A rant about... driving
Jul. 17th, 2006 01:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sparkindarknessAKA, why every other user of the roads should be denied their use and the arteries of transport be declared the exclusive domain of Sparky. Except for the M25, because it’s not a road, it’s a car park.
I am firmly of the opinion that everyone who buys a car (except for my sublime self, of course) is suffering from some kind of crippling social, mental or emotional disorder. I pity them and wish to put them out ofmy their misery.
Since the law frowns on that kind of thing, instead I will categorise them correctly so that future generations may pursue my genocidal campaign with extreme efficiency.
Methuselah’s Grandmother/father
Any categorisation should begin with these hoary old veterans. One would think that, having reached a truly extreme age, these fossils would be in a desperate hurry to get everywhere since they must know they are not long for this world. I mean, if I ever became a desiccated survivor of about 156 as these crusty old relics seem to be then I would move pretty damn quickly to make sure I got to my destination before the Grim Reaper finally found the note with my name on it where it had got lost stuffed down the back of the sofa. But no, these old folk do not feel the icy hand of death on their shoulder – they do not even feel it getting them in a strangle hold and happily toddle along while passing tortoises burn them off the road and an ever increasing tail back grows behind them.
This, naturally is annoying. But it is not their only flaw, oh no. Their perception of time is so skewed that they believe everyone is quite willing to wait for a substantial portion of even their lifespan for anything – waiting at junctions, pulling out – and gods protect you if you ever get stuck behind one doing a three point turn because you may actually die of starvation before the maneuver is completed.
I suppose it is natural for a desiccated mummy who has survived for centuries to be unconcerned with time, but the rest of us poor mortals are more than willing to give them an extra nudge off their mortal coil.
Norman
Norman is annoying for many of these habits that Methuselah’s Grandparent has – but made all the more exacerbating since he doesn’t have the excuse of advancing senility. Norman probably drives a Skoda, or a Ford Escort or something else dreadfully dreadfully practical. Norman collects pins. Norman likes his cardigans. Norman likes to watch interesting documentaries about basket weaving. Norman is sensible. Norman drives 5mph under the speed limit, or 55mph, whichever is slower. This applies even when he is in the fast lane. He is painfully aware of every single traffic law, no matter how obscure or archaic. He would have men with red flags run in front of his car if he could. He never overtakes, even when stuck behind a Methuselah’s Grandparent or a Cyclist. He never pulls out from a junction until he can see clear road for a hundred miles either side of him. He will loudly boast that he has never had an accident while around him the bodies pile high as people desperately seek to escape his aura of boredom. The most annoying thing about Norman is that if, like any sane person, you are driven to reckless abandon to try and get away from him and it all goes wrong you can’t BLAME him because he is RIGHT. He’s just right in the most wrong way.
Nervous Nellie
She may have just passed her test. She may be the only survivor of a multi-car pile up on the M62. She may have an absolute pathological terror of all things with wheels and is only driving because her psychiatrist said it would be empowering and give her closure (words that may well mean nothing but are being spoken by someone who is being paid copious amounts of money so must be taken seriously). Whatever the reason, Nellie is very very nervous indeed.
At first glance, Nellie can be taken for a Norman since they have many of the same habits – slow, excessively careful driving and an almost religious devotion to traffic law. She starts shaking if he drives above 40mph. She won’t pull out of a junction without written instructions from the pope. She wouldn’t overtake even if the pope was sat in the back seat with a gun pressed to her head ordering her to do so. But there are subtle differences, oh yes. One of the most obvious ones is that Nellie will react to situations that no-one but her can perceive. We assume this is because she skipped her medication this week and has started hallucinating. You will be happily driving along and suddenly Nellie will, with a gasp of horror, decide to slam her foot down on the breaks. She will wait like a frightened mouse until the lorry on the other side of the dual carriageway has actually passed before actually daring to accelerate again. Even the slightest, almost imperceptible things will send her foot crashing to her break pedal while she hyperventilates in the driving seat, trembling hands glued to the wheel.
Nellie manages to combine the sheer boredom of the first two with the added adrenaline rush of being utterly unpredictable. For every crash she avoids by being slow and careful, she causes 3 more by swerving around the road and breaking randomly. The kill squads will probably find her lurking in the back of a cupboard or hiding under a bed when they move to hunt her down.
