A Bizarre Anecdote

There are some things you just have to share...
Walking back from town earlier I saw a car parked on the path. Well, when I say parked it looked like it had almost crashed into the grassy bank running between the path and the small group of houses behind. However, the two old women in the car were just sitting there, chatting I assume, totally oblivious to the fact that their car was straddling the pavement with one end almost in the road and the other end almost up the bank.

They were also oblivious to the man heading towards them. This would not have been a problem except the man was also oblivious of them. Whatever he was looking at on his mobile was apparently very interesting and not even a little green car in his pathway was going to break the eye contact he was so perfectly maintaining with his phone.

I watched him get closer and closer to these two women in their little green car. I was thinking to myself “wouldn’t it be funny if he walked into their car” but I didn’t think anyone could really be that unobservant. Apparently I was wrong. This guy got closer and closer to the car. Each step he took I was convinced he would look up, convinced he would realise his impending collision. Eventually there was no time left for him to notice and he literally tripped over their car.

The way the old lady responded was both rather funny and quite worrying at the same time. She almost leapt out of the car in some sort of panic. Her car started to roll back and instead of getting straight back in to put on the handbrake she raced (well, racing for an old lady) to the back of her car and appeared to be trying to push it back. After a while she went back around into the car and put on the handbrake while this man just kept on walking.

Although this looked hilarious, the whole car rolling back thing was rather worrying. As someone who’s learning to drive, I don’t really understand how you can forget to put on the handbrake. If you’re stationary, you either have your feet on some peddles or the handbrake is on. Especially if you’re on a slope, how do you forget?!

As I walked closer the two ladies remained in their car. They made no attempt to move the car so it was no longer blocking the path or sticking out into the road and just sort of stayed there with the passenger door open. After a police car went past, slowed down slightly then ignored them, I thought I’d better go check whether they were ok. The only people taking any notice were a couple of kids who lived in the houses behind the bank so I went over to ask them if they were ok.

These ladies seemed oblivious to how dangerous what they’d done could have been. Apparently one was just getting dropped off by the other and I was told not to worry. Obviously, everything was OK (as far as I saw) and no-one got hurt or run over, but the two ladies didn’t seem worried enough about the fact that their car rolled. It rolled a good metre or so without someone behind the wheel and it could have easily gone into the road.

So I’ve now changed a bizarre little anecdote into a worried babble about aged drivers but it’s a valid point. However funny it is to watch people fail at driving, I’m being made to do a test for a reason: to make sure everyone isn’t doing that so that England is safe!

DFTBA, Terrie, I have not forgotten.