21st October 2014

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Tuesday 21st 52F, 11C, breezy, heavy overcast. Our heavy rain warning has been lifted. Though the UK has heavy winds up to 70mph already, with rain. The forecast is for rain later with 30mph gusts so I ought to make an effort to get out early again.

The wind was highly variable as I plodded towards the woods. One can learn a great deal about parallax while wandering across an open field. A large flock of birds passed over but even with binoculars I was unable to identify them. They looked and flew like pigeons but had no obvious light markings and seemed too small. Not a peep from any of them. The "mink" gulls rose and fell in a dark cloud in the distance making enough noise to be easily heard a full mile away. It started spitting on the way back and I was fed up with the repetitive strain injury from shielding the eyepieces with my hand. So I fastened my jacket across the binoculars at the risk of developing an unwanted chest. The supplied eye-caps were unwieldy and fell off all the time anyway. So I put them in the case and forgot about them. Little realizing that some protection was vital under dripping trees in the woods. Hence the RSI and "cross dressing."

Oh, dear, I feel a rant coming on. The squeamish should look away now. :-)

I smiled as a 6-axle juggernaut [GPS rat runner] was blocked behind two, familiar, elderly cyclists on our very twisty road. This narrow road is completely unsuitable for heavy goods vehicles but is subject to a constant and ever-increasing heavy traffic load.

The small, blind, humpback hills only add to the driver's torment as they try to shave the distance to the nearest motorway. Fortunately, for us, there is a low railway bridge further on. Which forces high vehicles to detour away from a potentially straight line and adds miles to their journey. Had they used the correct HGV route, via the wide, main roads provided, they would probably get there much sooner. Rather than cheating by using the minor roads. With some houses literally only two feet away from the edge of the tarmac you wonder how the occupants cope with the stress! Even living a hundred yards from the road I am sick of the constant noise!

Walking or cycling along this road has become a life or death gamble on every, single, blind corner! When walking I always wait for any following traffic to pass. So I can listen carefully for anything coming the other way. When on the trike I am frequently passed by vehicles attempting to overtake me on completely the wrong side of the road entering these same blind corners! Yet the Danish convention on human rights for raving loony drivers forbids me to film or photograph this same lunacy!

Recording and posting their deliberate sociopathy online would find me in court for transgressing their absolute human right to privacy in a public place. I kid you not! Talking of which: A Danish kid filmed himself being bullied by a gang of thugs and posted it on YouTube. They went free while the victim was prosecuted for invasion of privacy!

One may not film vehicles behaving illegally if the driver or his vehicle can be positively identified. So the YouTube cycle vlogging, so popular with UK and American cyclists and motorcyclists, is illegal in Denmark. Home of the 90% speeding for 90% of the time drivers with special human rights unavailable to mere, death-defying cyclists and walkers.

The Trykit puts on the bling at the foot of a 100' tall landslide. The scale is rather lost in this image. It is impossible to stand further back.

Any journey in a car will soon demonstrate how often one is overtaken in town, village or countryside. These drivers have absolutely no morals so anything goes. Even when they have their entire family aboard. So the driver is deliberately brainwashing the young, from birth, to ignore the law. By the same token, the Danish convention on human rights for speeding motorists, also forbids dash-cam cameras. Two thirds of fatalities in Denmark take place on country roads. Fifty percent are as a direct result of speeding. Many never brake.

As was the case of the driver who was fined a paltry sum for killing three young girls while travelling at high speed and using his mobile phone. He never braked. The mother of the girls was blamed for pulling out in front of him. His absolute right to speed and simultaneously use his mobile phone exceeded her family's right to survival. Presumably the court took into account that no driver on Danish roads must expect any other to be travelling at, or below, the legal speed limit. To do so would be just, plain silly.

The Danish police have announced a blitz on speeding motorists only this week. They have to make a public announcement to remain within the Danish human rights convention for mollycoddling illegally speeding motorists. Otherwise these speeding drivers could get easily off by claiming that they were not warned in advance. Given that the police counted 80% driving at high speed on one short stretch alone they will have a busy time posting fixed penalties to the guilty. This is new practice instead of pulling speeding drivers over. Which is expensive in manpower and might even slow the general traffic to the legal speed limit. I had better stay on the small chainring all week. Just in case.

It was spitting when I left and steadily increased to very windy with light rain. No point in going far in this. I swear I saw an HGV driver not using his mobile phone today. If I take a lie detector test will the Guinness Book of Records accept my claim? Only 7 miles.

Click on any image for an enlargement.

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