Wanda the WonderWoman! (or Steve, the SuperMan!)
Wanda can cook, clean, hold down 3 jobs, bring up 6 children, cure cancer and solve world hunger – all while driving at the same time.
Well, no, no she can’t. But she thinks she can. Wanda is a busy woman. In that car she will be beating, fiddling with the GPS which has decided to send her to Helsinki, reapply her make up, trying to fold a map, trying to find that medieval Croatian folk music channel on the radio, eating a 6 course meal (with coffee), holding a conference call to Japan on her mobile phone and trying to negotiate a middle east peace proposal. She’s also driving, but that’s not important – it’s certainly low down her list of priorities.
Wanda is dangerous. Wanda hasn’t the slightest clue about what’s happening around her as she is entirely occupied by everything that’s happening in her car. She is blissfully ignorant of traffic lights, lane discipline, traffic, right of way, speed limits and, in extreme cases, corners and where the actual road is.
It is advised that drivers sharing a length of road with Wanda or Steve should back off and watch with amusement until she kills herself in a dreadful accident. Then they should pull over, get out of their cars and proceed to point and laugh.
Mr. Floppy
Mr. Floppy has issues. Perhaps because of some *ahem* problem elsewhere in his life, Mr. Floppy has decided to buy himself a sports car to rebalance the scales. He will then prove his mighty virility and power by managing to outrun a Skoda in his overpowered 2 seater sports car. It is apparent that he considers this manfully powerful act to be a testament of his superior skills.
These drivers are obviously a menace but usually zip off to the distance pretty quickly to find a nice immovable object of their very own and rarely present a prolonged threat.
His Supreme Majesty, the King of the Road
We all know the type, and I’m sure everyone is expecting the words Bastard Moronic Wanker (BMW) to arise soon. Actually I find the owners of expensive cars to be the worst kind of Nervous Nellies for fear their precious baby gets a scratch and the insurance trebles and their stretched budget grows ever thinner.
No, the worse kind of King are professional drivers – taxi, lorry and bus drivers. ESPECIALLY the latter 2. They know they’re bigger. They know that if there is a crash then peasant drivers will be squished thoroughly under foot. They know we will get out of the way (as good peons should). Buses pull out from bus stops happily charging through anything in the way. They will merrily change lanes at the slightest whim with nary a signal to the peasants who may presume to share – for all our lanes do belong to them. Lorries will happily park up anywhere to unload – after all, it is their road, us peons should be happy that his Majesty deigns to grace us with his presence. We should get out of our cars and pay homage to his Majesty who has decided to block the entire road. All hail! All Hail!
A brutal, Russian style coup is the only option to depose these vile vehicle aristocrats.
Sir Lancelot, the White Knight
They say chivalry is dead. If I ever get my hands on Lancelot, it will be.
Lancelot is polite. He lets people out at junctions and slip roads, he gives way to people when he doesn’t have to, he never overtakes, he lets pedestrians cross and always gives cyclists plenty of room. And he causes utter chaos on the roads.
It’s nice to find polite people, they’re all too rare – but roads have traffic laws, not self-effacing courtesy. When Lancelot stops at a roundabout to let everyone else go first the whole thing stalls as no-one can figure out what’s happening. People at narrow roads stop in confusion as the guy who has priority sits their like a lemon, grinning like a boy scout after his double dose of Ritalin. And this is aside from the people stuck behind him, happily wishing him death as he lets another grandparent of Methuselah out or reduces Nervous Nellie to tears as she can’t figure out whether to pull out or not.
Future generations will have to find a lance and insert it into the appropriate orifice. Unto death.
Cyclists
Cyclists suffer a delusion. They believe they are cars. They also believe they are invulnerable. They merrily peddle along at speeds that would frustrate even Methuselah’s grandparent. They move along in the middle of the road so you can’t pass them. Yet at the same time they ignore pesky things like traffic lights, signaling, lane discipline and the fact that the cars around them could kill them ooooh sooo easily. They seem utterly oblivious to the fact they are surrounded by machines that could kill them and joyfully swoop in front of cars, cut across cars, change lanes and even roads at a whim, against the light with the light, hey, even traveling on the wrong side of the road.
