4x4 hooligans

[mr rusty]

Apologies to any responsible off-roaders but I'm raging! Last day of hols today before work back to work tomorrow so I thought I'd squeeze a daytime bit of mountain biking in - at this time of year it's mainly road to keep fit for when the light evenings come around again. I went up to Epping Long green, not far from my house and a lovely stretch of around four miles of old green droving lane with no motor traffic allowed.

Because of this it's in pretty good shape, or was............when I got up to the start the bridleway sign had been rammed over, presumeably to gain access between the posts either side, and it had been thoroughly mashed up by at least two 4x4's, all the way for the first two miles up to the point where it next meets tarmac. Here they've smashed the padlocks off the steel barrier to get back on the road. Luckily they didn't get onto the next bit although they've clearly had a go at the padlocks.

It's now deeply rutted and going to take years to recover, all for the sake of a couple of morons having ten minutes or so of 'fun'...........grrrrrrrrrrrrrr! I'd like to take their 4x4's and shove 'em where the sun don't shine...slowly!

[TerryG]

Mr Rusty, if you know exactly where the damage occurred you could fill in this form:
http://www.glass-uk.org/index.php?optio ... temid=1331
It will make the highways agency, etc. aware of what has happened so they “should” send someone out to inspect it and repair the gates, etc.

There are a lot of idiots in the 4x4 community, fortunately the majority are law abiding and take care of the rights of way they use.

[Martin Evans]

You do get a particularly gormless type at the wheel of many "Yobb trucks" as I call them. Around here we get the off road motorcycles churning up vast swaths of land (Maybe tracks 100 yards wide with ruts 10 inches deep). One of our customers was a "Proper" off road motorcyclist and used to build engines for them. He said that the sub cultures types were a lost cause and that maintenance/build sheets never entered into their thinking . At the end of the day, it's the human factor that makes people do stupid things. I have seen people do daft things, whether on foot (Cross the road without looking, at 10 degrees to the pavement or their dog is on the lead but half a mile away), on a bike (No regard to highway code, no lights at night, to beat the breathyliser) or at the controls of some motorised vehicle, from motor cycle to bus (No end of things here but no regard to Highway Code would sum it up). I must say that I rarely see classic car drivers driving badly (Some may say a tad slow sometimes but that's better than being wreckless) and as a cyclist have ony ever had cause to curse one (At least now that the MGB concerned is a classic; I'm sure thirty years ago it was different but the cars weren't classics then if you know what I mean). As in all things, the bad ones spoil it for the rest.