The fools of the road …

Every country has its driving peculiarities. The French, for instance, do not give a tuppeny bit about their cars – it is merely a means of getting form A to B – and if you have to push in the door of another car in order to get into a space, then so be it. The Americans are great at driving in straight lines, but shit at going round corners. The British pride themselves on letting people out of turnings, but try jumping the queue and you’ll have a plasterer from Twickenham tapping on your window with a tyre iron and a very angry expression on his face – verily it is road rage blighty.

And then there’s the Australians. Like all nationalities they have their foibles. I’ve lived here for three years now and these driving habits have been getting on my tits since day one. In no particular order, here’s my list.

• Tailgating. This is truly an Australian driving obsession. I’ve never endured it so often in any country I’ve ever driven in. You’re going along, minding your own business when a car approaches you from behind and proceeds to sit mere feet from your rear bumper. It’s like they can’t proceed down the road unless they’re close enough to you to read the small print on the car dealership sticker in your rear window. Now normally you’d think to yourself, ‘hmmm this cunt behind me is obviously in a bigger hurry than the rest of us schmucks so I’ll let him/her pass’. But often they’re not interested in passing you, they just want a vehicular cuddle. If a passing lane comes along they’ll continue to sit there, inches from your boot. I have several solutions to the tailgaters which include slowing right down to about 40kph, braking suddenly and without warning and weaving eratically within the lane. Some form of armed response might be in order too.
• Going really slowly until you hit dual lanes. So you’re driving along and you come up behind some twonk who’s doing 20 below the speed limit. If you know the road you can pick a safe over-taking spot, but otherwise you have to wait for dual lanes. Which is great, except that as soon as you do hit the dual lanes, Miss Daisy will put her hoof down and speed up to 10kph *above* the speed limit. The first time this happens to you, you’re like “What the fuck? Did that wanker just speed up deliberately to stop me passing?” And the quick answer to that question is that, yes, they did. They have decided that today you are going to drive down that road at 20kph below the already geriatric speed limits and they’re prepared to drag race you to enforce it. I have a fairly nippy V6 and can usually get round them – the temptation to sit in front of them at 20kph below the speed limit is overwhelmingly tempting.
• Driving super-fast or super-slow. Nobody seems to like driving *at* the speed limit. You either get the afore-mentioned Miss Daisy who’s happy to do 70 in the 90 or you get the red P plater (a probationary driver who’s only just passed their test) doing 120 in a 100.
• Sitting in the outside lane. Over here it’s perfectly legal to ‘undertake’ someone. And I can only assume that this particular law was introduced to combat the fucking idiots who insist on squatting in the outside lane no matter how empty the lane next to them is. Every five minutes you pass a sign that says, “Keep left unless over-taking. Fines and loss of licence possible” but they clearly don’t this think applies to them – “I’m a fucking strayan mate and if I want to sit in the outside lane all fucking year then I will.”
• Not letting you in. Pretty much everywhere else I’ve ever driven there’s an unwritten law of the road which goes like this – when you’re crawling along in very slow moving traffic and some other poor chump wants to join the caravan of despair you let them one car in and then the car behind you lets one in and so on down the line. But not here. Dear me no. If you think for one second that an Australian’s going to do the right thing and wave you on as you sit there, your indicator plaintively blinking away, you’ve got another thing coming. You soon realise that the only way you’ll ever get out of a busy intersection is to just barge in. Don’t worry about apologising for it either – they’re not expecting a thankyou – in fact if you pushed in and then stuck the Vs up at ‘em they’d probably accept it as standard behaviour.
• Merging. Forget it. It doesn’t happen. Merging? This is fucking Australia mate, we don’t do merging ya cunt. Are you a fucking faggot or something? Get the fuck out of my lane. See a gap where someone could join the traffic? Speed the fuck up!!! We don’t want some prick merging in! What’s really funny about the whole merging traffic issue is that I do let people merge in – and they’re so un-used to such behaviour that they drive up the hard shoulder, not daring believe that someone’s making way for them. True!
• Caravans. Everywhere. If they piss you off on the A30 into Cornwall, do not emigrate here. Half the fucking nation seems to be towing one of Jayco’s finest plastic palaces behind a Land Cruiser.

And me? Well of course, *I’m* the perfect driver! It’s those other muppets that are the problem …