And yet, if you run one of these things down, YOU are the criminal!
Motorcyclists
The Cyclists’ big brother, these have no excuse. They have passed tests and have, in theory, licenses to be on the road. They should know better.
They nip in and out of cars laughing that they can weave through bumper to bumper traffic. They’ll undertake, overtake. Take every way they can. And then they whine when they’re hit by cars whose driver can’t see them. Lesson one for bike riders – YOU ARE NOT INVULNERABLE! Let me prove it. Please.
So, good people of the Sparky kill squad. These are your targets. They will be hunted down on the roads and on the motorways, they will be chased in the country lanes and the back alleys, on the rural roads and the urban streets and even to the car park of the M25. We will never cease until every last one has paid the price and Sparky rules the roads supremely
I am firmly of the opinion that everyone who buys a car (except for my sublime self, of course) is suffering from some kind of crippling social, mental or emotional disorder. I pity them and wish to put them out of
Since the law frowns on that kind of thing, instead I will categorise them correctly so that future generations may pursue my genocidal campaign with extreme efficiency.
Methuselah’s Grandmother/father
Any categorisation should begin with these hoary old veterans. One would think that, having reached a truly extreme age, these fossils would be in a desperate hurry to get everywhere since they must know they are not long for this world. I mean, if I ever became a desiccated survivor of about 156 as these crusty old relics seem to be then I would move pretty damn quickly to make sure I got to my destination before the Grim Reaper finally found the note with my name on it where it had got lost stuffed down the back of the sofa. But no, these old folk do not feel the icy hand of death on their shoulder – they do not even feel it getting them in a strangle hold and happily toddle along while passing tortoises burn them off the road and an ever increasing tail back grows behind them.
This, naturally is annoying. But it is not their only flaw, oh no. Their perception of time is so skewed that they believe everyone is quite willing to wait for a substantial portion of even their lifespan for anything – waiting at junctions, pulling out – and gods protect you if you ever get stuck behind one doing a three point turn because you may actually die of starvation before the maneuver is completed.
I suppose it is natural for a desiccated mummy who has survived for centuries to be unconcerned with time, but the rest of us poor mortals are more than willing to give them an extra nudge off their mortal coil.
Norman
Norman is annoying for many of these habits that Methuselah’s Grandparent has – but made all the more exacerbating since he doesn’t have the excuse of advancing senility. Norman probably drives a Skoda, or a Ford Escort or something else dreadfully dreadfully practical. Norman collects pins. Norman likes his cardigans. Norman likes to watch interesting documentaries about basket weaving. Norman is sensible. Norman drives 5mph under the speed limit, or 55mph, whichever is slower. This applies even when he is in the fast lane. He is painfully aware of every single traffic law, no matter how obscure or archaic. He would have men with red flags run in front of his car if he could. He never overtakes, even when stuck behind a Methuselah’s Grandparent or a Cyclist. He never pulls out from a junction until he can see clear road for a hundred miles either side of him. He will loudly boast that he has never had an accident while around him the bodies pile high as people desperately seek to escape his aura of boredom. The most annoying thing about Norman is that if, like any sane person, you are driven to reckless abandon to try and get away from him and it all goes wrong you can’t BLAME him because he is RIGHT. He’s just right in the most wrong way.
Nervous Nellie
She may have just passed her test. She may be the only survivor of a multi-car pile up on the M62. She may have an absolute pathological terror of all things with wheels and is only driving because her psychiatrist said it would be empowering and give her closure (words that may well mean nothing but are being spoken by someone who is being paid copious amounts of money so must be taken seriously). Whatever the reason, Nellie is very very nervous indeed.
