Hellooooo..... CJ, where art thou??

Yesterday, travelling from Mossman to Cairns along the Cook Hwy -

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Caught between a mongrel roadhog and a mongrel tailgater, for many kilometres.

The roadhog was taking it easy on the windy road with many tight blind curves. Fair enough. But she just bloody insisted on travelling well below the speed limit on the straight stretches. Lots of opportunities to pull over and let the traffic clear from behind along with lots of signs imploring drivers to consider following traffic.

But nooooo...she owned the road and couldn't give a hoot about anyone else.

Stupid young female driver in the car behind me, grossly tailgated on every tight curve. Right at the most dangerous points on the road, on the bends, where you can't see the road ahead for more than a few metres, she was up my arse...and I mean RIGHT up my arse.

I initially signalled her with four quick flashes of my brakelights. No effect. Then a bit further on I applied my brakes very gently, to just make the lights come on while hardly slowing down at all. He car jolted. She'd obviously hit her brakes quite hard. She was obviously completely unprepared for me to even slow down in the slightest, let alone prepared for any sort of hazard that would have caused me to brake more sharply. I would have worn her if I'd had to do that.

continued

Do you think she got the message. Of course not.

Then a while later I did the same thing. Then I applied my brakelights and put my hand out the window with an open palm facing backwards as if to say; why are you driving like this - I'm not setting the speed, I've got a slower driver in front of me. Then I vigorously waved her back, four times.

Do you think she got the message? Of course not.

She just continued to drive in the same absurd manner until we finally got to an overtaking lane.

So this young female was driving like this presumably because she just didn't have the faintest clue that there was anything wrong with her driving. She just didn't have any idea at all about the risks of tailgating. I presume it had never even been mentioned to her, not when she was learning to drive, not by her parents, not by anyone who has travelled with her as a passenger!

She is absolutely an accident looking for a place to happen!

Now this is exactly the sort of inept dangerous driving that has got be reported to the cops. And the cops have surely GOT to act on it.

But, you can expect the cops to do PRECISELY NOTHING about something like this.

Now if this woman was to report me to the cops for flashing my brakelights and giving hand signals, and for putting my headlights on her after she'd passed me, I wonder if the cops would act?

I bet they would!!

Do you think I'm frustrated?

Yes, Ludwig - I think you're frustrated. However, I think your dream of an uber-surveillance society in which the police are covert and your neighbour is encouraged to report any of your minor transgressions to the authorities is very much not the sort of society in which I'd like to live. Do you remember a place called East Germany?

Rather, I'd like to see a much greater emphasis in educating people to be more civil towards each other in general, and their behaviour on the roads is really just an extension of that. Instead of creating a legal and moral minefield that would encourage people to try and get their own back against anyone who offends their sensibilities on the road (or elsewhere), why not create a system where they could forward the details of good drivers to the authorities so they can be rewarded?

Oh that's right - such a system would be too easily rorted - unlike of course one that punished people on the say-so of their peers...

Also, if you do just the slightest bit of research on the notion of "community policing", I think you'll find that it's been around for quite a while now - and it's something that police do, rather than the general public.

In the situation you were in on the Cook Highway, did it occur to you at all that you could just pull over for 5 minutes and let the idiots carry on their stupid way? I do that sometimes - I find it much better for my head than getting frustrated and angry.