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Clearing A Pipe From The Road
Blog Date - 04 October 2012
Following a car and a Transit flatbed truck in the pouring rain along a 50mph stretch of road I was fighting to see through my rain soaked and misted visor. The small car in front of me started to slow and back off from the Transit, I could not work out why but with the weather and visibility it seemed more prudent to slow down myself rather than go for the overtake. I'm glad I made that choice.
I felt something was not quite right, the small car had been making perfect progress beforehand. Another squint ahead and I knew something was amiss, there was something on the road. We slowed and slowed to a crawl before I could see a long, maybe 5 metre length of pipe or tubing of some description rolling to a stop ahead of the small car. We stopped, the driver was wondering what to do but having seen that I was at least aware of the problem he drove around the pipe and was off. I thanked him in my head for slowing carefully and waiting to see if I was OK.
With time on my side and a dangerous length of pipe in the road I stopped the bike to move it before some unsuspecting soul ran into it. It was no problem to move the pipe into the grass behind the footpath and as I did I looked and noticed an MPV was parked behind my bike. He'd got his warning lights on and I believe he was protecting myself and the bike from anyone behind. I gave him a big hearty wave and he nodded back then off he went. I'd done my good deed by clearing the pipe and 2 other drivers had done theirs in protecting me.
Sometimes it's the simple things that can make you smile.
Safely at the side of the road, sorted.
Reader's Comments
Nikki said :-
Well done you ! Get your brownie points this week :-) but I think the MPV could have done a bit more to help other than sit there with his blinkers on :-0
01/01/2000 00:00:00 UTC
Ren - The Ed said :-
Come on Nikki!! Be fair, at least he made the effort to stop and I could manage the pipe on my own.
01/01/2000 00:00:00 UTC
Andy B said :-
Good work mate, it's leaving stuff like that on the roads that get's people killed.
I once witnessed in my rear view mirror on the motorway a similar pipe rolling down the bank by the hard shoulder and into the path of an oncoming truck.
There was nothing the driver could do but hit it and the thing was launched into the air as it hit the 70 mph spinning wheel.
You know that thing you can do with a ping pong ball when you press down hard on one side and let it ping? That is what the wheel did to the pipe.
I was bloody glad I was a good distance away from it all!
01/01/2000 00:00:00 UTC
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