Eek!

Funny, really, the ways things you say can return to haunt you. A few days ago there was a mild air of celebration, as the main season drew to a close and it was observed on here that we’d once again have the roads to ourselves. Actually, ourselves might not be the best custodians.

Driving one afternoon this week, we had cause to take a single track road into the hills. Not an unusual occurrence, you might think, being as we live in a country that holds the patent on hills. This time, however, we followed a maroon and rather old Volvo. It’s useful to have a car in front, sometimes, especially on very narrow roads, as they can cut a metaphorical swathe for you, but this chap was clearly an ex-fighter pilot because he wasn’t just driving quickly, he was indulging in a spot of low flying. Now, before everyone talks about relative speeds and the like, you need to know this bit of road. It’s narrow - about seven feet in places, fringed by overhanging trees and very high and un-trimmed hedgerows, making it impossible to see over them unless your car is on stilts. Like most narrow roads in this area, it winds - sometimes tortuously - and has several unmarked entrances from farms and the odd house. Okay. That’s enough scene setting. Now, the interesting bit was the Volvo’s speed. Our Toyota Landcruiser is no slouch, but to match his speed we attained 44 mph.

That may not sound a lot. and it certainly isn’t, on a nice, wide dual carriageway, but on a single track, restricted visibility lane on which blind hairpin bends abound, it was lunacy, not to mention a potential joining speed with an oncoming vehicle of 88 mph. Richard Brunstrum may have received a lot of stick for his relentless campaign against speeding drivers, but it was difficult to avoid the chilling suspicion that many are champing at the bit to let fast and loose now he’s gone.

Curiously, that wasn’t the first example. As we left Glan Conwy to drive to Llanrwst we joined - as one so often does - a convoy, led by a small car whose top speed was clearly limited to 55 mph. Now, we drive that road a lot, and the joy when there’s no one on it and you can whoosh along at a steady 60+ is matched only by the excitement you feel when there’s a free parking space outside Marks. However, in fairness, 55 is reasonable and - given that there are actually houses on the stretch between the notorious dog-leg at the start of Maenan and the end of the narrow stretch which sees all the passengers on the many coaches that plough that road breathing in sharply when they see a double decker coming the other way, 55 - 60 is really fast enough; in fact, how some of the residents on that particular stretch of motorcycle race track ever manage to escape their domiciles is a question on the lines of “Is there a God?”.

At the outset, however, it was clear there was at least one person unwilling to idle along at 55. His white van hove in rear-mirror view as soon as Tal Y Cafn retreated and his subsequent overtaking manoeuvres lent some credibility to the theory that Britain does have a secret space programme and tests its rockets on the lesser-used roads in Wales. Unfortunately, the driver’s skills fell somewhat short of his vehicle’s ability to accelerate and - on two occasions that we witnessed - he very nearly delayed our journey home by achieving a head-on collision with oncoming vehicles. Sporting a local number plate, and unlikely to be a visitor taking granny out for the day, it seems that the local had struck again.

However, bad driving isn’t restricted to white van drivers and maroon Volvo test-pilots; in fact, the number of cars who were either built without indicators or whose owners appear to think that other drivers should be telepathic is astounding. But the best has to be the school-run mothers. This brigade of swerving, rushing, armour-clad females driving enormous off-roaders at about 0855 round Llandudno as though qualifying for the next Grand Prix is enough to make the likes of Clarkson dive for cover. Oh well, when does the season start again?

IAM