At first glance, Nellie can be taken for a Norman since they have many of the same habits – slow, excessively careful driving and an almost religious devotion to traffic law. She starts shaking if he drives above 40mph. She won’t pull out of a junction without written instructions from the pope. She wouldn’t overtake even if the pope was sat in the back seat with a gun pressed to her head ordering her to do so. But there are subtle differences, oh yes. One of the most obvious ones is that Nellie will react to situations that no-one but her can perceive. We assume this is because she skipped her medication this week and has started hallucinating. You will be happily driving along and suddenly Nellie will, with a gasp of horror, decide to slam her foot down on the breaks. She will wait like a frightened mouse until the lorry on the other side of the dual carriageway has actually passed before actually daring to accelerate again. Even the slightest, almost imperceptible things will send her foot crashing to her break pedal while she hyperventilates in the driving seat, trembling hands glued to the wheel.
Nellie manages to combine the sheer boredom of the first two with the added adrenaline rush of being utterly unpredictable. For every crash she avoids by being slow and careful, she causes 3 more by swerving around the road and breaking randomly. The kill squads will probably find her lurking in the back of a cupboard or hiding under a bed when they move to hunt her down.
Wanda the WonderWoman! (or Steve, the SuperMan!)
Wanda can cook, clean, hold down 3 jobs, bring up 6 children, cure cancer and solve world hunger – all while driving at the same time.
Well, no, no she can’t. But she thinks she can. Wanda is a busy woman. In that car she will be beating, fiddling with the GPS which has decided to send her to Helsinki, reapply her make up, trying to fold a map, trying to find that medieval Croatian folk music channel on the radio, eating a 6 course meal (with coffee), holding a conference call to Japan on her mobile phone and trying to negotiate a middle east peace proposal. She’s also driving, but that’s not important – it’s certainly low down her list of priorities.
Wanda is dangerous. Wanda hasn’t the slightest clue about what’s happening around her as she is entirely occupied by everything that’s happening in her car. She is blissfully ignorant of traffic lights, lane discipline, traffic, right of way, speed limits and, in extreme cases, corners and where the actual road is.
It is advised that drivers sharing a length of road with Wanda or Steve should back off and watch with amusement until she kills herself in a dreadful accident. Then they should pull over, get out of their cars and proceed to point and laugh.
Mr. Floppy
Mr. Floppy has issues. Perhaps because of some *ahem* problem elsewhere in his life, Mr. Floppy has decided to buy himself a sports car to rebalance the scales. He will then prove his mighty virility and power by managing to outrun a Skoda in his overpowered 2 seater sports car. It is apparent that he considers this manfully powerful act to be a testament of his superior skills.
These drivers are obviously a menace but usually zip off to the distance pretty quickly to find a nice immovable object of their very own and rarely present a prolonged threat.
His Supreme Majesty, the King of the Road
We all know the type, and I’m sure everyone is expecting the words Bastard Moronic Wanker (BMW) to arise soon. Actually I find the owners of expensive cars to be the worst kind of Nervous Nellies for fear their precious baby gets a scratch and the insurance trebles and their stretched budget grows ever thinner.
No, the worse kind of King are professional drivers – taxi, lorry and bus drivers. ESPECIALLY the latter 2. They know they’re bigger. They know that if there is a crash then peasant drivers will be squished thoroughly under foot. They know we will get out of the way (as good peons should). Buses pull out from bus stops happily charging through anything in the way. They will merrily change lanes at the slightest whim with nary a signal to the peasants who may presume to share – for all our lanes do belong to them. Lorries will happily park up anywhere to unload – after all, it is their road, us peons should be happy that his Majesty deigns to grace us with his presence. We should get out of our cars and pay homage to his Majesty who has decided to block the entire road. All hail! All Hail!
A brutal, Russian style coup is the only option to depose these vile vehicle aristocrats.
Sir Lancelot, the White Knight
They say chivalry is dead. If I ever get my hands on Lancelot, it will be.
Lancelot is polite. He lets people out at junctions and slip roads, he gives way to people when he doesn’t have to, he never overtakes, he lets pedestrians cross and always gives cyclists plenty of room. And he causes utter chaos on the roads.
It’s nice to find polite people, they’re all too rare – but roads have traffic laws, not self-effacing courtesy. When Lancelot stops at a roundabout to let everyone else go first the whole thing stalls as no-one can figure out what’s happening. People at narrow roads stop in confusion as the guy who has priority sits their like a lemon, grinning like a boy scout after his double dose of Ritalin. And this is aside from the people stuck behind him, happily wishing him death as he lets another grandparent of Methuselah out or reduces Nervous Nellie to tears as she can’t figure out whether to pull out or not.
