Dangerous Driving 101

Ξ February 12th, 2006 | → 0 Comments | ∇ |

Ive only been properly driving for a couple of weeks now, racking up around 1k miles already on the M4/M40/M25 mostly, but still in that short time I’ve noticed loads of stupid things other people do. It is so true that you dont start to properly learn until after you pass your test, and it also makes me wonder what those who’ve been driving for years or those who drive tens of thousands of miles a year see when they’re out on the road. They must be able to write a encyclopedia’s worth of driving errors by others (and themselves).

If it’s not some old woman with a BMW that has dodgy electrics so her brake lights flick on and off, it’s some other guy in the left-hand lane speeding up and then slamming on his brakes repetitively behind another car when the road around him isn’t exactly filled with traffic. Or, crazy ass bikers, swerving in and out of traffic or people slamming on their breaks as they notice, just early enough, a mobile speed camera van on the bridge overhead. This was just in the last two days mind; I’ve forgotten what’s happened these last two weeks.

To top it off though, last night took the award for “psychopath of the month”. It was about 9:45 in the evening, driving down the M4 just past Swindon on a second of motorway that has no additional lighting from overhead. You see lights to your right from the oncoming traffic but they flick on and off as the light passes behind metal poles in the central reservation. Yet, one set of lights to our right didn’t, and it was a lot closer than the rest. Someone was driving on the wrong side of the motorway, a lane away from us, belting it in the opposite direction. My father and I did a double as we both tried to see what was now happening behind us with the traffic that was following. Bearing in mind, we were still doing a continuing along at 60ish at this point when we passed through a couple of cars on the hard shoulder and another end on in the central reservation with it’s nose pointing into the fast lane.

Surreal was an understatement.

Luckily, because of the time of day the traffic was sufficiently light enough for most people to be in the left or middle lanes of the 3 lane motorway, but god knows how the police managed to stop him going down the wrong side. It’s not like they could follow, or coerced him to pull over from the other side. Having said all that, I’ve no idea if he hit anyone behind us. I cannot even conceive what it would be like to hit an oncoming vehicle at 70mph, when they’re doing in excess of 70 themselves.

And people complain about public transport, heh.

EDIT: Just heard on the news: apparently it was some 69 y/o guy who just lost it, turned around and decided to go the other way. Miracuously noone else was injured despite the fact he got 10 miles down the wrong way, and the police only managed to stop him several miles after he passed us. The only casualty was the guys wife, 37, who was so paralysed with fear that it took four police officers to remove her from the car and put her in the ambulance. The police managed to translate to the guy to pull over and instead he just stopped his car in the central lane, got out and waved his lisence at them shouting “I have a driving lisence”.
Methinks divorce and a good dose of lithium is on the papers.