They're Only Bees
March 12th, 2010

Mirror, Signal, Walk Blindly Across the Road

This isn’t exactly a list of “Things drivers wished pedestrians knew”, it’s more of a list of “Things anyone with common sense would already know”. You could call this a rant, you probably will, but there are enough idiots out there who don’t know this that I can probably call it informative.

It feels like almost every day that I’m out, I’ll be driving down a road minding my own business, and see some sort of idiot wandering in the middle of the road, or playing a game of frogger without any extra lives.
Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t have a problem with people walking across the road without trekking to the nearest crossing. I don’t even have a problem doing the ridiculous tightrope act of balancing on the white line in the center of the road with cars whizzing past either side. Anyway, down to the problems with pedestrians.

Just because I am not currently in that lane, doesn’t mean it’s an extension of the pavement.
I see this all too often. You’re driving down in the outside lane, maybe because you’ve just pulled around a parked car or had to swerve around a pedestrian, and then out walks a guy deciding to cross the road. He knows you’re there, because he’s walking slowly into the inside lane watching you pass. As soon as you get just past the point of killing the guy, you’re now allowed to pull back into the inside lane.
If I was to drive with 2 wheels on the kerb just because the pedestrians were only using the inside of the pavement, I don’t think many people would be happy. If you walk out into the inside lane waiting for a car to pass, and they pull back into the inside lane and drive straight into you, it’s your fault. Get the hell out of the road while you can see cars coming.

Things behind you still exist.
This seems like an unusual thing to need to point out, but it arises a lot. I mentioned earlier the trick of walking half way across the road, then sucking in your stomach so you can fit within the confines of the little white line. It’s all well and good, if you’re not in a really stupid place and getting in everyones way, but you need to be ON the line. If you can see the line in front of you, you may well be safe from the cars in the lane you’re approaching, but you’re still standing in the way of traffic going the other way.

If you’re on the road, face the oncoming traffic.
If you absolutely have to walk down the road, and not the pavement, then do everyone a favour and face the oncoming traffic. That way you can see them, and it should hopefully stop you wandering out into their path like a drunk.

Genius Safety Campaign from Preston

The general attitude with regards to pedestrians is to tell cars to slow down incase they hit someone. I’ve not once seen a sign aimed at pedestrians saying “Don’t walk out into the road infront of cars”, but I’ve seen plenty of signs aimed at cars saying “Watch out for people walking out infront of cars”. The TV adverts produced by the Government as THINK! are all aimed at driving slower so that when someone does run aimlessly into the road flailing their arms and jibbering, you won’t kill them, just hurt them. This can only lead to more people flailing their way into the road, due to the lack of consequence.

I suggest more adverts are made from the point of view of the idiot who runs into the road. Showing them how painful it can be, and how sad their friends will be when they die etc, instead of trying to guilt trip people into driving slower. I don’t understand how someone decided it’s better to advertise “You’ll feel bad if you run someone over” over “You’ll be dead if you run in front of a car”. I know which one would motivate me more.

Stop using your child in it’s pram as some kind of blind man’s cane
Yes, I actually have to mention this one too. If there is an obstruction stopping you from seeing the traffic, it’s understandable that you would need to get closer to the edge of the road to look. If you’re pushing a pram, that’s already ahead of you, much closer to the edge of the road. When you step forwards to the curb, with the pram proudly shoved ahead of you, it’s in the road. You know, that road which you couldn’t see, that road who’s traffic levels you were unable to judge. That road with the fucking cars on it that you’re shoving your baby into. Yeah, that road.

Stand next to the pram, stand in front of the pram, turn around and pull the pram backwards for a few seconds, I don’t care, but don’t try using the unwitting child’s soft undeveloped skull to stop a car. It’s unlikely to work.

If you step out in front of my car, and dent it, I will expect you to pay to have it fixed
Now you may be more damaged than the car, and I understand it may take a little bit of time before you’re back on your feet, but I don’t want impression of your face in my near-side wing.
For some reason, I’d be seen as the bad guy for this.  If I dived through your window head first, you wouldn’t be seen as the bad guy if you prosecuted or wanted the window replacing. I don’t understand why that doesn’t apply to someone diving head first into a moving car.

In the words of Douglas Adams;
“Have you any idea how much damage that bulldozer would suffer if I just let it roll straight over you?”
“How much?”
“None at all.”

So get out of the fucking road if you don’t know how to use it.