Future generations will have to find a lance and insert it into the appropriate orifice. Unto death.
Cyclists
Cyclists suffer a delusion. They believe they are cars. They also believe they are invulnerable. They merrily peddle along at speeds that would frustrate even Methuselah’s grandparent. They move along in the middle of the road so you can’t pass them. Yet at the same time they ignore pesky things like traffic lights, signaling, lane discipline and the fact that the cars around them could kill them ooooh sooo easily. They seem utterly oblivious to the fact they are surrounded by machines that could kill them and joyfully swoop in front of cars, cut across cars, change lanes and even roads at a whim, against the light with the light, hey, even traveling on the wrong side of the road.
And yet, if you run one of these things down, YOU are the criminal!
Motorcyclists
The Cyclists’ big brother, these have no excuse. They have passed tests and have, in theory, licenses to be on the road. They should know better.
They nip in and out of cars laughing that they can weave through bumper to bumper traffic. They’ll undertake, overtake. Take every way they can. And then they whine when they’re hit by cars whose driver can’t see them. Lesson one for bike riders – YOU ARE NOT INVULNERABLE! Let me prove it. Please.
So, good people of the Sparky kill squad. These are your targets. They will be hunted down on the roads and on the motorways, they will be chased in the country lanes and the back alleys, on the rural roads and the urban streets and even to the car park of the M25. We will never cease until every last one has paid the price and Sparky rules the roads supremely
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-17 01:04 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-17 05:25 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-17 01:33 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-17 05:24 pm (UTC)I have to kill you now :p
(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-17 01:44 pm (UTC)(I'd be a Nervous Nellie....)
(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-17 05:24 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-17 04:12 pm (UTC)Definately need to start training the younger generation about this.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-17 05:23 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-17 04:20 pm (UTC)http://amasci.com/amateur/traffic/traffic1.html
(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-17 05:22 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-17 06:12 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-17 08:42 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-17 07:07 pm (UTC)Closely related is the driver who will change lanes repeatedly in bad traffic to save a grand total of seven seconds of driving time.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-17 10:48 pm (UTC)Those precious seconds!
(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-17 08:00 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-17 10:48 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-18 10:00 am (UTC):P
(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-18 05:41 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-17 08:42 pm (UTC)I was in danger of becoming that person until i went to change lanes, some asshole a few cars back did too, sped up to get ahead of me, and scraped the side of my front bumper. That was all I needed to shock me into some good road behaviour (although thankfully, not a Nervous Nellie). The scrape was minor, but he would have had a loooong scratch down the side of his car. Moron didn't even stop ._.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-17 08:46 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-17 10:52 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-18 02:23 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-18 05:40 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-18 08:05 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-23 11:38 am (UTC)If they do.. *revs engine threateningly*
(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-17 10:51 pm (UTC)P plater is probably a King of the road I think :) Maybe I need an addendum.
I think all newly passed drivers who aren't Nellies need to have a scare.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-18 02:23 am (UTC)I don't do this for all the people who try to overtake me... it's specially reserved for those people who are tailgating me, pulling to the side at every opportunity to try and get past, etc etc etc.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-18 05:40 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-17 10:21 pm (UTC)Although I'm afraid I have severe Nellie tendencies, but I still haven't finished my driving lessons so maybe there is still hope! :D
(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-17 11:16 pm (UTC)Hopefully the lessons will cure you of nellieness - or we'll have to send in the pope with a .45
(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-18 10:20 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-18 05:38 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-18 08:43 am (UTC)(Also, when referring to a car, it's spelled 'brake'.)
(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-18 05:39 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-18 09:56 am (UTC)...And yes, the hurriers need their own category. You know, the jackasses that change lanes every 2 seconds just to get around people (as if they could somehow get to some mythical Front of the Line ahead of everyone else on the road) and make an utter hazard of themselves passing at every opportunity-- and then you immediately catch back up with them at the next traffic light.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-18 05:39 pm (UTC)I need to add an addendum it seems
(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-18 06:03 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-23 11:37 am (UTC)