Ian, I wryly smile and shake my head when I see these twits with their fancy cars, knowing that most of them are paying a great deal of money for the privilege of looking like twits.

But when it comes to ratty driving, I’ve got very little tolerance. I despise tailgaters, bullies and risky drivers who have no respect for other road-users or for the law.

Yes there is a pretty high correlation between the penis-extension brigade and this sort of driving. But there are also lots of young females who are hopeless tailgaters, and plenty of ‘ordinary’ older folk who drive very poorly as well.

But what I despise most is the police, who seem to be in cahoots with them! We can’t report this sort of rank driving and expect the cops to act on it! I am profoundly disgusted at the results of my attempts to do this, from about 2000 to 2010, when I gave up.

What we need is a campaign to promote the use of small cameras, positioned in a vehicle which can cover all angles, including the speedo, and which can just be all turned on with one switch, or just automatically come on when the ignition is on, so the rank antics of drivers can be captured, and people can make reports to the police with hard evidence.

And then of course we will need a major change in the attitude of the police to be receptive to this and to follow right through to the point of either warning or charging the perpetrators.

Not hard really!

continued

There would be plenty of people willing to do this if it was promoted and facilitated by the authorities. It would only take a very small percentage of road-users to do this for the d!ckhead drivers to realise that it is not just the very thin police presence on our roads that can bring them unstuck, but that it is potentially any car on the road.

As it is, if you stick to the speed limit and other road rules, or even just crudely approximated them, you very frequently get tailgated, riskily overtaken, cut sharply in front of, etc…. and it is getting worse all the time.

Ian, you forgot the mobile phone! My most recent experience was a very loud and highly adorned black number swerving its way along the highway. The driver (avec backward facing baseball cap) had his phone clutched to his ear with his left hand and his right hand clutching both the steering wheel and a very large bottle of coke.

As an old fart myself, I often struggle with the natural instinct to indulge in thinking that the young – the most common P-platers – are rubbish drivers when I see some of them in action.

As an old fart myself, I often struggle with the natural instinct to indulge in thinking that some old farts are crap drivers – e.g. varying their speed between 40-50 in a 60 zone; drifting over the line towards me; lane changing without a signal; gesticulating with both hands off the wheel to their passenger; going to sleep at the traffic lights, and so on.

As an old fart myself, I think these old farts should give up driving; they are as much a menace as the ignorant young P-platers.

The young P-platers can be dealt with by the law. The old farts need to be told that it is the end of the road for them by their doctors. I have to have a certificate from my GP to continue driving each year, as everyone over 70 does. So, the law needs to put a rocket up the doctors to tell the truth

G'day there LUDWIG ol' chap...

You know I've always believed you to be a well informed, measured sort of gentleman, but for some inexplicable reason you're out to deliver a good kicking to the poor old coppers again ?

You say you've reported driving offences to police on previous occasions, and nothing was ever done about it ? And you would know that how ? Unless the circumstances warrant further investigation, and there's a reasonable outcome a successful prosecution, often all the coppers can do, is enter (contemporaneously) your complaint on the occurrence sheet.

You also mentioned in your thread, an idea that drivers are issued with small cameras, which are positioned in the car, in such a way they can see most everything, including the speedo ?

And what precisely would that achieve ? All pursuit vehicles, who do not rely on radar, but their speedometer's alone in order to check speed, during routine traffic interdiction, must prove to the satisfaction of a Court, that speedometer has been scientifically calibrated by an approved technician, within a statutory period of time. With respect LUDWIG, neither yours nor my vehicle have our respective speedo's regularly calibrated.

It should be noted herein, I'm now retired and much of the above data may have been marginally altered. Still, I'd be very surprised indeed if the 'exculpatory measures' (for the driver) have been removed. Either for the copper himself, or the processes he must follow, nor the precise accuracy of the instruments he uses and therefore, must rely upon.

LUDWIG, I can get as annoyed and exasperated as anybody, with some of these really awful, very dangerous drivers. Believe it or not my friend, the coppers do get off their substantial a...s and grab some peanut who's well recorded as an habitual (often, disqualified driver) as long as the complainant is happy to testify to what they've witnessed, in Court.

Being a firm believer in peak oil and it's accelerating approach it will only be a matter of time before these clowns and their antics are reduced to speeding around on bicycles or pony traps.
This cannot come too soon for me and for the environment.