Skip to main content

Get off my road!


I’ve decided that it’s about time for another law.

In my (admittedly self-appointed) position of 'Most Marvelous Emperor Of Sensible Regulations And Bountiful Lovingness Not To Mention Exceedingly Handsome' it is my right, after all. So, with immediate effect, I’m banning certain vehicles from the roads during peak times. Or to be more specific, times when I’m on the road.

You know only too well what it’s like, don’t you? Within 5 minutes of setting off for work, you get caught behind that elderly chap in the surprisingly-new-looking Vauxhall Corsa with a registration plate from before this century, doing 15mph under the speed limit. And every time you even think about pulling out to overtake, something comes the other way.

I’ve taken to naming people on the roads I regularly come across and find annoying. Take ‘Dog Man’ for instance. I sometimes catch him on my way out of Arnside, and want to run him off the road before Milnthorpe. He gets his name from the stick-on outline of a sausage dog on the boot of his car. I know it quite well – I’m often stuck behind him all the way through to the A590.

Well, my new law involves anyone falling into certain categories to be banned from the road between 0800-0900 and 1700-1800.

Take a deep breath....

Dog Man: It might be unfair to pick on one car driver to start with, but this chap goes so annoyingly slowly, even snails stop to applaud his tardiness.

JCBs: This category includes anything with stupidly big wheels, and predominantly yellow. Breaking the ban brings a harsh penalty anyway (I’m coming to that, in case you were wondering), but failing to pull in to let cars by until half of Cumbria is in a queue behind you will gain you extra punishment.

Farm vehicles: Tractors? Yup. Other things that look like they just got evicted from Alien VS Predator for being to scary? Yes indeed. Things with ancient trailers on the back that look like they might fall apart as soon as they even sense a corner? Oh, yes. I think you get the idea (and probably the windscreen full of bits of straw, or overwhelming whiff of slurry.)

Mopeds: You’re NEVER going to get over 30mph, are you? Not even downhill, with a tailwind, and leaning really low over the handlebars to improve your aerodynamics. You look like a berk when you do that, by the way. You’re banned.

Very old Transit vans: When your vehicle has a greater percentage of rust than white paint, it’s pretty likely your engine is shot too. Apart from enveloping me in an asphyxiating cloud of fumes, you’re going too damn slow.

The elderly: Well, someone had to say it.

Please don’t mistake this for some kind of thinly-suppressed road rage. I actually obey speed limits (which some people seem to find oddly annoying), but the hours, gallons of fuel, clouds of Co2, and frayed tempers caused by getting stuck behind this lot justify drastic action.

Penalty – If you’re caught (which probably shouldn’t prove too tricky, assuming the Police can find 3rd gear) is being made to dress like Jedward. A simple, but devastatingly effective penalty. Assuming you’re allowed to live by the hoards of right-minded people who want to lynch the annoying little gits.

Did I mention I’ve got a new book about anger management? I’m going to keep it in the car and bang my head repeatedly on it next time I get stuck behind Dog Man.

(This could very well be ‘it’. I may get lobbed out of Big Blogger this Monday, so I’d just like say thanks for reading, have a wonderful life, be kind to small fluffy animals and always remember to wash behind your ears. TT...FN?)

This blog post appeared yesterday as an entry in the North West Evening Mail's "Big Blogger" competition. Do me a favour - click on this link to view it on their website, please? Thanks to your clicks, I've made it through to the last 9. Another person gets eliminated on Monday... Eep!

(Listening to a 24 part Argentinian radio show about the history of ELO. Each programme is an hour long. I don't speak the lingo. Still, the tunes are fab!)

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Faking it for real

As Donald “I’m really great, everybody says so” Trump is so fond of pointing out, there is a lot of fake news around nowadays. Honest. Your friends at Facebook think so too, and have recently been publishing their top tips for spotting false news – by placing them as ads in newspapers. Considering they came in for considerable criticism themselves, that’s like shouting “Squirrel!” and pointing at a tree whilst you hastily kick away the prize begonias you just trampled. To help you make sense of this (and because I’m a caring person), I thought I’d run you through their suggestions and help to explain them for you. I know. I’m lovely. 1. Be sceptical of headlines READING THIS ARTICLE WILL IMPROVE YOUR SEX LIFE!!! And explain that catchy headlines, or stuff all in capitals might be a bit iffy. 2. Look closely at the URL You can find out more about this at www.wowyouregullible.com if you want to understand how phony web addresses are a sure sign of dodgyness. 3. Investigate...

Going Underground

The US presidential election and Brexit must have made me more nervous than I’d realised. It seems I’ve created an underground bunker without realising I was doing it. Still – we’ve all done that at some point, right? No? Ah... In that case, the fact that I have inadvertently turned my cellar into a rudimentary survival shelter, just in case it all kicks off, demonstrates a severe case of bunker mentality. Fretting about Donald and his wall, and Hillary and her emails, clearly made me more paranoid that I thought about the possibility of WW3 kicking off. Whilst attempting to find a specific size of imperial washer the other day (turns out I’d mis-filed it in the nut cabinet – Tsk!) I was struck by what a lot of jam and chutney we have in the cellar. And I do mean a LOT. There are boxes of boiled-up sugar and fruit and more boxes of boiled up vinegar and fruit. We’re still only part way through 2015’s output too. Then there’s the plastic containers holding pasta in various for...

Is it cold? Snow way...

Lunch out? Not unless you want snow balls... I’ve got a confession to make.  Lean in a bit, because I’m going to whisper it. Bit more. Did you have curry for tea? OK, good. I’m a weather nerd. There, I said it. When I was growing up, I didn’t want to be an astronaut or a fireman – I wanted to present the weather on the TV. I was lining myself up for a career at the Met Office when, at about 18 years of age, I discovered I was allergic to studying. Anyway, despite a jam-packed and varied career over the subsequent years, I still have a fascination for the world of meteorology. I even have one of those clocks that projects the time and the external temperature onto the ceiling at night, so I can see how cold it is outside whilst lying awake worrying that I might have wasted my life and been more successful with girls if I’d been more into cars than clouds. So far this year, I’ve gazed at a chilly reading of -5C a couple of times, and been grateful for previous sensible ch...