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The place I live in is called by most locals a ‘village’. It has a long history pre-dating the Romans and even 30 years ago when I first encountered it I myself classed it as a village. It has one pub, one small general store and sub-post office, a local butcher and a small pharmacy. It also has a primary school and a comprehensive (known as a ‘Village College’ that serves all of the local villages north of the city.
What I don’t know is what a village becomes when it is no longer a village but not yet a town, or, as is more likely for my village, a city suburb. And when is that line drawn? I used to say that the first sign would be double yellow lines to restrict car parking. You neither see or tolerate those in a real village. The next nail in the coffin of ‘villagehood’ is, I figure, traffic lights.
Well we got our first dose of yellow lines a couple of weeks back – up one side of the road shown in the photograph. One minute the people who lived there could park their cars all day and the next it’s ’sorry mate – you can’t park it here’. Not of course that the village ever sees a policeman or a traffic warden who are the only people keen to enforce these rules.
But here is the interesting thing. The road shown is a cul-de-sac so not busy except while the kids arrive and depart school. In total it is probably about 350 yards long. To the right, in the picture, is the school wall. Notice the signs? Most of these are new. Between the end of the road (which you can see) and the school where I took the photo – about 200 yards – there are 24 signs on posts! 24. A couple of weeks back, as far as I can remember, there were 4. Two ‘no through road’ signs at the start of the road, the traditional ’school’ sign and one signifying that the pavement was also a bicycle path. The yellow lines gave birth to 20 new ones saying that we must obey the yellow lines and informing us that we must not stop in the entranceway to the school. We are quite obviously all morons in our village as it was clearly felt that the words ‘Keep Clear’ in three foot letters painted on the side of the road in bright yellow paint were not enough. No, we have to have a sign every 10 yards to remind us to look at the road markings.
Maybe a member of the local council has a brother whose business manufactures metal posts. Or maybe the local planning department is staffed by people even more moronic than they think us villagers are.
I really do object to the yellow lines. But I object far more to the veritable forest of metal posts that have been planted all the way along. Still, local dogs will already be hard at work…
I have read that there are those that campaign against the proliferation of road signs etc.If such people exist then they need to put more effort in! it sems like almost every week new signs appear on the various roads I use.They are incredibly ugly and rapidly lead to information overload…the nagging from nanny never stops.
I don’t know why they bother, most drivers nowadays are busy starring at the little blue goggle box on the dashboard.
Where I live, we have lots of signs telling lorry drivers they are prohibited, but as they use idiot lanterns designed for cars, they ignore the signs….
which leads to this… http://www.grannybuttons.com/granny_buttons/WindowsLiveWriter/Hopwas%20Bridge%20grounding.jpg
Needless to say, the police took 4 hours to move it !!!
Malc…as a guy I don’t need the help of a hectoring box but the missus swears by it!
“the missus swears by it” – she needs it or thinks you do ?
malc..she is a lovely lady…she lets me believe in my own omnipotence!
Maybe it’s one local council member’s attempt to thwart the ‘fuck you’ bastards that you complain about. I agree it’s ugly but the fact that it’s even percieved as necessary is uglier.
@Jeni: But the whole point of being a ‘fuck you’ bastard is that you ignore instructions along with social courtesy. The only people who will take any notice of this plethora of signage are basically those that don’t need it to be there in the first place.
Andy – It’s so the ‘fuck you’ parents can’t sue the council when a kid of another ‘fuck you’ parent gets run over while running out between the parked cars because their mums and dads have been too self-absorbed to teach them road safety.
You’re quite right. Those it’s meant for won’t take a knat’s prick of notice and it’s an eyesore. It’s such a shame that too many people don’t use common courtesy these days, causing councils to feel they need to do this sort of nonsense.