Temper temper

I have noticed recently people are getting angrier on the roads.

This morning when I was driving the train station I was on the receiving end of driver aggression.  I’m not sure it would classify as road rage.  I was caught in the wrong lane and put my indictor on.  I then slipped into a space that was more than large enough to fit my tiny car into, in front of the white van of a plumber.  I know he was a plumber because his branding was all over the van, along with his phone number.  What happened next was the start of a few minutes of road harassment.

First he lent of his horn for a prolonged period of time.  More than enough to show his displeasure you’d think.

Then he proceeded to tailgate me for a about a kilometre, all the time making hand gestures that would make a sailor blush, of course I just laughed it off and resisted temptation to brake suddenly.

Then, as the road widened to two lanes, I moved over to let him pass, and pass he did, only to rapidly pull back in front of me (sans indication), before speeding off and into the other lane.  Further up the road he pulled back into the left lane without indicating. 

Over now you’d think.  Ohh now…he was now still really angry about my indication and moving front of him over five minutes ago.

As I pulled up level with him again at traffic lights, two lanes away, I caught him make gestures at me from the corner of my eye.  I didn’t feel the need to look at him and give him the satisfaction of screaming at my silently and I really didn’t want him to see me smiling at his ridiculous behaviour.

Of course, I second guessed myself.  Had a cut in too close?  No, I could clearly see his entire front in my side mirror and over my shoulder.  I’d been indicating for at least 20 seconds…which we all know is ages when sat in a traffic queue and I know he’d seen it because we’d got eye contact in the mirror.

Yesterday, in the news was a story about a young woman being followed home before the attacking driver ran over her Dad and threatened them with a knife, all because she merged in front of him.

Are we losing all perspective of what’s a good thing and what’s a bad thing?

An actor gets saved while out kayaking – he gets blasted for pulling a publicity stunt, maybe he really was lost and was genuinely thankful for the save.  While not really news, kinda of feel good story that should be taken for what it is, not vilified.

A woman gets abused so badly online she makes an attempt on her own life after being repeatedly told to ‘go kill herself’ – she gets blasted for bringing it upon herself, she should have just turned off and heeded the old adage of stick and stones.  No, she should be able to conduct her life and work without being abused by hidden cowards with anger issues.

A woman tries to merge on a busy highway, a requirement of getting from A to B in a motor vehicle and experienced countless times a day by hundreds of thousands of drivers around the world - she gets followed home and threatened with a knife

I get abused for changing lanes while indicating and called an ‘attention seeking whore’ for looking for my dog.

I do believe the world really has gone crazy.

Can we all just calm down and look at our behaviour towards others.  We all have a life to lead.  For the most part we try to do so without interfering too much in each others lives.  We’re all busy, your time is worth no less than mine.  We all just want to live peacefully.  In the end it all comes back to what George Bernard Shaw said in 1903:

'Do not do unto others as you would that they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same.'    

Our Nations Capital

Last weekend Todd and I took a drive down to Canberra. He’s leaving in less than a month and he hadn’t seen Parliament House except on telly. So we piled into the car armed with nothing except our cameras and drove the three hours from Sydney to that no mans land that is our nations capital.

- The Big Arse Merino in Goulburn

We had a Stop Revive Survive moment at Goulburn so Todd could have his phot taken with the Big Marino. Which by the way they have moved. It’s now by the eateries and petrol station on the right, next to the freeway. I couldn’t believe he hadn’t heard of it. We took a couple of pictures, but got back in the car quick sharpish ‘cause it was freezing! The wind was howling and we were in shirt sleeves with no jumper or jackets in the car. Little did we know at that time, but we spent the whole day dashing from the car to the picture spot and back again.

We stopped at the end Lake George to take pretty pictures of how green it is at the moment (rarely has water in it).
We stopped at the state boarder for a photo shoot with Todd riding the sign.

- Ride It Cowboy!

When we got to Canberra we went straight to heart of it. Parliament House! I stopped were he told me too and within seconds we were being moved on by Federal Police on a push bike. But we got the photos we came for (a few we didn’t) so we left and moved to the next thing. The Birdie on a stick. Actually the American/Australian monument it really is a big bird on a very long/high pole. Todd had to lie on the floor to get it all in, I just told him to get a better camera.

- Move Along please sir!
- The Birdie on a Stick with Todd in the foreground

Then we drove round the inner ring road a few times before moving onto have a look at the Sex Shops of Fyshwick. We’d heard they were good. Turns out there are a lot of them, but not all of them are good.

