Bad driving weekend

Whilst most people have been enjoying the BBQ weather this bank holiday weekend, there have been some people who've taken it upon themselves to bring sorrow and misery to the roads. 

Three times this weekend I've witnessed driving which I thought i'd never see outside of the Vodka fuelled Russian capital. 

On Sunday going along the motorway a car swerved in front of another car as it suddenly decided it wanted to stay on the motorway, and not exit. It was centimetres away from a high speed, and probably fatal accident. As I got side by side with the muppet, expecting Kermit the frog or Bert and Ernie, there was a man with a phone in one hand, and a map in the other. Not quite believing it, and deciding it was my duty to try and get him to stop what he was doing, I gave him the full duel horn affect.  he took no notice. He overtook me, still with no hands on the wheel. I decided waving my hands out the window and shouting was the next stage. Still nothing. He then decided he wanted to be in my lane, and cut in front of me.  Short of ramming him in a US police style pit manoeuvre there wasn't much I could do. He had at least got one hand on the wheel by this time. An accident waiting to happen. I was angry and wish I could legally lob a grenade into his open window.

Sunday evening now, and driving along a 60mph road, I find a car doing 30mph. I held back for a while, and then overtook when it was safe to do so. I got the flashing light treatment for this, and they decided to then speed up and follow me. The story doesn't end there however. As I neared a roundabout and slowed down to the appropriate speed to take it, I heard screeching tyres behind me and in the mirror saw the car i had overtaken, plough into the sign post on the island of the roundabout. It would seem that the reason why this driver was doing 30mph to start with is because they cant handle the car anything over this speed! Clearly they shouldn't be driving.

Monday afternoon, and the last of the bad drivers.  On a 60mph road again, and i spot some reversing lights at the side of the road. Wondering what might be about to happen, i slow to 40mph. Just as well, as a van had decided to reverse out of a driveway, straight onto this fast section of road. I had time to stop.  If i had been the drive previously revered to, i would not have noticed the reverse lights, would have panicked and swerved and ploughed into an oncoming car, or a tree.  This van then decided to do 35mph on a road which is safe for 60mph plus, and jam on its breaks for no good reason at one point as well.  I had enough and overtook on a straight, and safe section.  Now even more shocked and appalled at the state of driving skill i had witnessed during the weekend

So in summary... It is not speed that kills, it is the drivers who cant drive at 30mph, and cant handle their car anything over this speed.  You can drive fast, and safely - its just you have to know the limits of your car, and what situations are safe, and not safe!  These drivers put lives in their hands every day, and this is when the roads are dry and fairly empty. Imagine what happens when these drivers try to drive when its raining, dark, or icy.

Two types of drivers

There are two types of drivers in this world...

1. The type who use their sun visors all time time, even if the moons a bit bright

2. The type who wear sunglasses, and can drive more than 5mph without sliding into a bush.


I was following someone this morning who at every corner was moving their sun visor about in order to block the big orange ball out. Its the first day we've really seen sun this year, and it wasn't that bright. They were inept at being able to do this without braking violently either.  Further proof came of their stupidity came when they approached a roundabout, and with their sun visor covering the top half of the driver side window, they failed to see the car coming on the roundabout, and pulled out in front of them.  Luckily the other driver was of driver type 2 - and had some sense. Crash averted!

Sun visors are there for when you really have no other option to be able to see the road. Not because you would prefer living in a dark cave, watching repeats of Steptoe and Son on a black and white TV, eating ryvita's all day.  They should come with a safety warning for stupid people, or taken away completely and the drivers given a blindfold - it would probably improve their driving skills!

Sticking to the speed limit does not make you a good driver

Last night I had a Ford Galaxy people carrier pull in front of me out of a petrol station.  This annoyed me a little, but i decided top give the driver the benefit of the doubt. 

However, my frustration became increasinly heightened as the driver was keen on doing 5 mph, and sometimes 10mph below the speed limit.  There was no need for this, the roads were dry, there was very limited traffic about. 

Next we came upto a roundabout, and they pulled into the lane to go left, rather than ahead. Thinking what was about to happen, i stayed back - and indeed they saw their mistake and pulled back into my lane to go straight ahead.

Again, they were doing 20mph in a 30mph limit, and I was starting to wonder how I was going to be able to get away from this driver before there was a simply monumental accident.  Next we came to a larage roundabout which was busy. This time in the right lane to go straight ahead of right, but with no signal they veered off to the right. A car coming the other direction wanting to go straight ahead had not expected them to do this due to lack of signal, and had to slam on their brakes to avooid a colision. The driver who I had been following made no reaction.

