11th of the 11th 2018. A bit of a moan about other road [ab]users.

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Sunday 11th 50F, mild, grey, breezy and wet. [Again!] It stayed dry and there were even a few patches of blue high overhead for my walk to the village and back. I keep seeing small flocks of 20-50 pretty goldfinches flitting constantly between trees and hedges. Now I am enjoying morning coffee and rolls the sun keeps peeking out but only briefly. There is a wide range of leaf loss and autumn colours even between the same species. Probably a case of survival by average.


Have you ever wondered about the saying: "Freedom of the road?" These days there is so much traffic that nobody can go for a pleasant drive any more. Everybody drives at just above the speed limit. With a hundred cars on their tail if anyone should dare to slow by 1mph.

I usually monitor following traffic as I drive at the speed limit. [When it is safe to do so.] In theory they should never catch you if there is the slightest gap between you. In practice you always end up with a tailgater, or three or seven or a hundred. Most drivers are great at speeding down the straights to ensure they catch you. Most drivers are absolute and unbelievable crap at cornering.

Years ago I decided that every corner should be treated as a life-long, learning exercise. I always try to drive in the middle of the lane. No "racing lines" for me. Any drooling idiot can manage a racing line through a corner. Most drivers do it on automatic pilot and all of them do it badly.

A racing line is for empty tracks with no oncoming traffic and clear lines of sight across the corner. A racing line on a typical rural road suffers from maximally reduced clear vision ahead. Which means your braking distance has been, quite literally, thrown away. Much like the garbage you shelter behind between your ears.

By staying out in the middle of the lane throughout a corner you have maximum warning of any unexpected obstruction. Obstructions like a bored young housewife giving her child a walk in its pram or pushchair. Or a broken down vehicle. Or a pair of "idiot lovers" walking hand in hand in the countryside. Or a fallen tree branch. Or the tail end of a five mile queue behind a tractor. Or a disabled/mobility scooter. Or a subnormal teenager driving on the wrong side of the road in a stolen vehicle? Did that get your attention? Nah. You are always thinking about anything else but your driving. If you did actually think about your driving you'd be almost unique.

Treat every corner as if somebody is picnicking in the middle of your lane just "around the [next] bend." How will you anticipate this if you can't see them? Think about it.

Cross the double white lines on the entrance or exit and you have not only broken the law. You have taken away the legal right of way for oncoming vehicles. You have allowed yourself more asphalt than you are legally or safely allowed. Your grand theft auto of their asphalt has denied them the absolute right to drive like somebody with a working brain cell or two. Unlike yourself who is driving like a total mental cripple. i.e. You belong to the vast majority who see your car as an exercise in ego and idiocy in equal measure. Both words mean much the same anyway.

Like most drivers, you place your brain in the drinks holder before every car journey. Phone at the ready? Eating or smoking while driving? Do you turn regularly to the bloodied vegetable in the passenger seat during every conversation? Or do you constantly monitor the road ahead and everything going on around you? Are you watching for potholes or road debris ahead? What about potholes in front of that cyclist who is annoying you simply by being in YOUR WAY? Are you watching the pavement or verge ahead for children or the elderly stepping into YOUR PATH to avoid a puddle?

When you meet a mirror image of your own drooling idiot self, overshooting or entering a corner too wide, then you have deliberately discarded all moral right to a driving license. You are an educationally challenged fool and should retire to your hospital bed [or the prison you so richly deserve.] Hopefully before you kill any more innocent drivers, pedestrians, cyclists or [your god willing] yourself.

Cars and their drivers are where intelligence and morals are utterly separated from reality. Ask the driver of any "4-arseholes of the apocalypse" VW/BMW/AUDI/Mercedes. Then drive badly and above the speed limit, in a country with a 50mph rural speed limit.

They feel entitled to cheat because they are so "special." Special as in Special Needs. The world is full of "entitled" people. They bought the adverts hook, line and bløødy anchor. Never give a second thought to their driving skills or how to improve them.

In 2010 alone 1.25 million people died in road accidents worldwide. Why do we call them "accidents" when the vast majority of people drive exactly like you do? As careless with other people's lives as any historical despot or tyrant for your own selfish pleasure and even amusement.

Yet a single murder makes the international headlines. Why do we pretend to make guns difficult to obtain? When every vehicle is a potential weapon of mass destruction. Almost every one equipped, as standard, with an averagely, piss-poor driver behind the wheel.

As we march to remember the war dead we ignore the the reality of the annual genocide of road kill. Funny how they paint flames on "hot-rods" but never splash them with fake blood. Isn't it?

Click on any image for an enlargement.

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