Tag: highway code

#oneaday Day 597: An Open Letter to That Guy Driving Up My Arse with His Lights on Full

Dear Sir,

I have not bothered to address this post “Dear Sir/Madam” because you and I both know that if there’s someone on the road driving like a dicktwat, it’s inevitably a person of the penis-sporting bloke persuasion, and often sporting a small penis at that. (I have no actual empirical or scientific evidence for this, but it is a fact.)

I write with regard to your driving this evening, when you drove up our arse (not literally) with your lights on full (literally) in an attempt to overtake by any means necessary. I can only assume that you were either on some sort of secret mission and being pursued by Polish mobsters or that you were Polish mobsters pursuing someone on a secret mission. Otherwise I can’t possibly imagine what would require you to get past quite so urgently on a relatively quiet Wiltshire road at about 7.30 in the evening.

I do hope you didn’t find the fact that we were driving relatively slowly to be too much of an inconvenience. Obviously being in our own car we were unable to hear what you were saying, but doubtless you were encouraging us to drive faster. However, as you undoubtedly discovered when you did eventually get past, we were ourselves driving behind a large milk lorry which felt the need to brake for every slight corner, however shallow it might have been.

I trust that nothing in your car’s interior or about your person was on fire at the time of you requiring to get past with such urgency. As I have already intimated, I am somewhat at a loss as to exactly why you would need to be in front of us quite so urgently. Perhaps your scrotum was being eaten by a flesh-eating bacteria and you were on the way to receive treatment at a hospital. However, if this was indeed the case and you find yourself the unfortunate victim of scrotal flesh-eating bacteria again in the near future, I would encourage you to call for an ambulance rather than attempting to drive there yourself. Having your scrotum eaten by flesh-eating bacteria is doubtless somewhat painful, or at the least somewhat irritating, which would take your attention off the road to an arguably dangerous degree. While it may be embarrassing to explain to the nice ladies and gentlemen on the 999 line that your scrotum is being slowly ingested by said flesh-eating bacteria, you’ll only have to explain yourself in person when you eventually arrive at the hospital clutching your ballsack to yourself like a bag of marbles with a hole in it.

Perhaps I have misjudged you. Perhaps you were, in fact, on a humanitarian mission to deliver food to poverty-stricken families in a Third World country. If this was indeed the case, however, you are a long way from the nearest airport, being in deepest darkest Wiltshire as you were. And although there are plenty of hills here, I doubt very much that parking atop one of them and throwing the food off would carry it far enough to reach its intended recipients.

Or perhaps I was correct in my initial snap judgement of you in that I believe you are a bellend. The fact you overtook first us and then the milk lorry on a dark road with little regard for whether or not anything was coming the other way suggests something of a devil-may-care attitude towards life which some people may find laudable but others may find to be the mark of a tit-faced wanksplat. I am, as you may have guessed, in the latter category.

I remain, sir,

Yours,

Pete Davison

#oneaday, Day 190: The Highway Code Errata

It has come to our attention that there are a number of sections of The Highway Code which state rules incorrectly. This document is designed to correct these mistakes.

Rules for Pedestrians

  • ITEM 1 – “Footways or footpaths (including any path along the side of a road) should be used if provided.” should read “Footways or footpaths are optional for use when intoxicated.”
  • ITEM 4 – “Young children should not be out alone on the footway, footpath or road.” should have “unless you can’t be bothered to look after them yourself” added.
  • ITEM 13 – “Routes shared with cyclists”. This rule is obsolete. Pedestrians may go wherever they want regardless of anyone else.

Rules for Cyclists

  • ITEM 69 – “You MUST obey all traffic signs and traffic light signals” should read “You MUST NOT obey all traffic signs and traffic light signals”.
  • ITEM 71 – “You MUST NOT cross the stop line when the traffic lights are red” should read “You MUST cross the stop line when the traffic lights are red, particularly if there are pedestrians on a crossing.”

Rules for Motorcyclists

  • ITEM 88 – “You should be aware of what is behind and to the sides before manoeuvring” should read “Manoeuvring may be done at any time regardless of your surroundings. THINK BIKE, is what everyone else should be thinking.”

Rules for Drivers and Motorcyclists

  • ITEM 91 – “the most effective ways to counter sleepiness are to drink, for example, two cups of caffeinated coffee and to take a short nap (up to 15 minutes)” should be in bold, red print.
  • ITEM 97 – “[Before setting off you should ensure that] you have switched off your mobile phone” should read “your mobile phone is within moderately-easy reach and is not attached to a hands-free kit, particularly if driving a car of German origin.”
  • ADDENDUM – “Drivers of cars of German origin have a special function, normally occupied by the hazard warning lights. Simply activate these lights to be legally permitted to park anywhere you like, however inconvenient it may be to other users and whether or not it is otherwise legal to do so.”

Traffic Signs

  • “No Overtaking” should read “No Overtaking unless you think you can take them”.
  • “Maximum speed” should read “Minimum speed”
  • “No entry for vehicular traffic” should read “No entry for vehicular traffic, except you, because you’re special.”
  • “One-way traffic” should read “One-way traffic recommended, but optional”.
  • “No waiting” and “No stopping” should both have “unless you are driving a Mercedes, BMW or Audi and put on your hazard lights” added.
  • “Loose chippings” should read “Wheelspin zone”.
  • “STOP” should read “GO”.
  • “GO” should read “STOP”.
  • “No vehicles carrying explosives” should read “WTF are you, a terrorist?”
  • “No U-turns” should read “U-turns permitted for German cars only”.
  • “Steep hill downwards” should read “Step on it!”
  • “Steep hill upwards” should read “Step on it!”
  • “Cattle”, “Wild animals” and “Wild horses or ponies” should all read “OMG AMINALS”.
  • “Queues likely” should read “Queues guaranteed”.
  • “Humps for 1 mile” should read “Innuendo ahead”.
  • “Hump bridge” should read “Dogging hotspot ahead”.
  • “Risk of ice” should read “You work it out”.

Thank you for your understanding. An updated edition of the Code will be printed and released shortly.