So before you judge someone who going too fast on the roads, please remember for every 1 of those peoploe who may be oing 1mph over the speed limit, there is someone who thinks they are the safest driver ever because they stick well under the speed limit. Not true!

Forgotten to shut your door?

Yesterday I was driving along and a car coming the other way had his drivers door open. It appeared to be that he was holding open with this foot!

Now - a few questions immediately sprung to mind.

1. What has happened in that car to make leaving the door open a good idea? someone with a serious gas problem in the car? has an egg just purchased from Makro just exploded? Was the air con broken? or was the driver of the car so outraged with the quality of his driving, that he was considering jumping from the car to save himself?

2. What foot was he powering the car with, if his right foot was holding the door open?

3. Can you imagine explaining to the police why a motorbike crashed into him? "well you see i had the door open..."  It's not going to end well!

4. What mental institute had this person just escaped from?

Overtaking behaviour

There has been some brilliant opportunity for some overtaking this week due to several people wanting to crawl along at ridiculously slow speeds on the way back from work. Honestly, India will have conquered how to build a Mcdonalds on the moon, before some of these people will make it home!

One person decided they would do 35mph on a 60mph road, with a long straight.  The car behind that hesitated and wanted to stick behind it, sniffing its rear exhaust. So i went for it and overtook both of them. No hastle, so fuss - overtaken safely and made it home before the next Ice Age.  That was Tuesday.

Wednesday, another one decided they would do 40mph on a 60mph road.  I didn't hesitate, i went for it and overtook as soon as it was safe, and again all was well.

No doubt it was me who was seen as the reckless driver here - but i was not taking risks, i was completely safe. If you don't think its safe, don't do it. If you hesitate, don't do it. Only perform an overtake if you are sure you can keep control of your car.

If you get overtaken constantly, surely you should be thinking "perhaps i should go a bit faster?"

Cut up, but not shut up. X Factor driver vote off system.

On a 12 mile journey yesterday i got cut up TWICE. Both of which i had to swerve violently in order to not hit them, and both times the reason for the people cutting me up was not clear at all. They just suddenly decided they liked the look of the lane that i was in better! Perhaps i made it look sexy and irresistible and they wanted a piece of the action!  I doubt it to be honest, but I cannot think of any other reason.

This made me think of a system in how people could vote bad drivers off the road.  Let's inject some X Factor style technology into the road system.  A website should be created called "Driver vote off" - if someone cuts you up badly, you go on the website and place a vote against the driver / car reg.  If this car / driver receives 5 votes in one year, the DVLA visit them and tell them that they have to pass a full UK driving test, otherwise their license is taken away for a year. The person has to pay for the test, with that money going to improve roads, and lower road tax for everyone else.  This would mean that the roads are safer, and therefore less accidents, less jams, and cheaper insurance!  What is there not to like about this idea?  Have i just hit on the best idea since making fire?

Please let me know your thoughts and whether this is a good idea by making a comment!

Drunk Driver Alert

During the past week Ive seen a handful of drivers who are potentially drunk. The worrying thing is that one of these was at 9am in the morning! All of them have been swerving over the road, going way too slow for the road conditions and not having any road awareness whatsoever.  In fact i'm pretty sure our two 10 month only kittens would be able to drive a car better than all of these people put together. Are cat driving licences a thing of the future?

The police are generally pretty good at sniffing out the secret vodka drinkers, and getting them banned. BUT... the chances are that the people who are consistently drunk behind the wheel aren't actually going to care if they have their licence taken away. The next day they'll get in the car after having a few too many cans of floor polish and do it all over again.  What is there to stop them?  Sorry sir, you're banned again - even though you've been banned 15 times already. "WHO'S A NAUGHTY BOY THEN... DONT DO IT AGAIN!"

Something has to change. If you are caught blatantly and knowingly drunk behind the wheel you should be made to do something really nasty. Such as working in McDonalds for an example or even worse KFC.

Driving me MAD!!

I think i must be some kind of bad driver magnet recently. I've had a visit from the shocking driver leader during the night who has implanted a small device in my brain to signal all of his members to my vicinity when i am on the road!  Seriously!!