On the way out of Canberra we stopped at a winery. We tasted (he swallowed, I spat) several very nice wines, both red and white, chatted with the cellar door staff then purchased half a dozen before hitting the road home.

With the light on our side we drove north again. We decided to stop and have dinner in Sutton Forest. We had steak and chips. I had a cup of hot tea and Todd had wine. We were both bloody freezing! We both had a great day, we laughed so hard that snot came out of my nose (I had a cold), we ate McDonalds, we talked crap, we talked about serious stuff and we dared to touch our toes to the wicket that Don Bradman played.

- Last time he tried this he got chucked off for playing silly buggers ;-)

12 sleeps to go.

Lane Discipline

Driving south on the freeway tonight I saw this van, as it was doing exactly the speed limit I couldn’t really overtake, but I did have to take a picture because after twenty odd kilometres and not a single other car on the road it was still sitting in the middle lane. It seems he forgot about moving into the left lane.

You can image how it looked when I got close enough to see the branding on the side, back and front.

Stopped

I got stopped by an RBT last night after dropping off Edna. It wasn’t a too pleasant experience, but the policeman was rather cute, so the eye candy took the edge off a bit.

I had spent the evening swimming, spaing and saunaing with Edna and I’d had a shower before taking her home, so I was dressed in my finest trakkie daks and t-shirt. All I had with me was my mobile phone and car keys.

NOTE TO SELF : You MUST have your driving license with you when driving.

I hadn’t been drinking, so no problem there, but no license meant they looked up my rego and I had to tell them who the car was registered to, to prove I was who I said I was. They then asked me were I’d been and where I was going. Then they looked over the car. Except for a mouldy chip down between the driver’s seat and the gear stick they found nothing bad. I was sent on my way.

I popped in to see Trixy briefly (she lives just round the corner from were I was stopped) so she could tell me how well the exam she’d just taken went, had have half a glass of champagne. I got home at just after 11.

What a fun filled evening?

Pedestrians Don’t Bounce

I did a bit of driving around town today in a last minute dash to clean up a few things before going away tomorrow and found myself wondering why people continue to take on tonne or two of metal and rubber.

I had at least four people step out in front of me while I was driving down the street at 50kph. One girl even ran out in front of the bus that was next to me, when she caught what I said about her actions through my open window, she had the nerve to turn and tell me not to be rude. The silly bit*h ran out in front of a bus!

How many times have you stepped out in front of traffic and lived to tell the tale?

PS. 14 hours til I fly

Stereotypes and Driving

Towards the end of another 400km of driving last night I got to thinking about driving in general (this may have been prompted by the guy in the Toyota Landcruiser tail gating, but I’ll let you judge that ;-)

Anyway…there are many stereotypes when it come to driving and cars that I have heard, at least one I believe to be fairly actuate, others I think are a lot of old tosh!

For instance, I think the one about women being bad drivers is true. Yes, Yes, I know I have just let down women kind (myself included) by saying this, but I have a little evidence to back this one up.

In general, women do not drive as many k’s as men, they tend to drive larger cars (read 4WD that never see dirt) ‘cause the feel safer in them (what about everybody else?) and more often than not are looking at what’s happening on the back seat rather than looking at the road. I have witnessed this, here the tally for yesterday alone.

Women so little they could hardly see over the steering wheel, let alone the bonnet – 1
Women looking over their shoulder, swatting the kids playing up in the back seat and hence lane drifting – 2
Women driving 80km on a freeway in the middle lane, hunched over the steering wheel with eyes the size of saucers – 2
Women chatting to their girlfriend so much they go 20kms out of the way, opps… that was me and Edna, last weekend on the way to Ikea ;-) - 1
Women chatting to the girlfriend in the passenger seat and lane drifting – 1
Women to scared to change lanes, so indicate, then don't move, then indicate agian. A girlfiend from work calls them 'Twitchers' - 2 (Thanks, Sally).

On the other hand, it was a man driving up my backside so close he could have opened the boot and climbed in.

Travelling Saleswoman – Day One

For the last few days I have been on the road. In my current role as a change manager and communications nerd for a government agency that has something to do with infrastructure I am required to go to some of the offices around the state and tell them about the project I’m working on, but will affect them in a big way. Actually it’s a small way; it just affects a lot of people.

So on Wednesday morning I left home at the fairly civilized time of 8.30am to drive to Dubbo. Unlike Monday when I left home at 6.30am to drive to Newcastle and back in a day.

