SubscribeThis is a whinge… I state that now so that those of you who aren’t at all interested in whinges can just ignore it. Whinge whinge whinge whinge whinge…
I’ll admit that I’m not the bestest of little old granny driving… But this weekend just gone’s trip to Sydney was well… Driving me round the bend with the idiots that get licences these days…
Lets start with the heading out of Canberra… Yes, It snowed at Lake George… Yes.. Drivers should slow down when there is snow and ice on the road. But to slow down from 110Kph to 30Kph by slamming on the brakes is just idiocy. To top it of, I had someone intentionally pull out of the left lane to slow me down (Yes, I was travelling at about 60-70Kph, quite comfortably within my ability to control the situation), this is not only stupid, risky and well… lets stick with Idiocy, it’s also counter productive to safety. For me to be getting out of everyone way by over taking them when they weren’t comfortable traveling at a slightly high speed means that there are less cars bunching up and less potential for a huge multi-car pileup. When I drove through there were some cars that had skidded off the road, there were reasonably clear tracks through the snow covered road, and well… the little flicks of the steering wheel to test the grip proved that things weren’t dire. Anyway… Ahhhh Release! Now on to the next whinge… and yes, you’ll notice there’s a theme.
So what’s with these people that slow down when trying to merge with traffic going at 110Kph? You know… the ones that try and merge doing 80Kph or sometimes slower and wonder why it’s so damn hard? It’s frustrating and it happening far to often. Do we need to ban drivers from freeways unless they can merge safely*? Surely even 5th grade students can see that the safest and easiest way to merge with traffic on a freeway is to match their speed before you get to the bottom of the on-ramp? If you are going 110Kph and they are going 110Kph then you’re really not going to hit anyone that hard. The biggest safety issue with traveling at that speed is that if you fudge up, then the damage has the potential to be more. But seriously… if you are traveling at 80Kph and they are traveling at 110Kph that’s like hitting a brick wall at 30Kph. Speed in driving is relative when it comes to the cars around you.
The fact is, all driving is dangerous… But it’s the idiots like those above that increase the chances of something disastrous going wrong.
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