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David Porter » Blogs: My Own » Traffic Report 1 – Other Drivers

Traffic Report 1 – Other Drivers

Clearly, we all think we are brilliant drivers and why are the roads choked up with so many idiots? Obviously we can’t ALL be brilliant drivers, but the fact is that there are a lot of idiots out there. Other drivers usually cause accidents. And severe damage to the patience and well-being of sensible drivers.

Take the speed limit pushers. I was caught by a big brother camera (a future blog) doing 37 mph out in the country where some mindless bureaucrat had arbitrarily decreed a 30 mph limit (another future blog). I got taxed sixty quid to help fund yet more cameras (yet another future blog) with three points on the licence I have had since I started driving when I was 17, and I am now over 60 (and another). So now I am scrupulous at driving spot on the speed limit.

A vehicle behind me might be a long way back when I glance in the mirror, then suddenly he’s chasing me right up the rear bumper. He’s above the limit or he wouldn’t have closed the gap on me. Where’s big brother now? Where are the points on his licence and his sixty quid contribution to yet more cameras? He gets away with it, ultimately because I am sticking to the limit and he is forced to as well.

At the other end of the scale is the poodler who is out for a Sunday drive (remember when we used to do such things for entertainment?) or someone talking so absorbed to a passenger that he is unaware he is doing 10 mph. He gets through the lights ahead on green, the last one, and I have to stop and wait on red, fuming at his back receding down the road. He is blissfully unaware of his speed, or even that he is driving a car. The crowning touch is often that I watch from a side road as his cousin doing an identical talking/poodling thing joins my road or a JCB or a learner driver!

And which bit of the Highway Code permits cyclists to ride on all pavements, cross all red lights and have absolute right of way at all times and in all circumstances?

And indicators! When did we get told by big brother government to abandon use of the indicator? I must have missed it, because 90% of drivers no longer indicate intention to turn off a road or, worse, off a roundabout.

I was actually directly behind a police patrol car recently, while he waited to join a busy roundabout. As car after van after lorry changed lanes and left the roundabout, only one in ten indicated. I thought, at last, the police will see it and DO something. Blue light flashing, pull one over, give him a ticket, most criminals are caught because they come into contact with the police through some aspect of motoring. He could find drug couriers, dustbin overfilling criminals (now there’s a future blog) or solve a cold case crime as well as show everyone that indicating intentions are essential.

Instead he stays waiting at the junction far too long, oblivious to anything. Why? Because he’s talking to his passenger and both of them must have had a mind-lapse and thought they were in the aisle of a supermarket doing the shopping/talking thing. (See Blog on Supermarkets).

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