Election 2007...Reclaim the roads!

Cod

I just posted a lengthy message on the Bike Cafe thread, pointing out the dangers of cycling in Ireland to anyone who may be considering coming here for a touring holiday. I then started to feel guilty about it, and thought it might be a bit unpatriotic to be airing our dirty linen in public.

However...it makes my blood boil when I cycle around what used to be safe roads in County Cork, that have now become so unsafe and unsanitary that you would need to be nuts to venture out on them on a bike or on foot.

I live outside Cork City, just off the main Cork-Limerick road, in the middle of a network of local roads connecting Blarney and the other villages in the area; the "Alsatian belt" as a friend of mine describes it. It has now become extremely unwise to cycle on these roads;

• The verges are crumbled away following the recent rains, with very poor quality repairs and an increas in stones and rubble on the road;
• There are no reflectors, white lines in the middle nor yellow lines denoting the edge of the carriageway;
• There are dozens of houses being built, with mud, rubble and rubbish left along the edge of each site;
• Cars are using these roads as rat runs to avoid speed checks, and are absolutely flying around bends, hugging the hedges and are utterly unconcerned about walkers or cyclists;
• There is an increase in fly-tipping and rubbish being thrown from cars, a practice I thought had died out in this country since the dirty 70's;
• A new trend has developed where rubbish from McDonalds and other fast food outlets is dropped from parked cars, presumably by "courting" knuckle draggers who don't want to stink up the cars but dont mind stinking up our area. One of these mounds of scat included a pregancy test in the middle of the wrappers, outside school gates, that says it all really.

The point of this rant is that we have an election coming up soon and if we value our freedom to cycle we should make it an issue, I think it is part of a wider issue of quality of life and overall respect for each other but if we don't squeak now we will have ceded the use of roads to the selfish and boorish who don't give a rat's about anyone else. I urge all Irish cycists to make their feelings known in their own areas, lets not just roll over!

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Cod
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