The Terror of the Boy Racer

To my eternal shame I admit to having been a boy racer in my youth. I believe at the time my whole structure was misaligned. My brain resided in my penis, and my head, where my brain was supposed to be collected fecal matter until it flowed out of my mouth. Inevitably I crashed and got banged up really good, but the net effect was to shake things into their proper places. Now I find it inconceivable when looking back on the total disaster that I was.

So, it was that I had some understanding for what was going through the mind of the boy racer I encountered this past week. There was nothing going through his mind. Firstly, it was raining, so instead of slowing down and having respect for the condition of the road, boy racer drove like the lunatic he is. He overtookd me on the crest of a hill with no idea of whether traffic was coming towards us. As good luck had it, nothing was coming so we all ducked that bullet.

I went into town and did my errand, but on the way back I came upon a crash, with police and ambulance in attendance. Who was involved was none other than boy racer. He had evidenly been into town and back, and was on his way back again into town. This time, driving fast on a notorious bend he spun out and crashed sideways into a truck that was an unmovable object, that left boy racer and his BMW in a very sorry state. He was being loaded into the ambulance when I drove by. Wonderful! His car looked like a total write off. I can only hope that he will be out of commission for a very long time so at least he remains away from behind the wheel.

I suppose that as young people we all go through various forms of self-destruction. If it is a part of our DNA to do such things there will not be a lot that we can do,except to survive, if we're lucky. It's probably some form of a culling of the species, but for those of us who survive our own experience we can only shake our heads and make tut tut noises. The other thing that we have to do is hope that when one of these kamikaze nut cases are coming our way that it simply ends up as an argument between that person and a tree, in which case the tree will win.

Life's funny that way!

Copyright (c) 2015  Eugene Carmichael

Copyright (c) 2015  Eugene Carmichael

Parking can be worse than Driving!

Unfortunately, due to a technical problem I can't share with you a picture that speaks more than a thousand words.

I chose to write about some drivers who are even worse at parking than they are at driving. This was because during the week I parked in an authorised parking area that does not have parking bays outlined. Somehow, four other drivers found it made sense to them to hem in myself and two other cars. I was looking for some sort of logic to try and understand how and why they would do that while I waited for one of the damned fools to come back.

I thought about a common practise that went on for years in Valencia City. In the city. you might have parralled parked your car along the curb, only to come back to find that another row of cars have parralled parked alongside your line. The idea was to leave their cars in neutral with the handbrake in the off position so that you could push all the cars that was necessary in order to get out. No one seemed to get angry. I guess they felt that next time it would the other person's turn to push.

I went looking for examples of really bad parking, especially that which showed a complete lack of care or concern on the part of the offending drivers. The picture I wanted to show you was of three cars that were hemmed into the disabled parking bays by two drivers who had deliberately parked so that it was clear they were causing great inconvenience. One of those cars was an Audi that was evidently driven by a person who had fecal matter where the brain would normally be.

Shame! Shame! Shame!

One thing I do not understand is, that when taking the picture of such a disgraceful thing, the number plate is digitallyy obscured. May I suggest that newspapers regularly run such pictures, leaving the plates unobscured and naming and shaming the car owners. It seems to me that in order to get people to be responsible for their actions the school of public opinion could be very effective. Obviously, if that person is allowed to simply drive away without any condemnation, they will repeat their thuggish actions.

I will finish by relating my favourite story: I was having a coffe at a cafeteria at a table alongside the roadway. A little farther along a man started honking his horn because someone had parked hemming him in. He honked his horn for about five minutes. A lady at a table two along from me got up, casually said goodbye to her companion, and to my astonishment she walked along to drive away in her car; the one that was blocking the man in. He noticed as well and got out of his car and they got into it. Yelling and screaming very foul words back and forth. Finally, he got back in his car, but she had something more to say to him, so she threw open her door just as another car came along and ripped the door off.

I hope she learned a lesson that day, but most probably that was asking too much.

Copyrigt (c) 2015  Eugene Carmichael

A very bad start to the New Year

The period between January first and the seventh, covering the aftermath of New Year celebrations and the sixth, being the Reyes festival when the Three Kings visit the homes to give the children their gifts, was a time when things went horribly bad for many families. Fifty people lost their lives on the roads at a time when no-one should have ended their lives.

The formula for surviving such disasters is simple. Do not get behind the wheel if you have been drinking alcohol or taking drugs. You really do need your full sense of concentration because things change so suddenly. I do not even take my eyes off the road to operate my CD player, and I don't respond when my phone rings. No one ever needs to contact me instantly, although they may think so.

I feel saddened for the families that were afftected, especially the children. The worst death was that of a man who was playing the role of one of the Three Kings. His throne was caught by an overhead cable and he was toppled backwards and landed on his head. For the children, and their parents, watching this happen it was a calamity of the greatest proportions. That will be stamped on the minds of the children for the rest of their lives.

I hope we accept the warnings and that we conduct ourselves with care, caution, sobriety, common sense, and concern for ourselves and our fellow drivers. Nowhere is it written that we have to die while going about our normal daily business just because we are behind the wheel of our car.

Copyright (c) 2015  Eugene Carmichael

Unlucky Nineteen: An Unwelcome upturn in the number of those fallen on the road!

This image suggests a better year for driving experience then the past year.

We have been given the figure of 1, 131 lives lost due to road crashes during 2014. For the very first time since the introduction of the points system, when there has been a steady decline in losses, this year saw a jump in the number from 1, 112 during 2013 to 1, 131 during 2014. Any which way we look at this situation it's a sad story. Many of the people who lost their lives prematurely were young people. Far too many of the lives were lost due to someone's total stupidity.  But somehow, seeing that the figure actually rose rather than another decline is particularly depressing.

There will be those who say, but yes, but remember there was a time when annual losses used to be 5,191. That was a time when the whole country found that number just totally unacceptable and undigestable.

There are reasons we return in the evening after a day of travel. The reasons are that everyone we encountered during the day were alert and focused, as were we. Everyone took care to be courteous and drove with due care and attention. Probably, we all decided that we would not drink then get in our car and drive. At the end of the day we all returned to our loved ones.

I am fond of pointing out that in my homeland of Bermuda, as pat of the New Year Eve celebrations, the government makes taxis available for revellers to leave their own cars and to ride home, without cost, just so that we don't have people trying to drive home drunk. There are also a lot of policemen around at parking lots, etc to "suggest" very strongly in some cases that you need to take a taxi sir, and here's one now. Get In!

Result: Not one single accident after midnight December 31/ January 1.

What a lovely way to begin the New Year.

Drive safely and carefully. 2015 could be a really great year for you, but only if you're alive to see it through.

Copyright (c) 2015  Eugene Carmichael