As the years go by and the world changes, one can either get grumpy about it or one can adapt.
I've driven since 1979, no points, no pulls, no nothing. The other day I was driving my friends Jag as a treat (all legal and insured)and we got into a traffic jam.
him: "Blow it, just do a U-turn here, over the central reservation"
me: "I can't do that!"
him: "You're a Jag driver now, you can do anything."
I did the U-turn, no problem, nice smug feeling.
Cut to a couple of days ago. Stuck in Cambridge traffic. Went through a set of Pelican lights. Police car parked on the white zigzags, policeman talking (apparently happily cos they were both laughing) to a motorcyclist, who was stopped behind, also on the white zig zags. At that moment, the lights went red. At the same moment a student on a bike, who was cycling the WRONG way down the road, causing other cyclists to come to halt, went through the red lights, whilst being pursued by her friend, also on a bike, travelling at high speed on the pavement. Policeman took zero notice, but carried on conversation.
Now, clearly the policeman was involved in in more important things than worrying about his illegal parking, the illegal parking of the motorbike, the cycling the wrong way, the travelling through a red light or the high speed pavement chase. But it made me grumpy. And that made me stressed. And that probably made me a bad driver for that journey.
So instead of getting grumpy about the "reduction in standards" I've decided to alter my mindset and say "so what, let's all do what the heck we like, as long as we can get away with it." My goodness, I feel much less stressed now, so that's made me a MUCH better driver. Curiously liberating, this.
Off to nick some sweeties from the corner shop now.
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Annoying I'll grant you but no need to change your previous 'mindset' which served you so well for 25 years. Life's full of wrongs, unfairnesses, inconsistencies etc. but don't let any of these things turn you into a bad driver. Far better to just let it go and accept that life's unfair sometimes, justice isn't always done but the idiots concerned will almost certainly get their comeuppance at some point - either via the police or because they'll get knocked up in the air and taught a lesson the hard way. Yes stress can make you drive badly but there's really no need for any stress if you choose to think about the situation like this. Better that than to reduce yourself to the level of the idiots and make matters worse for everyone.
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Dipstick.
Congratulations on your Virgin Licence. Not many about these days.I do mean Licences.
Firstly without going into Chapter and Verse etc your representing one side of a story, i.e. yours.
The officer has only one brain and a couple of hands. He can only deal with one thing at a time. There are a multitude of plausible reasons why he was in the position he was. You say the cyclists were at full speed. There is nothing on a bike to identify it for further enquiry i.e. VRM and the chances of the Officer catching them on foot or car from what you say most unlikely - on the footpath and away. What does he do with the person he is dealing with if he attempted this.But there again, just maybe he knew who it was and has since dealt with them or can you say otherwise.
As regards stopping on lines etc and this has been mentioned by others, generally there is an exemption for those involved in statutory undertakings( Road repairers etc), police, fire and ambulance purposes and why this is so doesn't need me to spell out.
Please don't have a "mindset". Continue setting an example and who knows other may follow.
DVD
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I have sympathy with Dipstick's sentiments.
I have written to my local force asking why they don't actually do something proactive about all the dangerous drivers out there instead of relying on those flashy photographic things to do the job for them.
I received a reply telling me that I have nothing to worry about, as they take these matters very seriously. They have a "policy" involving a focus on education and encouragement at the expense of enforcement......
So we get another batch of TV advertising, paid for by the innocent taxpayer, and the nutters continue to get away with it because the police are all too busy in their softly-softly woolly-minded focus groups - or processing photos.
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Perhaps we should all have small video cameras sat in our cars so dangerous incidents could be recorded. Saying someone did something and drove like a prat is one thing but presenting the evidence in full technicolour might get a lot further. Most cameras can do a few hours worth so most journeys could easily be recorded for posterity. If nothing else we could at least have a backroom Xmas tape of the best/worst/most amusing incidents :-)
teabelly
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Small video cameras that record accidents and driver behaviour leading up to them would save a lot of time in establishing liability too. MAybe with big brother watching drivers would act more responsibly.
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Great idea... maybe rather than have to carry them around in our private cars, we could get the police to put them in unmarked cars... and have a few extras that could go in metal boxes, on the top of poles... maybe those ones would just need to be still cameras? What else could we use those for? Any ideas..? They'd be expensive, so maybe we could think of a way they could pay for themselves?
Maybe also the CPS could have an equivalent of the Special Constabulary - where solicitors, or indeed anyone else who fancies a go, could come in and produce prosecution files... for the myriad cross-complaints we'd have? The real CPS couldn't handle one percent of them - nor indeed the courts.
I've just realised why I didn't come to the Backroom do...!
Neil
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What a wonderful idea. I could give up the bench and resume practise as a barrister. Just think of the money I would be making......!
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There is a system available called, IIRC, Road Vision which some driving instructors use for showing pupils the error of their ways. Shows the view through the front screen and, I believe, the drivers reactions.
Some while ago there was an item on our local radio about a chap who had developed a small cheap device which used a camera to record the last 30 seconds of the view through the windscreen onto some sort of Flash Media card or somesuch. The idea was that it would stop recording in the event of crash therefore keeping the last 30 seconds leading up to the impact for evidence to the insurers or police. He had developed this after a member of his family lost their NCB following a collision where a driver pulled into the gap in front and immediately braked causing them to rear end the car in front. The insurers blamed his relative as they had no evidence to back up their story that the other driver was driving in a careless manner. Thought at the time that it would be popular but have never heard anymore of it, probably went the way of many small inventions.
Would it prove that the tree really did jump out in front of me I wonder! :-)
Cockle
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