Again yesterday on leaving work - a car pulled out on me and then proceeded to drive at a speed a millipede with 99 legs broken, could manage. This was on the straight before the S bend i mentioned in my previous post.  I saw a gap and went for the the overtake, otherwise i wold have actually been there until my 80th birthday!  It was a completely safe overtake, but the driver decided he'd take exception to it and started flashing their lights.  To be honest I'm surprised they knew where the button was to turn on their lights, they certainly didn't know where the "GO" pedal is!

More Bad Driver Irritation

On the way home from work today I came across yet another bad driver.  This type is all too common and one of the most dangerous. Theres no question about it, these people need to be run off the road - and I'm not talking about a letter being sent to them, I mean literally run off the road.  We should employ the tactics the American cops have.  No warning, a pit maneuver is performed on the car, sending it spinning into the nearby hedge.  Once stopped - shout "sorry, you have to be stopped," and drive off!  That will teach them!!

On a 60mph limit road this car was doing 35mph, and this road is a fairly straight road which you can safely do 60mph.  The car behind it got to fed up they decided to overtake (not me, i have to add!.)  The driver who overtook had become so frustrated he took a big risk of overtaking on a slight bend, meaning there was a risk of an oncoming car coming and a head on collision.  If this had occurred it would have no doubt been the car overtaking at fault, which in actual fact the root cause was the driver being shoickingly slow.

A little way down the road i came to be behind this slow driver who was still ticking along in 2nd gear.  We came to a SLOW sign on the road, because there is an S bend.  Again you take this bend at 40mph without issue.  The driver decided he'd slow down to 15mph, and then keep jabbing the brakes on til we were almost stopped! There was no way i could overtake so i just had to suck it up, but this was very frustrating. 

We then came to 30mph limit where there is a school, and 30mph is the max you want to do here.  You would think that the slow drive would be a careful driver, and wanting to stick to this limit?  No... he sped up to around 45mph!!  

So, just because a driver is slow doesn't mean they are safe. Quite the opposite actually!  This type of driver who obviously cannot really drive at all has to be stopped by any means necessary. They are the ones who will cause accidents!

I maintain that a regular test of skill around the nurburg ring would be the way to go. Anyone who fails get this British passport torn up and made to stay to dig up roads.  Anyone who passes gets to come back and get given a Supercar.

Slow drivers - cause accidents

A huge story in the news right now is the increase of car insurance, particularly for young drivers. To me this seems unjustified and an excuse to charge shocking amounts to people who just want to get in the car, and start doing handbrake turns... I mean, driving carefully.

Young people in the majority are not dangerous. They know the risks but are careful drivers.

To prove this statement:

• When I had passed my test I would only do handbrake turns when travelling well under 100mph. I have since had more experience so have now increased the speed to 125mph


• I would do a maximum of 55mph in a 30mph zone


• When it was raining i would stop driving on the pavements


• When snowing, i had an anchor to throw out the window - so in the event i started slipping out of control i could wrap it around a lamppost, or a fat man on the pavement to stop safely


• The maximum speed i would travel backwards in a car park was 35mph


• J turns were only completed on a Monday morning, during rush hour.


• My tyres were renewed whenever i heard metal grinding on the road from a blow out

The older generation of today are the cause of the accidents. Only yesterday i was sat behind a Honda Ass, sorry Jazz doing 20mph in a 60mph zone. I think the engine must have been stripped out and a small gerbil put into its place. Either that or the person driving had no knowledge of what a car is, and what they were doing. After 2 minutes of getting frustrated and about to have a nosebleed due to increased bloody pressure i overtook them. It was a straight road, i could see 200 yards in front, the road was dry, my handbrake was off. On passing the car they started to honk their horn and flash their lights. For one second i thought maybe I'd left my blow up doll on the roof, but they were in fact protesting at my unsafe driving.

I ignored them and forgot about it. 20 minutes later i drove back the other way and 2 miles along the road where i had overtaken them earlier I came across the same Honda Jazz, just in front of a mangled bicycle. The biker was fortunately ok, but it was obvious what had happened. The Honda Jazz driver was so engrained in travelling under 25mph so not to disturb the straw hat from the parcel shelf, they had not seen the cyclist and caught his bike on the bumper and knocked him off.

People should have a yearly test at the Nurburg ring to demonstrate that they can handle a car at speed, and in extreme circumstances. If they can, the maximumn insurance they should pay is £100 a year. If they cant, they should be sent home on the bus and ordered to pay road tax for the people who can drive.

Its time the insurance sector was revolutionised.