It's been one of those days today but capped off by having a hit and run this evening when dropping my son off for work.
I had dropped him off at the local supermarket where he works and was waiting to turn out of the service road into the main access road when I saw an old lady in one of these electric buggy things coming along the pavement from my left some 50 odd yards away. Meanwhile I'm waiting for a gap in the traffic and she's getting closer, gap appears and I start to pull out, she promptly drives straight down the ramped kerb, without slowing down, and straight into my rear nearside wheel as I'm pulling away. Almighty bang and car jumps in the air as my rear nearside wheel, presumably, drove over her front wheel. By the time I've realised what's happened she has done an about turn driven off down the service road and down an alley, promptly parked the car to one side and gave chase but when I got to the other end of the alley there was no sign of her.
Fortunately she only seems to have hit my wheel, no other visible damage, and it is on my old Fiesta, but obviously she wouldn't have been insured had she caused some serious damage and no doubt I would have been painted the big, bad, nasty driver had I needed to sue a defenceless old lady for damages.
I then had to report it as I hadn't been able to ascertain whether the old lady was injured or not and I wasn't to know that she hadn't collapsed round some corner somewhere, so to keep things all squeaky clean trotted off to the local nick. That was the worst bit of it really, having to go down the local nick, with all my documents, and spend an hour queueing to report it. Local desk clerk had trouble keeping a straight face and kept muttering about Hell's Grannies and how I was lucky there wasn't a group of them! But he did agree that they are becoming a pain.
Must admit I can see the humourous side to it but on the serious side these buggies are becoming a liability as the 'drivers' of them seem to be a law unto themselves as they rattle along at, I believe, 8+ mph on pavements and without a care in the world. Would have been handy if this one this evening had had a number plate at least! I've no wish to remove anyones mobility but they really should have to have some form of basic training requirement or somesuch.
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I strongly beleive all such vehicles (and bikes come to that) should carry compulsory 3rd Party insurance. I was almost pushed out onto a main road from the pavement by such a vehicle. (with my 5 yo son) this very morning.
I also think some sort of proficiency test should also be required.
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amen to the bikes part.
Not normally a bike rider knocker.......but some give a really bad name to cyclists in general. I am talking about the aggressive courier type cyclists who think that anything and everything is the enemy. I loathe and detest them with their metal studded faces and metal studded attitudes. I must admit, no amount of training or legal implications will change the way they cycle...they are scum, ferral sub humans. Yes, yes, I know motorists can be a pain and downright dangerous. So can pedestrians. But SOME cyclists go out of their way to be really unpleasant all the time.
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....and my Dad (bless him, he died from complications after fracturing a hip falling out of his mobility scooter doing a difficult and complex manouvre; which had the locals scattering for cover and taking out life insurance!)
He was a poor car driver before he got his scooter. Letting him loose on a pavement sitting on 1/2cwt of metal, plastic and front fitted woven shopping basket was tantamount to conspiracy to cause death by dangerous driving.
The man was a menace, in his own sweet hearted grandfatherly way. Blithely oblivious of the distress laying in his wake.
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Not strictly motoring but this concerns an old lady on one of these electric buggies.
A couple of years ago in a catalogue store, I was waiting in the customer service queue when one of these buggies squeezed through a tight space past the queue and ran over my foot, the old lady riding it didn't even realise what she had done. There wasn't room for the people in the queue to move out of the way. No bones broken but my foot ached for a few minutes.
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I read somewhere recently that there has been suggestion that there should be some kind of basic training before being let loose on mobility scooters. Probably along similar lines to a CBT for motorbikes.
Anyway, whilst googling, I found this:-
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4724883.stm
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I had no work to do today so I've been out on a 15 mile bike ride on the recently opened National Cycle Network route 24. No motor vehicles, just a few bikes and walkers. If cyclists were made to have 3rd party insurance, what about pedestrians?
There are bad cyclists, just like there are bad drivers. Many of the worst drivers are in fact car enthusiasts. And it's the hard-core bicycle enthusiasts who seem to adopt the devil-may-care attitude in traffic.
Cheers, Sofa Spud
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