Thursday, December 27, 2012

Bad Driver Hit List

It's that brief period between Christmas and New Year when I feel it's acceptable to be a moaning old grouch (like normal) without being accused of either ruining Christmas or lacking optimism for the New Year. So here goes.

When I am king, and I can decree that it is perfectly acceptable to have a bloomin' great laser gun fitted to the bonnet of your car with which to evaporate the bad drivers holding you up... then this is a list of people who had better not get in my way.

Ahem.

  • Forty-mile-an-hour-ers. Usually driving a small hatchback, these idiots maintain a steady 40 in all conditions and locations. You come up behind them on glorious 60mph a-roads pootling along at their fixed speed, and of course there's another one coming the other way that prevents an overtake. But then you get to a town - 30mph limit, and they rocket off into the distance, mowing down small children and mothers with prams as they speed through the busiest of traffic. You lose them in the distance. You clear the town, and quickly catch up with them again. Doing 40mph natch, but now with the odd dead pedestrian impaled over their bonnet, unnoticed by the driver. Repeat until frustration level reaches 11.
  • The Blind. Now I'm no spring chicken myself. And I won't be telling you anything you don't know when I say that there are a hell of a lot of elderly drivers out there who can't bloomin' well see where they're bloomin' well going. Oldies... step up to the plate, take one for the team... for God's sake stop driving when you can't see the road any more. Please. I know it'll be hard. But think of what you could potentially do to others by your actions. Use the Tesco home delivery service and buses. Come on.
  • Can't-be-bothered-to-indicate-ers. What is it about moving your arm about a foot to use the indicators that some folk find so onerous? There's a roundabout near where I live where 90% of people turn left... so about 90% of these 90% can't get themselves motivated enough to indicate their intentions, I mean they always turn left there, I guess everyone else will know that... The number of times I've sat waiting to get on this roundabout, just in case one of the 10% are actually going straight across it... my life is ebbing away, and all because these peeps can't be bothered. There's another category of roundabout abusers who do the opposite, they indicate left an exit before they're actually going to take... this is actually worse, as you assume that they really are awake enough to indicate... but no, they're just very bad at timing. Come on everyone, indicating is not hard. It's considerate. It's good manners. It's being nice. In my new world order, indicate or die!
  • Motorhomes & Caravaners. I don't need to go on, do I? You know that you're being totally selfish. You want a cheap holiday, the rest of us have to lose part of our lives so you can. I don't know how you sleep at night frankly.
  • Farmers. Now... there seems to be two sets of rules for governing what you can and can't do on the roads. One set of rules applies to the majority of us, and the other set applies to farmers. Our set of rules is comprehensive, covers most eventualities and is vigorously enforced by the old bill. And the other set of rules for farmers appears to contain one rule, namely "Do whatever the hell you like". This allows them to drive untaxed, uninsured, clearly unroadworthy huge lumps of old tat at ridiculously slow speeds, spewing slippery excrement all over wet roads at any time of the day or night, but most probably during the rush hour. And if you ever see one pull over to allow traffic passed, you know that actually he's reached where he wanted to be. He'll open a gate into a field, drive around the field for a bit picking up as much mud on his tyres as he can, and then try to spread the majority of it over the nearby road, usually on a bend. Farmers live in a world where only what THEY are doing is of any importance, so all this makes sense to them. One day when all our food arrives on ships from China, the tables will turn. 'Fresh' is vastly overrated, give me 'Fast' instead. Vengeance will be ours as farmers slowly expire in the poo of their own making.
  • Tail-gaters. Oh that's me. Oh dear. Okay... well, fair enough, I will make a New Year's resolution here and now to stop being a pain and stop tail-gating people. I've got to admit that my erstwhile theory that driving really close behind slow people will (a) cause them to pull over and get out of my way or (b) speed up, or (c) make them feel so guilty for holding me up that they swerve off the road into the nearest wall and die a fiery death - doesn't seem to work. I'll try, I really will. I mean, I'm an older chap in a diesel... it's not like a I really rocket around these days. But I do want to get home before the battery in pace-maker expires, so hopefully all the above guilty folk will try too. Yeah? Happy New Year then! 

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