Diary Of An ADI

I saw this on the BBC website, where two people in Manchester tried to use the McDonalds drive-thru on horseback. Initially, it raised a smile.

However, these days – and particular in places like Manchester – people seem to be sufficiently mentally challenged that they go too far without passing through any of the more traditional intermediate stages first.

In the story, a woman tried to order from the drive-thru lane at a McDonalds branch on horseback. Staff refused to serve her, no doubt because there are numerous food hygiene and safety regulations such food outlets are supposed to adhere to. But it then gets nasty. The pathetic Mancunian chavette in question decided to take her horse INTO the restaurant. That in itself is pretty bad, since even dogs are not allowed in there. But then the horse did the inevitable and dropped a load on the floor.

This was while people were eating, you understand. Can you imagine tucking into your lunch, only to have some vile little bitch drag a horse into the restaurant while you’re eating and allowing it to defaecate right next to you just because she’d not got her own way over something? I wish she’d been named in the story, because I’d happily repeat it here (edit: Her name was Christine McGrail – see the Mail story below).

To make matters worse, it appears that she may already have been allowed to breed. She was accompanied by a girl on a pony, who quite frighteningly could have been her daughter. Mind you, it is even more frightening to think that she could have been someone else’s daughter, having dangerously been left in the care of this example of the lowest caste of society.

The woman was issued with a fixed penalty notice by police. She should have been made to lick up the mess.

And the RSPCA should have been informed. First of all because she took a horse and pony to a McDonald’s outlet in the first place (they tend to be located in busy areas with major roads and lots of traffic, and the animals would almost certainly have been distressed), and secondly because she forced the horse through the electric doors into an enclosed space with irate and frightened people in it. The horse must have been terrified, and anything could have happened. She isn’t fit to own one.

As a footnote, the story has been picked up by various sources. This one is from Horsemart. Note the comments at the bottom – particularly the one from a so-called “Business Intelligence Developer”. The word “intelligence” is a classic example of an oxymoron given his opinion on the matter. What a prat.

More detail in The Telegraph (but still no names). It seems McDonalds staff merely asked her to tie the horse up outside – they just wouldn’t serve her whilst mounted in the drive-thru lane. This makes her even more of a vicious and seriously disturbed individual.

A-ha. Trust The Mail. The unfit parent in question was  Christine McGrail. It seems that she allowed her daughter to take her pony inside – clearly, then, a deliberate act as she left her own full-sized horse outside. The imbecile admits she…

…acted ‘rashly’ after the pony opened its bowels in front of diners but claimed the treatment of horse riders was inconsistent.

Too right she did. An unfit mother who clearly coerced her daughter into leading a pony through the doors of a McDonalds restaurant, unfit to own a horse herself, and clearly dangerous to all when allowed outside without close supervision. An absolute mental case.

Another “new” story reckons that:

…young motorists should be banned from driving at night, carrying a certain number of passengers and after drinking any amount of alcohol to reduce the number of fatal road crashes, a new report has recommended.

It isn’t new at all. It goes back to last year at the very least, and the same issues have been discussed almost continuously for as long as I can remember.

Everyone knows – and has known for many years – that most accidents involving new drivers tick all or most of the following boxes:

• driver aged 17-24
• occur at night
• on rural roads
• on bends
• with passengers in the car
• with no other vehicle being involved
• excessive speed is identified

Everyone also knows that although young drivers only make up about 12% of the driving population, they account for 33% of all road fatalities.

It all comes down to two main factors: inexperience and stupidity (aka attitude).

Every new driver who has ever lived has been inexperienced when they passed their test. There is absolutely nothing that can be done about that, and even if they had to take more lessons or extra post-test training they would still be inexperienced. You see, inexperience is a function of time, and time cannot be made to run any faster in spite of what politicians and newspaper editors might think. And we’re not talking about a few hours of extra “experience” – it requires years of on-road practice to become a completely safe driver. But you can be a responsible driver from the first moment you go out.

So, anyone with any sense would decide to attack the stupidity/attitude issue. After all, none of those drivers was ever taught to drive the way they do now back when they were taking lessons, so why try to blame those lessons for the way they choose to behave now?

Having said all that, I am all for anything which puts the brakes on stupid behaviour. If you want to be treated as an adult, act like one first.

The term “road rage” was coined as long ago as the late 1980s in America as a result of a series of roadside shootings. It was quickly bastardised to mean anything – from a slightly elevated pulse rate, all the way up to mass murder and genocide. The Wikipedia entry makes amusing reading. After effectively identifying every single human behaviour as “road rage” (if it occurs within 50 metres of a car), it then goes on to suggest that road rage is a medical condition. What a load of crap.

