Drivers

Drivers are, on the whole, a terrible lot, and crap drivers inevitably pervade. Yet there’s no need for them.

The only reason people drive so badly is because they’re allowed to get away with it. The ones who don’t are either the unlucky exceptions, or the ones who crash. And regardless of how they wind up, it’s always the rest of us who are affected: We’re there when they do crash, or we have to pay for hikes in insurance costs and taxes to increase surveillance, or we have to put up with surveillance cameras. The last one is a joke in itself: Since when has a fast driver automatically been a bad driver? It’s the irrational and crap drivers that should be targeted, not those who are good enough drivers to be able to drive faster. Safety is in ability, not speed. Even so, speed is easiest to keep track of, and the police are only human, and like to do as little work as possible – even if it does mean incompetence. Why do something as difficult as monitoring and removing crap drivers, when they can sit back and let a machine catch vehicles that are moving forwards at a speed faster than an absurd and arbitrarily-set limit? It’s all a huge, complex mess.

There would be no problem if the real problem of removing crap drivers from roads was resolved. It isn’t particularly difficult, either. For example, things would improve immediately and immeasurably if, at the start of the person’s driving life:

• Driving instructors did their job properly. Instead of being motivated by sense rather than money, they could use their intuition, experience and harder testing methods to weed out the hopeless drivers from the rest of us.

• People who fail 3 times were be made to do additional, more rigorous driving tests that were tailored towards monitoring their dangerous faults.

• The government had the power to ban terminally useless learner drivers who should never be allowed onto the road. For example, people who fail 5 times could be banned from driving for life.

The police should monitor the roads for crap drivers. People who are caught doing any of the things in the following list should be taken off the road, until they can prove to a driving instructor that they can drive properly and have read the Highway Code at least once in their entire lives. Those who do any of the following in rush-hour traffic should also be banned for life:

• Those who drive 40mph in a 30mph area, and 30mph in a 40mph area (there are a lot of them).

• Those who stop at roundabout junctions, even though the roundabout is clear. Where's the logic in this? If you have to stop and wait for traffic on an empty roundabout, surely you're either going to have to be there forever, or to go for it – thereby breaking the rule and proving it a stupid one in the first place.

• Those who, as a rule, drive 10mph below the speed limit.

• Old people, and people who dither and dawdle in general.

• People who indicate right on roundabouts until the very last minute, and therefore don’t make it obvious that they’re leaving the roundabout until it’s too late to be of use. The result is that drivers waiting for these idiots have to waste time stopping at the junction unnecessarily.

• People who slow down noticeably, and then put their indicators on to turn off onto another road.

• Women drivers. I have no doubt that the reason men have more accidents is not because they’re worse drivers. It’s because they have to follow women (and old people), who drive so erratically that they cause men to have accidents. Women get away with not having accidents because everyone keeps out of their way.

• Practicers of what I call “jealous driving” – People who drive slowly until there’s a chance that you can overtake, and then speed up so that you can’t.

• Those who don’t know what the right-hand lane of a motorway is for. This group includes:

People who stick to the right-hand lane even though they’re being undertaken

• Those who are going the same speed as the car in the middle lane, and refuse to do the extra 2mph needed to overtake

• Those who, when in a fast-moving traffic queue in the fast lane, speed up and then slow down constantly, instead of moving at a consistent pace

• Those who get annoyed at the person in front who is moving at a consistent pace. They never seem to notice that, although the traffic in front of the “consistent mover” is getting away, it is probably going to slow down again.

In fact, most of these things are implicitly included in the law anyway. It is illegal to unnecessarily disrupt the flow of traffic - and this is also in the Highway Code. So let’s use the law and report these people. I can envisage in 10 years' time the Drive-time Vigilantes, who have a video camera constantly recording what's happening in front and behind. Useful in many ways - as a deterrant to stop crap drivers (or at least make them think), as evidence to show whose fault the inevitable crash was (see "Women Drivers" above), and also as a means of gathering evidence when reporting crap drivers to the police.

On another point, big cars are unnecessary, and should also be taken off the roads. Only farmers need 4x4s, and only frail and fat people need wide cars. Everyone should have to justify the vehicle that he has purchased, and fat people should have to give a bloody good reason why they’re not a lot thinner. Fast cars are OK, because they keep the traffic flowing efficiently, but only if the driver can prove he is not a boy racer, in need of a penis extension, or a crap driver for one of the previously mentioned reasons – in other words, a tosser.

It’s not just the roads that are a nightmare. Crap parkers should be given an extra parking test so that they don’t clog up public car parks. The test should also include:

• How to park square-on relative to the other cars

• How not to block two lanes

• How to open the car door without banging it into the adjacent vehicle. Another reason why unnecessary 4x4s and wide cars should be banned.

All of this should be added to the Highway Code under the title, “Common-Sense Rules that Everyone should Already Know.” Any driver flouting them is ridiculous, and by definition should be ridiculed.

No wonder drivers are getting more irate and speedier on the roads. It’s to make up for the time lost being stuck behind these people, having to second-guess irrational drivers, and having to navigate roads clogged with too much traffic – most of which wouldn’t be there if crap drivers were banned. Let’s get these idiots off the road, so that at last we can drive in peace.