Mad motorist
We had a severe frost this morning of minus three degrees. Unlike past mornings, the frost remained all the way to Myrtleford, which is more often shrouded in fog.
I could understand motorists being careful, but I saw a disturbing example of reckless driving today. I see examples of bad driving most days, but don’t normally feel compelled to write about them.
An elderly man driving a silver Commodore trundled along the Great Alpine Road at 70kmh, holding up a queue of eight vehicles on a straight, wide, ice-free road.
That’s annoying, but also not unusual. However, an ambulance came up to join the rear of the queue with lights flashing. I was second last in line, and like everyone else except Mr Commodore, I turned off the road to let the ambulance pass.
The ambulance advanced to second in line, but Mr Commodore refused to give way (or didn’t see and couldn’t hear), so the ambulance had to wait for an oncoming vehicle to leave the road in order to get past.
All of us eventually overtook the Commodore near Eurobin, just before the hops gardens. There’s a notorious black ice area there, and the warning lights were flashing, so everyone slowed down to 40kmh.
I was last in line, so imagine my shock when Mr Commodore came speeding up my rear at 70kmh on the frozen bitumen!
It’s like he was stuck on that speed and couldn’t go faster or slower, wearing blinkers and oblivious to everything around him.
He probably broke no laws, except failing to give way for an ambulance. Unfortunately, the police are more interested in catching someone 5kmh over the speed limit than saving the rest of us from a dangerous one-speed maniac.
The sad thing is that this man probably has no idea he’s a bad driver.
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