't be troubled anywhere near as much.
Sam - we see one or two areas where rewilding seems to be the plan. We'll probably see stories about a sharp rise in hay fever as pollen levels rise from all the scruffy grass and scrubland.
DJ - the broken window idea does make sense. Our local out of town shopping centre is very careful to make sure that vacant shops don't look vacant by completely covering the windows with colourful promotional material. They must spend a lot on cleaning and large tubs of plants because it is always immaculate. It makes a difference, although it's only a shopping centre, it is more attractive than the town centre and attracts large numbers of people.
Dave - this one was small and probably only capable of 4mph, which would keep it ahead of us but not when constantly slowing down to negotiate rough bits. Most of those we see are fairly small. The bigger ones do look more comfortable, but to me some seem too fast for pavements.
The bigger ones should have a switch to select 4 or 8mph. No guesses as to how often this gets "forgotten"....
The state of roads and pavements … where do we start? Clogged drains.
Dave - in that case I think I've seen quite a few zipping along the pavement on the 8mph switch.
James - drains aren't too bad here, somebody in the council must be very keen on drains. We often find ourselves in traffic queues caused by the drain cleaning truck blocking our side of the road. It's quite common.
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