Sunday 25 January 2009

Leaving a village

This photo was taken at the edge of a village near here. It's a pretty typical view of a country road.

You'll see the sign that indicates the edge of Noordlaren and underneath it is a crossed out 30, that being the speed limit in kilometres per hour within villages (18 mph). The sign on the right hand side of the road shows the speed limit on a rural road. 60 km/h ( 37 mph ). Note also the deliberately rough road surface to encourage drivers to slow down. Speed limits used to be higher, and quite a lot of them were reduced recently.

Within this village, which has very little through traffic, cyclists share the road with drivers. However, at the edge there is a single direction cycle path on both sides of the road. On the right it starts just before the 60 sign, which is why some of the rough surface is left smooth for cyclists.

Note also the rubbish bin for cyclists visible on the left side of the road. That's a pretty good give-away that this is a popular route for school children. Also, look at that beautiful blue sky. Not at all bad for January.

Almost all villages have 30 km/h speed limits on all their roads, even when they also have cycle-paths.

6 comments:

O'Reilly said...

The sheep have their warm winter coats on so they can cycle without feeling cold.

Anonymous said...

This is similar to a few places in Germany- although here they have a chicane instead of rocks. I think I like the rocks though- there's now way anyone would miss that...

Adrienne Johnson said...

The giant butterfly net is the rubbish bin? If so, I like it!

Anonymous said...

There's no reason at all -- except for a lack of imagination and political will -- that what you're showing us here couldn't also exist in rural Missouri.

tvcommentaar said...

@Adrienne Johnson
Yes the giant butterfly net is the rubbish bin. I cycle their a lot in the summer times and you can smash your trash right in to the nets. Its pritty handy.
For small stuff their is a bin on all the places where you can sit down.

David Hembrow said...

Sorry, I forgot to reply on the bin. There's another post queued up for a few days times which shows more of them.