Signs that prevent me from falling...

Into the massive hole in the road that I would have to be blind or totally stupid to fall in. You know the ones, they stand mid pavement with a big white arrow pointing in the direction of the, always too narrow path they have left for pedestrians, and they say PEDESTRIANS, just in case you've forgotten your place in the road hierarchy.

Now to fall into a hole as deep as this you would have to, as I said before, be blind, in which case a sign that says where to go is no use unless you have someone to read it to you, in which case they'd see the hole anyway and tell you how not to fall in, or stupid, and to be that stupid would mean that no-one would care if you fell in. 

Why do I hate these health and safety inspired "conveniences"? Well there have been far too many of them around here of late. Thames water have decided that pumping liquid into the subsoil of Richmond is a waste of he money we pay them (yup, it has been for years, and that didn't stop you) and are replacing the water mains. But what really annoyed me was a supremely placed one. They dug up the pavement so that one side of the road was completely blocked, fair enough, there's no way around a sign offering alternative routes would be, at worst,  annoying but useful. Problem was that the blocked are was set back between a high garden wall on the right and a fence separating you from the traffic of the south circular road on the other. The sign that could save you some hassle by redirecting you was against the fence of the roadworks, 30 yards back between the wall and the fence, and when you see the sign it's arrow points in both directions, so what am I to do, leap the fence and get run over? Scale an 8 foot wall and commit trespass? Or walk back the 30 yards or more 'til I can find a safe place to cross? Well it's the last one obviously, but if they'd warn me a load of hassle would have been saved, they do it for cars, it's obvious that me and my two little feet don't matter.

Oh and big up Alex, thanks for reminding me of something else to rant about.