Lollipop Man

Big bike ride on the weekend, well, for us, 350 odd people is big :-)
My duty, together with 7 others was to control the traffic as the riders came through the Russell Roundabout.

This one is a bigun. It is a dual carriageway roundabout, some 50 metres across with four incoming roads. Furthermore, it would be one of the busiest being an arterial road feeding (and pouring out at knock off time) all the Defence traffic in one axis and being a major arterial road on the other axis.

In fact, if you are riding your bike a 8:30 on a weekday morning, it is almost impossible to get across. But on this Sunday there was little Defence traffic, just the "airport" type stuff.

Cyclist came from the West, so we bunched them at the roundabout, then with frantic waving of arms by a controller in the bang dead centre of the monstrocity, we did our lollipop duties and stopped the traffic. Once stopped the cyclist were let through. This happened four times before they all got past the obstacle, and thankfully, all safely.

It was in fact a family affair, not a race, and the organizers didn't want any accidents. All but one of the cars I stopped were considerate, the one that wasn't was driven by an 80 yo complaine "Why the hell do I have to stop for thes *!&*?>/ cyclist. Sheesh, he's been alive some 42 million minutes and he complains about losing one of them.