I read a blog (http://stonehead.wordpress.com/) written by a fairly local bloke that I actually know IRL as well as online. He recently had a car smash into a disusesd cottage on his croft and he has started a campaign to try and get some warning signs put up on the bend, so that he has fewer people visiting his property.
A couple of days ago, a 21 year old girl from our village lost her life. She crashed her motorbike into a bus when going round a corner, from what I hear. Obviously the facts will come out over time, but I passed the accident and it didn't look good. I was terribly upset and was nearly in tears after seeing it. What a waste of a young life.
Yesterday, I took Himself's car to get some fuel. I generally drive a people carrier that is quite high off the ground - you have to step up into it. Himself drives a standard family saloon. It was an interesting difference. I drive my car like a slow old bus. I tend to poodle along, not too fast, not too slow. I have a very high centre of gravity, and take corners very very slowly. His car, however, has a very low centre of gravity and I felt I could take the corners with a little more oomph, but because I was so low, I felt like I was dragging my arse along the ground, and I couldn't see over the hedges, so the balance was - same speed. It was rather alarming to crest a hill and find a tractor coming at me, because in my car I would have spotted the tractor a goodly distance beforehand.
My point - why do people drive their cars the way they do?
What do you drive?
How do you drive it?
Do you think you are Sterling Moss and invincible?
Do you drive like some old bloke in a flat cap and slow for a leaf coming off a tree?
My man drives like an old woman. He drives me nuts, and I want to rip the steering wheel out of his hand, kick him into the back seat, and stick my foot down to bring the car up to 30mph. I do breathing exercises to stem these impulses, though, so don't panic.
Today on the way to swimming I was stuck behind said old bloke c/w flat cap. He literally drove like an old woman. He actually stopped at the junction ... but about 15 feet from the end of the road, before the junction, then edged forward to hit the line, changed down, handbrake on, checked both ways, into first, handbrake off, slowly pulled away. I know he turned his indicator off manually because he put the right one on briefly. Now this sort of bloke is as bad as the boy racer type because he is the type that causes folk who want to do more than 15mph on the motorway to do reckless things to get the hell away from him. The annoyed and impatient driver then overtakes at the first opportunity and promptly smashes into the car coming out of the hidden lane further up the road.
Incidentally - I didn't overtake - I did my breathing exercises and chanted "I would rather get there late than not at all".
If any of my kids fell in the river, I would probably just pull them under instead of saving them. And me married to a qualified swimming instructor. 
