It’s been a lovely sunny weekend and I’ve done many things. Progressed a little on my Peltier electronics project, succeeded in interfacing a Velleman K8055 (VM110) with PHP so I can control devices in my home anywhere in the world (blogs on those two to come) but right now I feel like a little rant.

Learners

I have a great respect for learners – people who are on the road to learn how to drive, most of us were there once. There’s always a few reckless people who’ll go out and drive without a licence, which is why I respect learners above most other road users – you know for sure they have a right to be there.

Everyone else

Soon after I passed my test and started driving on my own I noticed one very catching thing: Very few people seem to know how to drive properly. I’d had my suspicions, indeed it was already known that most people don’t know how to use their indicators. I recall standing on a pavement once, the rain coming down hard, no umbrella having been caught short, barely able to see through the rain on my glasses, waiting for a car approaching me at speed to pass, so I could cross. But it never did pass. After elongating my stand in the rain do you know what that driver did? Oh I bet you can guess. They flew around a corner, no indicators in sight. Could this have been because they didn’t see me so didn’t think they had to indicate? Could it be because they thought indicators are only for other cars, or perhaps all of their orange lights were broken? No, we know the sort of person that was. They’re the sort of person who doesn’t bother to indicate for anyone, the sort of person who kick babies for fun.

Of course, not indicating around a corner is a minor annoyance – it’s not often that failing to indicate at a junction will result in an accident. But there’s one other form of junction where this little flashing orange bulb has a great deal more importance, and it’s one of those places that people still can’t seem to navigate around properly: the roundabout. People drive straight over without indicating. People at junctions don’t know if you’re staying on or coming off, you hold up other traffic, thanks. But it gets worse: People who are indicating that they’re coming off, but are staying on – those cause real accidents. What about people who indicate to stay on but are coming off? That’s annoying for people at junctions, but it’s also annoying for people who follow the lanes of a roundabout properly – those that indicate incorrectly usually don’t. Going right? Right lane. Going left? Left lane. Coming off at the next exit? Cross to left lane after exit preceding the one you want and indicate left. Not hard is it.

Taxis

One thing I’ve noticed specifically is taxis. If they have a fare, they drive slightly under the speed limit, just enough to piss you off. If they don’t they usually up your backside. They also don’t keep to their lanes at roundabouts, in my experience this applies to all taxi drivers. There’s some dual carriage way in Bedford interspersed with roundabouts. Usually, I approach these in the outside lane, as everyone else is a little slow (you’re scared of roundabouts when you can’t drive properly, right?) The problem I have, is that entering a roundabout at the same time as a taxi in the inside lane will usually result in you being cut up. Because they drive straight over and don’t curve with the damn thing. I commuted from Luton to Bedford for 6 months and this happened a couple of times EVERY SINGLE MORNING. Learn to god damn drive you bastards.

Women

Women are known generally to men, to be poor drivers. The fact is, everyone is rubbish. Not just women, but men as well. There, I said it.

Road designers

Sometimes, these guys like to have a little fun. Such as putting a zebra crossing just the other side of a hilly, wide, 40mph roundabout. Generally, it’s not a good idea to put things on the road that a driver might not expect. Nice one Luton Council.

Country roads and villages

Oh dear. Deary deary. If there’s anything worse than someone who drives up your bum all the time, it’s someone who can’t decide if they want to speed, or drive too slowly. There’s quite a lot of country roads dotted about England which have a speed limit of 60mph. There are usually partitioned with small towns and villages where the speed limit is usually 30mph. Often, I’ll find myself come up to someone going annoyingly slowly, usually 40mph whilst in this 60 zone. On narrower winding roads the chances of passing are low. And do you know what annoys me even more? When we hit a 30 zone, but they carry on doing 40. You GOD DAMN BASTARDS. You drive through the 30 zone, a few minutes later than you would  have done whilst watching them disappear into the distance. They disappear over a hill. It’s a 60 zone again, you put your foot down. Just as you get to 60, there they are again. ARGHHHHHH.

Speeders

Now, I don’t generally have anything against speeders. Except when they pull up behind you flashing and bibing, because you’re not going fast enough, even when you’re at the speed limit. One such incident happened to me a while ago on the motorway. A caravan (doing about 68, which is illegal I might add) was overtaking an HGV. Naturally, I was in the 3rd lane attempting to overtake them both, at 70. A BMW pulls up behind me, just at the point where all 3 of us are in a line, HGV, Caravan and Me. Now, I only have a little Ka, it’s acceleration from 70 to anything higher is very poor. So, what does the genius do behind me? He flashes because I’m going too slowly. I made him wait. Next time I’ll brake test the bastard – their shiny BMW’s are more expensive than my Ka after all, and if he goes into the back of me whilst in everyone else’s blind spot, who’s to say he didn’t get impatient. That said…

BMW Drivers

Whilst it’s probably fair to say there are one or two good BMW drivers out there, I’ve never met one of them. Driving along at 70 on very rainy day, so rainy that even with the fastest setting of wiper visibility was poor – 30 metres at best, in the middle lane of the M25 you’d probably have thought to yourself, like me, that nobody would be stupid enough to go even faster – doing 70 was probably risky enough as it was. So guess how surprised I was when a BMW rushed past me in the outside lane – doing at least 20mph more than me. I spent a few seconds wondering how on earth he could see through the rain. Then I realised – he couldn’t. The next thing I saw was his face, as his car was facing mine in the middle lane, me still doing 70. It was all very quick, but he had spun in front of me, across the inside lane and then crashed into the barrier past the hard shoulder. I stopped on the hard shoulder myself as fast as I could, because that’s what you do right? About 10 other people did the same, including one that looked like he’d been clipped. Given the rain and traffic, I’d stopped a good 100 metres away from the scene and decided that with so many other people around there was no point waiting.

Conclusion

When you hit 70, you have to retake your driving test to make sure you’re still fit to drive. I’d quite like that to change – once every 3 years everybody should re-take their driving test. Maybe it’ll get some of these toss pots off the road.