Showing posts with label police. Show all posts
Showing posts with label police. Show all posts

Wednesday, 5 October 2011

Nice Horse

There is a shop called Affordable Art in Torbay Rd just near the bus stop. It sells wood carvings, mostly ducks but now and then something extra turns up. Like this horse.
Lots of people stopped and looked and took photos. PS it took 3 weeks to make and has been sold and it was made to order.

The other thing that turned up unexpectedly the same day was less welcome and almost turned into an RTC happened as I was driving out along the Totnes Rd between Midvale Rd and Winner St. There is a medical centre on the bend on my left and there was a large truck parked across the road, the driver was probably delivering goods to the centre. Now it is a long, fairly gentle bend but the road isn’t too wide and the truck was blocking my view, anything coming the other way would need to be well over the centre line and would be hidden from view. So I slowed down and kept well into the left. While I was still a little way back a car, travelling quiet slowly emerged past the truck. No problem, I didn’t even have to slow down any more. Then, from nowhere as it were, a white car shot round the truck travelling well over 30 mph. A pull to the left on the steering wheel took the bus out of this maniac’s way and a firm press on the brake peddle stopped the bus before it hit the wall at the side of the road. The white car continued along Totnes Rd without bothering to slow down, it’s blue lights flashing and siren blaring. Ok, the police officer driving it was, I hope, on his way to a life threatening emergency where every second counted but he does need to remember the second most important rule in the Highway Code which is, “Always drive at a speed at which you can easily stop in the distance you know to be clear.” Don’t rely on your siren to alert approaching motorist that the last sausage roll in the staff canteen could be gone very soon, they may be driving noisy vehicles and be a little hard of hearing.

Saturday, 9 June 2007

Stuck, twice in 3 days.


A couple of days ago I came to this very spot and there was a skip in the way. On that occasion I managed to pull the bus out of the way and let the traffic behind get past but last evening, with the road full of cones and road signs there was no where for me to go and it took almost 5 minutes for this dumper truck to move out of the way.
A bit further up the road I picked someone up who was heading for Chudleigh and needed to be in Newton to catch the 39 at 20:00. I wasn't due to get there until 19:59 which was cutting it a bit fine. Due to the road works it turned out to be much too fine as I didn't get there until 20:03 and the 39 had gone. Radio reception isn't good in Newton so my calls to the 39 driver to wait a minute or two probably went unheard.
On my way back from Newton to finish at the depot I noticed a police car following me so careful driving and a close watch on the speed were the order of the day (as always of course). That still didn't prevent him from pulling along side me at a red light on Penn Inn roundabout and asking me to stop at the next bus stop, he only wanted a word with a couple of passengers but I could have done without the intervention as all I had to do was drive a couple of miles down the road to the depot and finish. But I was now 5 minutes late and missed my bus. So I ended up getting home 15 minutes late.