Friday’s Rant from the Soapbox in MY Living Room: Dear Man driving too fast….

Dear man, driving a very nice, rather large Audi estate car, the other day…

I stood in the road, and stared you down, as you sped towards me, and I stood my ground. You were forced to slow down, and then stop, less than a foot away from me, and yes, I did slap the bonnet of your car, gesticulate somewhat wildly, and yes, I did yell at you. 

Why?

Because you were DRIVING TOO FAST, down a road that is the main crossing point for our local school, where children and their parents have to cross an almost blind corner (due to poor road & parking planning, let’s not go there with our local council) and deal with cars coming along that road, and as you sped along, clearly thinking you were the only person who had to be somewhere that morning (because the rest of us don’t have school, work, and other activities to get to, just you, of course, that needs to be somewhere in a hurry) and not only that but you were ON YOUR PHONE! You only saw me, because I stood out in the road, and waved at you, and would not move. You might have not seen a small child trying to cross the road, with her mother, pushing a pushchair. You might have not seen the group of year 5 kids who are allowed to walk to school alone, trying to dodge across before you came barrelling past, and you MIGHT HAVE HIT SOMEONE and possibly hurt or killed them, in your haste to get where you were going. 

You may not live locally, but it would take someone very stupid to not see the signs all along the road, the cars full of children and people walking along the pavements, to notice that “oh, that’s a school up ahead, perhaps I should slow down, there might be people crossing”. But, clearly, you had to be somewhere, and your needs were more important, and of course you must drive fast to get there, and take the oh so important call (illegal I must point out, you are lucky I was so angry I didn’t have the wherewithal to get your license plate number to report you) regardless of the lives of people around you, that you were putting in danger. 

Yes, I made you stop, yes I slapped the bonnet of your rather posh car, and yes I yelled at you (“do you think this is a racetrack? Can’t you see there are children trying to cross? Get off your  phone and watch the road, you might have killed someone, we hall have places to be, you can’t drive like that down a road full of children!” to be precise!) and yes, I would do it again. 

I hope it gave you a fright (you looked pretty scared, I can be pretty scary when I want to be, just ask my work colleagues…) and I hope it made you think twice about one, driving down a road where there are children walking to school like you were Lewis Hamilton out for a joy ride, and two being on your phone so you were not fully concentrating on the road and others using it or trying to cross. If you have, and have slowed down, then thank you. If not, I truly hope you don’t kill someone, or hurt someone with your carelessness.

Signed, angry mother who sidelines as a ferocious un-payed lollipop lady when people drive down her road like idiots….