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Roger Rabbits with |
Go on! Talk yourself up. Tell us you’re a good driver. You’re a poster child for Waka Kotahi, right?
“I like to think I am a good driver,” you will say.
“I like to think I am a safe, considerate and courteous driver,” you will also say.
Yeah, sure!
And I am not being holier-than-thou. Because I have always known I am NOT a good driver, but I didn’t know I was a crap driver, in serious need of revisioning. Instead of an “L” plate, I should have a “C” for crap driver, or “M” for menace.
I read 90% of people think they’re better than average drivers.
Missy for example - I once told the young speeding driver if she didn’t slow down, this jittery passenger was going to disembark the train.
“I can afford to drive a bit faster cos I’m a very good driver,” she protested.
Who told her that? No one had. She drove crazy because of some crazy notion she was a good driver.
That was moments before she drove across a barrier in a carpark tearing a hole in the sump and causing a catastrophic and expensive loss of oil.
Yeah, go you good driver!
The polls
This prompted an unscientific poll. In other words, I yelled to anyone prepared to listen about what they thought of Tauranga drivers.
Back came a four-letter expletive meaning excrement. They’re s#*t!!
“It’s a well-known and generally accepted fact, isn’t it?” offered one respondent.
I don’t know, but it’s probably my experience.
Our poll suggested incontrovertible evidence that Tauranga drivers are excessively fast, frustratingly slow, arrogant, ignorant and inconsiderate.
“Something to do with Tauranga’s demographics perhaps – something to do with age,” offered up one young driver. That’ll set them off. More ageism, more gratuitous oldster bashing on Page 2 they will say.
But it’s not because I am a certified, crap, septuagenarian driver. NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi told me so.
The results
“STOP!” they said to me in capital letters. “You are engaging in unsafe driving practices and might pose a hazard to yourself and others.”
Damning stuff. My shame comes from doing the agency’s online 15-point self-rating assessment, a kind of multi-choice driving habits quiz, which “helps us examine and compare our driving ability with the requirements for safe driving”.
For once, I found it in me to be honest when doing the assessment. Honest as in “YES, I do think I am slower than I used to be in reacting to dangerous driving situations.” And I answer, ‘ALWAYS’ to the statement that “my thoughts wander when I am driving”. Not never, nor sometimes, but always. And I answer, “ALMOST ALWAYS” to the statement “traffic situations make me angry”. Swearing angry, two finger angry in fact. And I answer ‘NEVER’ to “I try and stay informed on changes to driving rules and the Road Code”. I still haven’t figured who does what on a roundabout. Doesn’t make me a criminal but probably makes me irresponsible.
To the agency statement “I wear a seatbelt”, I honestly answered ‘SOMETIMES”. I often forget until a sweet Japanese voice somewhere under the dash pleads “shītoberuto o chakuyō shite kudasai” – or put your seatbelt on ‘dumbass’.
And ‘NEVER’ do I “get regular eye checks to keep my vision sharp”. That despite dicky eyes and glasses.
Hence my failed test. They’re my shortcomings.
Other drivers
Now a few of yours.
Indicators, those blinky things, are for just that – indicating you are about to do something, not that you have already done something. Motorists are often halfway through a lane change manoeuvre before they cursorily flick on indicators. Explains why “traffic situations make me angry”.
And motorists who rewrite the Road Code on the fly - you give way, but the other motorist, who has right of way, starts waving you through, or around, or any which way. Annoying, frustrating and dangerous.
Shall we all drive to just one set of rules.
A “merging lane” is not an invite to a battle of wills and egos. As the word suggests it’s about joining, integrating, uniting – two lanes of traffic into one, smoothly and courteously. So why do we see merging as a scary challenge involving speeding up, undercutting, flicking of birds, oaths, tooting and in one instance, recently, descending into road rage.
I tooted an undercutter and they responded angrily by heaving rubbish out the driver’s window, back over the roof at me – takeaway containers, empty plastic bottles, an apple. But they got to the next red lights a whole few seconds ahead of me. So, it was worth their while.
As the matriarch understated – “We don’t merge well.”
I am off to read, and take on board, Waka Kotahi’s self-rating assessment advice. “Please read our suggestions for your improvement, for ways to correct your problem areas.”
Thank you. I will.
