I was driving a pupil back from her driving test today, and she was in tears because she’d failed. Let’s make no mistake here: she failed because she did things she shouldn’t have. She fully deserved to fail the test, though if she had a full licence she’d be no worse than many other drivers out there who hold full driving licences.
But as we were driving back I saw something that made my blood boil. Travelling along the Ring Road to join Nuthall Road, a white Audi A1 (reg. no. SL62 PPV) first of all accelerated away from the lights in the wrong lane and cut left in front of people on to Nuthall Road. Being an Audi, this was probably not because he/she was accidentally in the wrong lane, but a deliberate attempt to skip a few cars.
It shot off, and we caught up with it at the junction with Melbourne Road and Bar Lane. As traffic came to a stop at the lights, the Audi initially tailgated a blue car into the right-hand (right-turn only) lane, and then cut sharply back to the middle lane without any form of signal. I noticed that as soon as we stopped the driver – hard to tell whether it was male or female as the zit face behind the wheel was obviously going through that androgynous phase many experience before their body decides which hormones to tap into – immediately looked into his or her lap. The driver continued to look there, even when the lights changed, and when he/she eventually moved off he/she was still doing whatever it was they were doing.
They were clearly texting – even at 30mph in heavy 3.15pm school run traffic.
The Audi was literally all over the road. I pointed out to my pupil what they were doing, and we watched them straddle lanes repeatedly as we proceeded to the Broxtowe Lane junction. We could see the driver texting for the whole distance – his/her eyes were spending more time looking down than up. On the approach to the Bell’s Lane roundabout, after having weaved left and right the whole way, they moved into the left-hand lane outside the Tesco garage. Once on the roundabout, they then shot out again and disappeared at speed towards the Nuthall Roundabout.
If the police ever look into this site, I’ll say again that the driver of a white Audi A1, registration number SL62 PPV, was texting while they were driving and, as a result, drove without due care and attention (even to the point of driving dangerously) during the school run through one of the busiest roads in Nottingham at 3.15pm on 19 March 2014.
As I said to my pupil, if people like this can get a licence, she has nothing to worry about.
Note: My pupil passed several weeks later.