Cyclists were stunned to see a motorist driving his CAR on a narrow CYCLE bridge over a railway line.
They heard the £2 million bridge “creaking and cracking” as the Jaguar driver squeezed onto the famous covered bike bridge in Cambridge city centre.
The man, who was in his late 50s, eventually realised his mistake and reversed all the way back down the bridge at the north end of Cambridge station. Cyclist Ruth Platt, 43, did a double-take when she spotted the driver on the way home from her yoga class. She cycled past him, then went back and asked him if he knew what he was doing.
“A lot of cyclists were giving him a really hard time, but he kept saying he was really sorry and had made a terrible mistake,” said Mrs Platt, who photographed the car. “I could hear a bit of creaking and cracking, so I hope the engineers made the bridge strong enough for a car, as it’s much heavier than a bike. He wasn’t trying to take a short cut, he really had made a big mistake and I actually felt quite sorry for him.”
The bridge was built 23 years ago and has a red path for cyclists on the left and a slightly raised one for pedestrians on the right. It was designed to be a quick and safe off main roads route from the city centre to the south eastern suburbs of the city for cyclists, so they could avoid cars.
The bridge was given a £500,000 face lift seven years ago, when the floor was replaced.
Councillor Kevin Blencowe, from the city council, said: “I think he needs to get his eyes tested. How someone can mistake what is clearly a narrow cycle path and footbridge for a road bridge is beyond my imagination. “I have never heard of this happening before and the bridge has been there for more than 20 years. If he had got to the end of the bridge he would have got stuck as the path gets even more narrow and there are bollards to stop cars.”
