I tried to report a dangerous Lime bike. What happened next was ridiculous

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I thought I was doing the responsible thing. I spotted a Lime bike abandoned in the middle of a busy road and called the police. That turned out to be the difficult bit.

For those unfamiliar with them, these are big, heavy electric hire bikes which cause no end of problems when inconsiderate users leave them in stupid places. They block pavements, shop entrances – you name it. Using a wheelchair, as I do, can be a challenge at the best of times. But I know: let’s make it even more unnecessarily difficult.

That said, parking one smack in the middle of a busy road, just after a roundabout, was a new one on me. It takes some effort – and a certain disregard for everyone else – to do something that obnoxiously stupid.

Needless to say, I had to swerve rapidly to avoid it. Mercifully, the opposite carriageway was empty. What if it hadn’t been? What if the bike had been encountered by one of those people who drive BMWs around North London as though they’re auditioning for McLaren?

This wasn’t a happy thought. So I decided to reset the karmic balance by being a good citizen. I’d call the police and get it removed before someone ploughed into it – or, worse still, into another vehicle while trying to avoid it.

I called 101 because I assumed this was a non-emergency. But there is an important distinction: Police.uk says 999 is appropriate where there is immediate danger or a road is blocked or presents a dangerous obstruction. So, with hindsight, perhaps I should have called 999. But a system that makes ordinary people play a guessing game about which number to use is not exactly helping them report hazards.

As soon as I’d parked at the cinema, I made the call, thinking it wouldn’t take too long. Yes, I know. Terminal naivety. It was Sunday morning, and I naively assumed I might have a fighting chance of getting through.

I was duly confronted by a disembodied voice telling me stuff I didn’t want or need to know. Then came the inevitable phone menu, and I was starting to get frustrated. The adverts would be showing with the trailers by now.

But there was a dirty great e-bike in the road. Even if trying to report it was rapidly starting to feel like calling my insurance company: press one if you are calling to renew your home insurance; press two to submit a claim; be prepared to wait 20 minutes if that’s what you want to do.

These menus are a recipe for chucking your phone at the wall – except that Apple now wants serious money for a new one, so maybe don’t.

Suffice it to say, I pressed the number for road-related matters. No dice. I pressed again. Ditto. And now I was wondering whether the system had some strange objection to an iPhone.

I tried again. No luck. Surely it would just put me through to an operator? Even insurance companies have learned to do that. You might have to wait for Godot, but a person will eventually arrive if you don’t – or can’t – press the right number.

Not with 101. Instead, I got another message telling me they were very busy and receiving lots of calls.

Sorry, but if a caller cannot get through to report a dangerous obstruction on a Sunday morning, what is the system like on a Friday night?

After one more failure, I gave up. And that, really, is the problem.

At this point, you might wonder why I didn’t try the local authority or whoever is responsible for the road. Fair question. But I was out and about, I’d spotted a danger and I wanted to alert someone who could do something about it. The last thing I should have to do is play “hunt down the right number” on Google while sitting beside a dangerous obstruction.

And there is a wider point here. For someone using a wheelchair, an obstruction is not simply an irritation to be stepped around. A blocked pavement can mean turning back, taking a longer route or, as in this case, confronting a hazard on the road. What is an inconvenience for one person can be a genuine accessibility problem for another.

It should not be difficult or challenging to be public-spirited – to do the right thing and alert the authorities when you spot something that could put people in danger.

Hell, I’d have left a message had that been possible. But it wasn’t.

How many avoidable, resource-sapping accidents do we want traffic officers having to attend?

What really troubles me is that everyone has their own version of my story: trying to alert the authorities to a problem, only to get the brush-off – if they can even get through to someone. The slogan seems to be: “Am I bovvered?”

And that is how you discourage public-spirited behaviour. People are told to report problems, then discover that reporting them can itself become an obstacle course.

Politicians, are you in need of a poll boost? Try putting a rocket under the systems that are supposed to make it easy for the rest of us to be good citizens. Most people aren’t asking for a medal. We just want to know that when we spot something dangerous, there is a straightforward way to tell somebody who can do something about it.

If reporting a danger becomes an obstacle course, don’t be surprised when people eventually stop reporting them.

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