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Are Zebra Crossings safe?  The short answer to that is “NO!”  You only have to get a very high sided vehicle obscuring your line of sight on the opposite side of the road and you can’t see whether anybody is waiting to cross, although some pedestrians just walk across as if it was a continuation of the pavement, without looking. The motorist has to have the reflexes of a Tiger in a hunting position.  Young or old would find this kind of action by those who use these crossings very vexing to say the least. 

Instead of placing speed traps to catch the unsuspecting driver, wouldn’t it be more sensible to upgrade to Pelican Crossings whereby eliminating any silly action by people riding their bicycles or running or just walking across without looking to see what traffic there is and giving the motorist a chance of taking the necessary action in braking.

Of course you might get a concertina accident of cars following too closely for them to stop and hitting the back of your car.   Some Zebra Crossings have not got adequate lighting and people do tend to wear dark clothing at night, so it makes it difficult to spot them and especially if there are bad weather conditions to tend with.

When coming out of junctions onto a main road I have experienced that to see round a corner to check if the road is clear for me to go across or turn right, and looking to the left, only to find that banks of grass, hedgerows, branches of trees have not been cut back sufficiently whereby making it impossible to see without having to go halfway across the road to do so and thereby hindering other traffic coming from the right who might not understand why you are stationary in the middle of the road.  I’m sure this happens to many motorists.   If the authorities are going to charge you road tax, then by rights the local Council should keep their property from infringing the public highways.  I am sure that is why we pay Council Tax for services that seem to be lacking in certain areas.

The Carpet Gardens along the seafront at Eastbourne are very picturesque and a credit to the town, but it would be nice if other essential services were diligently done with same degree of eagerness and skill.  Eastbourne Roads surfaces are becoming like the Indian Nation – “A patchy here and A patchy there!”  All we need now is the Cowboys to come along and fill up the holes properly!

While we are still on the subject of motorists and roads – how many of you have gone through a “RED LIGHT?”  What reasonable answer could you possibly give – because you were late for an appointment, or just a frustrated impatient ‘ROAD HOG’ – why not get up earlier, then we can all rest in our beds a lot easier at night, knowing that all the idiots got up early and are safely tucked away in their offices!  It is always better to get to your destinations ALIVE!  Than DEAD ON TIME!

And for what it is worth, the amber coloured glass at the front and rear of your cars are indicators so you can inform other drivers which way you are going – not just to be used at Christmas time as fairy lights.

I wish the local Council would make up their minds about marking the approach roads to roundabouts all the same – every one of those in Eastbourne are different – some have arrows on the road surface, others have nothing to indicate directions, also single roads turn into double road inlets which is all very confusing, because there is usually only one single lane on the outlet side from a roundabout and some motorists fail to spot these flaws and on many occasion you can hear frustrated hooting going on as two cars compete to be first on the single lane outlet! – I know that one has to use one’s commonsense, but really – we don’t have crystal balls in our cars!