Selfish driver risked all to get ahead
I DROVE into Lynn last week along the A17 from deepest, darket South Lincolnshire following, for most of the way, a large, dirty, heavy lorry loaded with sugar beet.
He, no doubt, was hauling beet from the badlands to the beet sugar processing factory at Wissington. The address on the lorry cab indicated he hailed from a haulage depot in a village called Sutton St James, not far from Long Sutton in Lincolnshire.
As we trundled along the A17 I made my mind up to turn off for Clenchwarton to avoid the queues on the approach to the Pullover roundabout being caused by work on the southern bypass, and come into the town centre via South Lynn.
Much to my surprise, and before we had to slow down to join the end of the inevitable queue, the lorry also indicated and turned off the A17 along Station Road – a residential road leading to the old A17 (now the C80) – and through Clenchwarton and West Lynn.
I was flabbergasted that the driver of such a large vehicle was prepared to tackle the difficult turn onto the C80 and then run the risks associated with mixing in with traffic on the busy school run to Clenchwarton Primary School just to get a few vehicles further on at the Pullover roundabout.
He didn't so much negotiate the mini-roundabout in Clenchwarton as run straight over it and then weaved and bumped his way through the school traffic and the "sleeping policeman" humps, casting a menacing shadow over the tots skipping to school alongside on the pavement.
I know this used to be the main route to Lynn before the villages were bypassed, but it is so uncommon to see such large vehicles there these days, that my heart was in my mouth.
There are no restrictions to keep such heavy vehicles away, but morally, the driver's actions were indefensible.
Perhaps the authorities should look at introducing a weight limit on Station Road to prevent such dangerous rat-running.
What gets your goat? Reader Tim Hughes, of Lynn, is up in arms at a ruling by the Nursing and Midwifery Council banning nurses from using such terms of endearment as "love, duck, dear", etc, on the grounds that it's offensive or patronising.
"I say what a load of old squit," writes Mr Hughes. "This is just another example of political correctness gone bonkers. We need a bit of good, old-fashioned friendliness in this world today."
Mate, I agree.
The Lynn News would like to point out an error that was made in a recent article, "Judge's Norfolk comment falls very flat" (Lynn News, Tuesday, November 18). The article stated that Mr Justice Cranston referred to the county of Norfolk as being "very flat". In fact, this comment was not made by the judge but by one of the barristers in the case concerned. We apologise to Mr Justice Cranston for this error and for any offence that the article may have caused.
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Weather for King's Lynn
Monday 28 May 2012
Today
Sunny
Temperature: 10 C to 24 C
Wind Speed: 10 mph
Wind direction: North
Tomorrow
Cloudy
Temperature: 9 C to 16 C
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