But what made me mention it was this story in a Scottish newspaper. Admiral – a company whose purpose is to make as much money out of motorists as possible for the service it knows they have to have – has done some “research” (i.e. it asked some people), and claims that:

As many as 32% say they are subject to road rage more than once a week, a new survey by insurance company Admiral found.

Of those road rage sufferers, 21% have had full-blown arguments with another motorist, while 36% said experiencing road rage made them drive more aggressively.

Believe me, if someone does something stupidly dangerous in front of me, they are going to get a little bit more than the total understanding and complete acquiescence Admiral appears to be suggesting they should merit. Shaking my head, or – if they can lip read – words along the lines of “clucking bat” are not road rage. Nor is there a medical condition anywhere inside my car – any such condition lies wholly with the prat who caused the alleged “road rage” in the first rage.

Road rage is actually when someone takes their anger to extremes and starts physically assaulting people or property. I’ll go as far as saying that physical intimidation is also road rage – where people aggressively tailgate you or deliberately cut you up, for example. But it isn’t just someone being annoyed at someone else’s stupidity, nor is it necessarily any sort of verbal exchange. It’s when it goes beyond that.

Admiral has basically allowed crap drivers to define what “road rage” actually is, and then they’ve run away with the results. I’d lay odds that of the 32% who have apparently encountered it “more than once a week”, most of them will have completely overlooked the fact that they were the fundamental cause of it to start with. If they learnt how to use roundabouts properly, how to drive at the correct speed, how to get into the lane they need more than 5 metres before they need to make a turn, how to signal (it’s that little lever on your steering wheel), how to queue for the next available pump, and so on, there’d be a whole lot less “road rage” around. At let’s not forget that many of them behave the way they do on purpose (especially if they’re Audi owners).

What should change first? The people who drive badly, or the people who they annoy by doing so?

This is funny. Nigel Deans is a driving instructor in Huddersfield, and he was conducting a lesson with his pupil driving in a bus lane outside of its hours of operation. The bus driver – irate at the fact anyone dared enter his own private driving lane – pulled alongside and gave them a mouthful.

When the ADI complained to Huddersfield Bus Company, they responded by informing him that the bus driver knew the rules of the bus lane – quite the opposite of what the actual events seem to suggest.

He said: “They said the driver knew  I was able to drive in that lane but he  was running late and trying to keep to  his timetable.”

Huddersfield Bus Company obviously figures as a prime nominee for the Prat Of The Year Awards. They cement this position even further:

A spokesman from Huddersfield  Bus Company acknowledged the incident but would not confirm if the driver  had been disciplined.

He said: “The driver will be dealt  with how we see fit, within our internal  systems.”

Here in Nottingham, buses are as big a menace as cyclists. I wouldn’t be surprised to discover that their uniforms are made of Spandex. In the last couple of days my pupils have had to deal with one who was indicating to pull off before he’d even stopped to let passengers off on two stops – so determined was he not to let anyone pass; with one other who stopped short of the bus stop and so blocked the road because of the stupidly placed central pedestrian reservations that someone at the council decided we needed several thousand of a few years ago; and numerous others who start moving while you’re overtaking them. They don’t stay within speed limits, they deliberately jump out of light-controlled bus lanes when they see there are no people at the bus stop to avoid having to slow down while the lights change (and which are, in any case, biased in favour of the bus to change immediately one of them trips the proximity sensor), and if they’re actually ahead of schedule they will sit for 10 minutes or more at stops on narrow roads causing chaos while they read the newspaper.

The ADI also makes some valid comments about normal motorists’ use of bus lanes. My favourite around here is on Mansfield Road heading into Nottingham. Absolutely no one goes in it, then there’s a major free-for-all as they all try to move over when it ends. Or, no one goes in it until they see me in it – then they will move over to make sure I don’t get ahead of them. Or, when people are turning left into Mapperley Hall Drive, they wait until they are exactly level with the junction and then attempt a 90° turn into it – usually just in front of me, and without any form of mirror check.

This one makes you step back and think. Akif Hussain was on a provisional licence, was driving uninsured and unsupervised, and was showing off to his mates when he slammed into a 74-year old woman in Nelson, Lancs. He was driving at 59mph in a 30mph zone.

He was jailed for 18 months, ordered to pay £2,000, which he had saved up, in compensation to Mrs Gribble, banned for two years and must take an extended retest.

What pulls you up, though, is the fact that he is a charity worker for the British Heart Foundation, is an IT student, and has worked with disabled children.

It just goes to show that even the nice people can behave like total prats when they’re in a car, and especially when they’re young, immature, and inexperienced.