Drivers

(Note : In this post, I aim to use Anna’s Swearword of the day – Pisswit)

Yesterday, due to the vagaries of a) trains and b) traffic (having had the interview, I was waiting for Herself to drive down and meet me in Cambridge after her interview in Norwich finished) I had plenty of time to sit around and just people-watch. It’s something I haven’t had a great deal of time for of late (well, except on the commuter trains, of course) so I had a thoroughly fun, and very lazy, day following my interview, and just spent a couple of hours at Cambridge station, watching people, and drivers, and the weirdness that is the Cambridge station forecourt.

It’s really hard to describe the area at the front of the station. One thing’s for certain though – it was designed by a total pisswit who had no idea about human nature. First it can only be approached by one road, which is fairly narrow. This funnels all the traffic for the station : bikes, cars, taxis, buses, and delivery vehicles – all of it down one narrow road. Brilliant.

At the end of the road, there’s a lay-by for the buses, and a turning circle. Actually, it’s almost two turning circles, because while there’s one for traffic that’s still moving, there’s also a wider area up a small kerb, where drivers are supposed to pick-up/drop-off people. Human nature being what it is, though, the driver’s mindset is that you’re supposed to never drive over a kerb. So most drivers don’t use the proper pick-up/drop-off points, and instead stop in the turning circle. (There’s also an offshoot road where there’s a few short-term parking spaces – but to get to that you’ve got to a) go up the kerb still, and b) it’s a pain in the arse, as half the time it’s obscured by open-top tourist buses). Oh yeah, and there’s a stopping spot for the tourist buses, opposite the layby for all the normal buses.

So all it takes is for drivers to not use the proper up-the-kerb stopping point, and the entire thing paralyses. The main buses can’t do the turn, particularly if some shitwit parks up on the apex of the curve, once the turning circle’s finished, but before it’s the proper road. Then you have the open-top buses reversing and nearly hitting cars/cyclists. The cyclists have no regard for any other road user – I’m amazed more don’t die, if yesterday was any example. The taxi-drivers pretty much get it, but they’re still nightmares on the stopping circle, and then you’ve got just general every-day drivers who’ve rarely (if ever) seen the layout before, and get epically confused by it all.

In fact, it’s not difficult to handle. It’s just that the stopping circle should’ve had its own seperate traffic lane, rather than being reached by going up a kerb, which is paradoxical to all of a driver’s normal “learned” experience. And as such, the entire thing was obviously designed by an official pisswit.