Yesterday I was on a dual carriageway section of the A5 near Shrewsbury. There I was happily riding at 65-70mph when suddenly the traffic ahead slowed. Hmm - I wonder why? Slow-moving lorry perhaps? Then when everything started moving over to the right and I caught up the cause of the holdup was revealed. Two scooters dawdling along at a steady 30
The first one was a Peugeot. I don't know what the second one was. There they were pootling along at 30 with huge lorries thundering past at 50 plus, no doubt being ridden by a couple of scared s...less 16 year-olds. At least being a dual carriageway everything could get past safely (ish). But imagine if it was a single carriageway with traffic coming the other way. Everyone would be faced with having to drive at 30 till there is a break in the traffic coming the other way so they could overtake and leave a decent gap between them and the two scooters, or more likely lose patience and pass with little more than a couple of inches to spare. With lorries causing a slipstream that would at best make them wobble and at worst make them fall over and go under the lorry's wheels. I really felt for the kids riding them. They must have been terrified. Whoever came up with the misguided idea back in 1977 to put an inexperienced 16 year-old on something with a top speed of 30mph when everything else can go a lot faster should be put on one on a fast busy road. Then see how they feel. Mind you, I have heard that if a traffic police officer catches a 16 year-old riding a deristricted 50 they 'look the other way'. Probably because they have been to plenty of incidents where some poor kid has gone under a lorry's wheels on a main road. If I had a 16 year-old son or daughter who bought a restricted moped I would tell them to get it deristricted as soon as possible. Otherwise I may well be going to their funeral
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