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by Mick | Posted in Life | No Comments » | Tags: , , ,
September 28th, 2009

Read a fucking book

Dear Idiots of Earth:
Please stop doing everything you’re doing, and listen.

I’m about to start complaining directly at you. It’s to do with writing; grammar, spelling, using the correct words etc.

Any user of the internet in general will see, on a daily basis, examples of absolutely terrible writing. Whether or not it’s comments on YouTube, full of misguided aggression and nonsensical insults, or a status update so totally devoid of structure or intelligence that it becomes almost impossible to read, or screaming angry blogs about nothing. (Hello).

A new, common example of idiocy that’s rapidly infecting the likes of Facebook, is people who Write Every Word In A Sentence With A Capital Letter At The Start. Get the fuck off the shift key, you retard. Or, which would be even worse, do these morons use the Caps Lock key each time?

*caps lock*F*caps lock*uck *caps lock*O*capslock*ff.

Either way it’s madness. There isn’t a need for it, and they are only following the example set by others who do the same. I’m sure not even the lowest of the low gossip magazines does this, so where have they picked it up from? Do they not read, at all, not even other peoples updates? If they did this in school, a teacher wouldn’t even read it, and would probably slap you in your stupid face for it. A job application wouldn’t make it past a first glance. How did they survive this long? They should still be repeating high school, over an over again, until they manage to grasp the very absolute basics of writing or their teeth fall out and they die of old age. It’s hard to read, too, because your brain sees each word as the start of a new sentence. By the end of it, you don’t care if the sentence is outlining a cure for cancer, because it’s clearly written by an idiot who is going out of their way to make things irritating for you. Fuck them, and their fool-proof plan for world peace. Luckily, the people who do this typically have nothing worth saying, so skipping their mutterings is safe. You’ll miss nothing.

Another common, yet ’classic’ example of non-thinking stupidity is the whole their/they’re/there or you’re/your mix-up thing. I know some people genuinely don’t care, so it doesn’t matter to them, but I personally got my head around this very simple concept in primary school. By the time I was 12 years old, I don’t remember anyone in my class having a problem with it. I could do it unthinkingly 99% of the time, as could every else around me. So why, when even the most lame education can enable these skills in people, are there still so many fuck ups? It doesn’t take any thought – it should be programmed into your brain, like 2+2=4 or ‘don’t shove your face in a fire’.

They’re in there with their bear. There. If you can’t make sense of that, get the fuck out.

(Also worth noting: swearing is perfectly acceptable and anyone who complains about it is a cunt).

So-called ‘Text language’ is another one: It was almost understandable back in the days when each individual text cost 12p, and the need to say a lot in a limited number of characters gave you an excuse ’2 tlk lk dis’ in an effort to fit more of your pointless babble onto a message – but the internet typically has no such limitations (ignoring Twitter, whose users tend to manage without resorting to idiotic shortening by simply saying less). You can say what you like, and take your sweet time about it. Hell, set up a website and really stretch your fingers. We did. It’s easy. No one will read it, but atleast you don’t have to spend fifteen minutes taking out 90% of the vowels and stripping your words bare before saying something that wasn’t worth saying in the first place.

This is similar, but not quite as bad as intentionally mis-spelling words. ‘Creem’, ‘Myt’, ‘Anooo’, etc. It takes more time to consider the correct spelling and change it than it does to just write ‘Cream’, ‘Might’ and ‘I know’, surely? It’s not like they’re even just speaking phonetically…they’re intentionally r*ping and degrading the words. Leaving a dictionary in a bloody puddle in an alley-way, taking away it’s innocence.

Stupidity/ignorance like this fills me with a murderous rage, and I firmly believe there should be a test everyone should have to pass before they’re allowed on to the internet. It should involve basic spelling and grammar tests, and maybe a lesson on how to formulate an argument so it doesn’t devolve into a pointless back-and-forth about who sucks the most donkey cocks. Anyone who fails should be given restricted access to only the cbeebies website, and encouraged to read a book instead of…whatever the hell it is they do instead. Or at the very least a man should stand behind them, screaming insults down their ears until they start to show a bit of intelligence. Retests can be once every two years and the punishment for failing two on the run is to revoke their membership to the Human race, and keep them in a Zoo where normal, not-stupid people can walk past and hurl complex insults at them, then laugh as the cretins sit with a look of puzzlement on their excrement-smeared face, banging a stick with another stick.

For the rest of their lives.

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