Back to Dubbo or rather out to Dubbo. I drove up through the Hunter Valley and onto the Golden Highway. Such a nice name for a highway, it brings images of sunshine and flowers lining the way. It did have the sunshine and as I drove further out west the temperature climbed for a nice 22degrees to 29 to 32. By the time I reached the outer marker (fifty kms to go) it was 36 degrees and it was noon.

I had been traveling behind a truck for the last forty or so k’s and needed a change of scenery so when a straight stretch disappeared into a haze I put my foot down and started to go round him. As I was traveling just ever so slightly over the speed limit on the wrong side of the road a rabbit dashed out in front of me. I had that moment of thought that asked if I should break. I didn’t and a fox followed the rabbit across the road in front of me. Both the rabbit and fox survived the road crossing, but I have no idea what happened later as I was already thanking my lucky stars I didn’t collect a fox on my grill at 130.

I arrived in Dubbo with plenty of time before I was due to deliver my sales pitch. It went well and everybody was nice. After a little snack on some tea and scones I was on the road to Parkes.

I was due to deliver two sessions in Parkes on Thursday but I decided so I didn’t have to get up to early I would stay overnight in the town that brought us The Dish. I was actually quite excited and had even requested this run ‘cause I knew G, my follow deliverer had no interest in going out west. I like driving and love the barren wasteland that is the great Australian bush. So I found myself hurtling toward Parkes at 3.30 on a Wednesday afternoon hoping to catch the Parkes Radio Telescope Visitors Centre still open. Just after four I passed a sign that gave the opening time of said Visitors Centre. I had 15 minutes until it closed and over twenty k’s to get there. I could do it! And I did with five minutes to spare. I went in, took the lovely pictures you see here, brought a cloth patch for my ‘look where I’ve been’ blanket and left. I can now say ‘Been there, seen that’.

After enquiring at several Motor Inns and being told ‘No room at the Inn’ I found one on the outskirts of town. The Bushmans Motor Inn is a four star establishment with a swimming pool, an onsite restaurant and room service for those who don’t wish to mingle. All they had left was a spa room so I found myself standing at the doorway to the bathroom looking at a moohosive bath, big enough for three and thinking, ‘after driving all day I think I need to have a bath.’ So after dinner of steak (sorry, but there was fish on the menu but there is something that just doesn’t feel right about order fish when you’re hours away from the nearest water way or ocean) and veggies and a glass of very nice Cabernet Merlot that went straight to my limbs I wandered back to my room for a bath.
It took twenty minutes to fill the gigantic tub and it was worth it. It was so big I had to stretch my toes to hold myself in place with my head barely above the water line, when I lost my stable position I would slip under the water in a less than graceful manner. So the relaxation part of the bath was short lived, but I had fun away. As a showerer normally the novelty of a bath was nice. The warmth of the water had assisted the glass of wine nicely and I was well and truly ready for my bed and it was only eight thirty.

A couple of interesting facts about Parkes;
1 They have a street named after a totally unfashionable (usally a mullet haircut, black jeans and t-shirt and flannel shirt and has a old bomb of a car) young man who live outside the city. (Edna, this one's for you;-)
2. They are twinned with Coventry in the UK. Ironically in thr UK when you've done something bad and no one speak to you, you are 'sent to Coventry'

FreeWay to do what you like

So, picture this. You’re driving along a three lane freeway at night, there a virtually no cars on the road with you, do you;

A) Sit at approximately the speed limit in the left hand lane minding you own until you have to overtake someone
B) Sit in the middle lane going twenty kilometres slower than the speed limit with your headlights on beam and your fog lights on
C) Sit in the right lane going nearly thirty kilometres slower than the speed limit (so you appear to be stopped) and don't move when someone approaches
D) None of the above, just don’t drive at night 'cause it's scary

Well, if you were one of the pillocks out tonight you would have be doing B and C when they really should have been doing D ‘cause clearly they have no idea how to be safe night-time driving!

White Van Woman

On Tuesday I had to take the girls (alpacas, Wispa and Arabella) from their current home on a little spa retreat / shag feast. So I borrowed the white van, loaded them up and drove a little over 300kilometers south to a place called Canyonleigh and their home for the next three months.

But I find myself a part of a unique family. That of the White Van Man. When you drive a white van you all sense of yourself behind the wheel. You have to rely on the wing mirrors and leave plenty of time to maneuver with lots of indication. The only problem is that other road users don’t get that. And I, as a car driver normally am one of those people.

So I now have a respect for the White Van driver. Yes, I still think they drive like pricks, but then so do I when behind the wheel of a vehicle with limited visibility, slow mobility and zero air con.

(165 words)