Another Voice | 10 October 2009

I will only ‘Think Bike’ if the bikers can be persuaded to ‘Think Motorist’

‘29 BIKERS KILLED OR INJURED IN THE LAST 5 YEARS’, says the big yellow roadside sign as I drive along the A515 between Ashbourne and Buxton, on my way to this week’s Tory conference in Manchester. The sign is repeated many times along the old Roman road. It is rather shocking.

‘THINK BIKE’, says another sign, presumably directed at motorists. ‘50’ says the speed limit sign, endlessly repeated, both painted onto the road and displayed on steel poles by the side of it. ‘IT’S 50 FOR A REASON’, say yet another series of signs. And then ‘ACCIDENT ZONE’. And after that a series of weird corrugations in the surface of the tarmac before a junction, presumably to wake us up to the danger.

Further back there’s a lay-by with a caravan in it, selling hot beverages and sausage rolls, mostly to leather-clad bikers, gathered there in some number, taking the air and inspecting each other’s bikes. Ahead there’s the turn-off to Macclesfield, which takes you over the Cat & Fiddle pass — the Cat & Fiddle pub carpark itself, at the top of the pass, being at weekends always crowded with bikers. Not unreasonably the pub caters to this trade.

Or go back to Ashbourne and turn left on the B5035 to Wirksworth via Carsington. Here too the hedgerows are festooned with notices about biker danger, statistics for deaths and injuries, and warnings. Here too is a lay-by with a mobile café catering to the bikers. Here too are the bikers.

And now begins what is not, repeat not, a rant against motorcyclists. I like motor-cyclists. I like two-wheeled travel — powered or pedalled — and at 17 rode nearly 1,000 miles from Rhodesia to Swaziland on a Honda 50 scooter, for fun, sleeping in South African police station cells, where a white youth would always be accommodated.