Outrider nearly killed me

Fri June 14, 2013

Editor: I was driving south on the Road to Leeward one afternoon, and having passed CWSA, was approaching the “Bottom Garden’s Gate Road”, when all of a sudden a policeman on a motorbike popped out of the gap and stopped in front of me. He nearly killed me with fright. I mean, who expects anybody coming out of that gap?{{more}} It is a one-way road, right? As I sat there marvelling at the craziness of his actions, he moved forward and two SUVs came out side by side, then followed him, turning towards town – that was when I realized that it was the Prime Minister’s caravan. I sat there for a couple seconds, sweating with heart palpitations, imagining what the rest of my day would have been like if I had knocked down and run over the outrider and I wondered if I would have been to blame.

So, the next day I went to the Traffic Branch and asked two officers there whether or not that “Bottom Garden’s Gate Road” is a one-way street. The senior of the officers said that it was “supposed” to be a one-way road, but there is no sign saying that. I asked him if it was okay for me to drive out from that road to join the main road since there is no sign. He admitted that he could not say it was “okay” and advised me to use the road by NEMO instead. Of course me being me, I checked the road and there is a “No Entry” sign posted there.

I have to admit that I am accustomed to seeing that caravan led by the outrider doing a lot of weird things during traffic – what I don’t know is whether the things those vehicles do are legal. To be honest, I don’t really care. My simple wish is that if the caravan decides to do something that the majority of the public believes is against traffic laws, it gives us a bit of warning. If the outrider had put on his siren before he popped the wrong way out of that gap, he would have saved me a lot of stress. Maybe they should consider getting a helicopter – that would help keep them out of the traffic they seem so inconvenienced by.

Lisa