Had a day off today and went on business to Wiltshire. Coming back along the A346 between Ogbourne St George and Chiseldon (just south of Swindon) I was nearly killed by a complete pillock (didn’t get the number) overtaking at speed coming towards me in heavy rain. I had to slam on my brakes and stop to avoid a head-on collision. If that’d have been any of my pupils after passing their test I suspect they’d have been killed either by collision or running off the road down the embankment.
On the mp3 player today...
Then just north of Stow-on-the-Wold on the A429 I was overtaken in torrential rain by a baby chimp in a black Volkswagen Golf (what else?) on that stretch of road where a whole family was wiped out by an imbecile overtaking in March this year. About 20 minutes later I caught up with him and wondered why – he was driving like a total prat when I saw him the first time, so I hardly expected to see him again unless he was smeared across the front of a lorry. Then I saw the Police car in the queue of traffic in front… clever little chimp! Once the Police turned off near Shipston-on-Stour he was at it again – and he caused an oncoming car to slow down as he nearly had a head-on with them when he overtook three other vehicles in one go. The rain was so heavy at this point you could barely see more than 10 cars ahead.
Finally, the motorway was absolutely solid due the weather and with it being a Friday. On eventually leaving the motorway I was on the junction roundabout (3 and 4 lanes wide, snarled up with traffic at 4pm) and an idiot in a white Inviron van (VD56 AJV) in the left/outside lane decided he needed to be somewhere else, and just tried to pull out in front of me. He was going to go whether I braked or not. He then managed to cross all four lanes in one go and last I saw he was on the inside lane. God only knows how someone who drives a company vehicle can be such a poor driver he is a) four lanes wrong that close to where he needs to be, and b) so stupid that he changes lanes like this in these conditions!
Still, all these examples are great for using with my pupils when I try to get them to understand what sort of pond life they will have to deal with when they pass – and hopefully prevent them turning into pond life themselves.