The photograph above shows the road closure with cycle lane access at the junction of Cairo Road E17 and Hoe Street, across the road from the derelict EMD cinema.
Recently I was approaching it at 8.10 am in the morning when suddenly, to my surprise, a Smart Car came racing down Cairo Road and squeezed between the cast iron bollard on the left and the yellow and white illuminated plastic sign to its right. It happened too fast for me to get out my camera and take a photograph.
The driver, an unaccompanied black male, turned left on to Hoe Street. When I caught up with him he was, naturally, occupying the cyclist's Advanced Stop Line at red.
Reg. KR02 EVT.
The driver was presumably too impatient to queue at the lights on Church Hill, where, because the traffic signal phasing favours traffic on Hoe Street (A112), vehicles often back up to the junction with the other end of Cairo Road.
This sort of thing could easily be prevented with just one extra cast iron bollard.
(Below) The plastic illuminated sign at this road closure is regularly struck by vehicles. Here it is at the end of June. Within days the Council had re-sited it with some tarmac patching at the base. And within days it had been hit and dislodged again.
