In the Somerset village where I once lived, there was an old geezer called Walter who had his own ideas about safe driving. Walter was an agricultural labourer, very muscular for his age, and he would buy wrecks with six months’ MOT on them, and then he’d drive them down the B roads and country roads at furious speeds until he generally crashed them into walls and totalled them. There must have been at least six of these wrecks. We could never figure out how Walter managed to keep his insurance companies onside, but we assumed that he simply “forgot” to declare his worthless write-offs to the companies.
I once put it to him that country roads might also be a place for slower road users such as cyclists, and that maybe the potholes might not be such a bad thing if they slowed the traffic down a bit? He rounded on me with evil in his eyes. “Wassa road for, if not to go faaast?” he yelled at me, as I cowered from the assault.
The following year, Walter drove straight across a give-way crossroads in the middle of the village and collided with a seven series BMW that just happened to be towing a brand new boat toward its first dip in the sea. The boat went overboard onto its side; the trailer demolished the village shop; and I believe it was curtains for the Beemer. Walter said it wasn’t his fault he was going so fast, because he was local, which meant he was entitled to. And the bloody off-comers on the main road weren’t, so that was that.
That was the end of Walter’s driving licence, and the nearby roads became a quieter but generally safer place. He died shortly afterwards. Apparently without killing anybody.
BJ