Friday, May 8, 2015

Driving My Car

As with most activities I looked forward to doing when I grew up, I love to drive my car.  I truly adore the independence it gives me to go anywhere around the city I live in at anytime of the day or night and how safe I feel on the roads when I'm driving it.

That's a good thing to feel in your own car.

Safe.

However, it's dreadful when other drivers on the road seem to think they either own the road or they don't know the road rules all that well.

Or they don't care.

I've been thinking seriously of getting a dash cam for my car... yeah, honestly I have.  I never had one in my last one, and now I'm back behind the wheel again, I'm hoping to get one.

This is mainly because there's been so many people who are such big idiots on the roads that I can't seem to believe what I see or experience out there.

Take today as a prime example of another driver being an absolute douchbag.  I was on my way to Garden City to get something exchanged (what that was isn't important to this story).  I was about to go under the highway - as I've done many times in my driving experience - when a white ute pulled out in front of me without indicating.  The driver didn't look over his shoulder - into his blind spot - to check to see if anyone was coming down that mostly-empty left-hand lane.  He just pulled out in front of me, causing me to slam on the brakes and blast the horn.

Man!  Did he get the surprise of his life to find my little green Astra right there!  He was less than 2 feet from hitting my car!  I screamed out my window that he was an arsehole, went around him and kept going as his mouth flapped open in shock.

The shock of how close my car came to being totalled didn't really hit me until I parked the car at Garden City and turned the engine off; and I began to shake a little and had a cry to myself that I had come within feet of having a major car accident with some dickhead who was swerving in and out of traffic without thinking.
It was then I jumped out of the car and really checked it over; making sure it was okay - and it was! But the last thing we need on our roads are people who just don't think.

It's not good to have passed your tests and get your car and have the fun time driving around.  You have to use your brain too.  

You have to be observant.

You have to think before you go.

You have to look before you let your car go.

It's just  a matter of common sense - and if you don't have that, well, you don't deserve to be on the roads.  After all, I remember well that my Dad told me many times that having a driver's license was a privilege and driving on our roads was not a right... we don't own the roads, we have to share them with others.  If you can't do that, you don't deserve to be on them. 

2 comments:

  1. had witness many breaking law incidents on the roads in my life. Not just private use motorists I have seen public buses breaking the law too! The worse case is when you see the police doing it too! Consider how much they get away with the law, its about time a motorist with a cam catch them in the act. I always thought how on Earth did these drivers passed their driving test?? I am pretty cautious when I am out driving as I have lost a couple of relatives who were involved in car accidents.

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    1. Actually, there's a facebook page called Dashcam Australia where people who own dashcams upload their footage of people who are really dumb enough to do what they do...

      There's some pretty bad stuff on there... some 'brown seat moments'.

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