I saw a pretty young woman with interesting (*twitch twitch*) dress sense broken down on the side of the road yesterday morning on Meadowlands Road in a crappy old red Holden Barina.  She was pulled off to the kerb, had her hazard lights on and was talking animatedly on her mobile phone; presumably attempting to acquire some roadside assistance.  Plenty of cars drove right on past her, myself included… though this is primarily because I am of little or no use in such situations, as I have no mechanical knowledge, and there is nothing I could do for her that she and her mobile phone are unable to accomplish on their own.  And I was potentially running a bit late for an appointment :S

But it reminded me of a different broken down vehicle I saw not so long ago in Coorparoo, not far from the Coorparoo State High School.  It was another woman experiencing similar vehicular trouble parked on the side of the road. This time an older woman, very well dressed, probably in her early to mid 40s, in an older model, but very tidy, Mercedes Benz.  However, in this situation, the woman wasn’t phone in hand, desperately trying to find help because she had somehow attracted the attention of not ONE, but THREE would be knights in shining armour, who had stopped their cars on the side of the road nearby, all on hand to gallantly offer their assistance.

So there is a turn up for the books!  And with it goes an old theory of mine that guys will come rushing to the aid of a cute young thing with bare shoulders and a windswept carefree look about her, but that ladies of more mature years are often left to fend for ourselves.  However, I dare say in the specific cases I have mentioned, it has less to do the age of the women involved, nor how perky the jiggly bits nor how stylish she may be… but rather a fair deal more to do with the appearance of financial wherewithal and social status attributed to driving a Mercedes Benz, as compared to a banged up faded old Barina.

What’s the world coming to when super short shorts with the stupid pockets hanging out low above shapely young legs is less likely to gain you assistance than driving a once expensive, imported car.  Who knows what on earth men are thinking about these days?

What I do know is that it probably pays to keep your RACQ membership up to date – just in case.

I was stopped at a set of lights near my house yesterday waiting my turn right to take the Not so Small Child on our daily rat run to school, when I noticed a young guy, maybe in his early 20s, in a sleek black V8 HSV Maloo ute.  He was coming up the hill and had obviously broken down right in the middle of the intersection. He was looking exasperated, as you do in these situations, and was out of his car looking under the hood.  A guy on a pushbike, probably in his mid-30s, who was also stopped at the intersection called out to him to offer assistance, as you do in these situations:  “Hey mate!  Do you want a push?”.  The young guy looks up from under the hood and calls back, “I’ll give you a fuckin’ push in a minute!” … as you do in these situations!

What the fuck?  The guy on the pushbike looked perplexed and with his hands in the air said, “Mate, I was just offering to help?!?” and the guy with the broken down ute pointedly ignored him.  The light changed green, the guy behind me impatiently beeped his horn, and so I left the scene of the Pushbiking Samaritan and the DicklessV8 Driver.

I’m at a loss to understand why someone who is obviously in a bit of a bind, upon receiving an offer of assistance, would react this way?  Did he think the guy on the push bike was being smug?  Was he under the impression the offer of help was somehow disingenuous?  Was he just in a foul mood and decided to take it out on the first person who interacted with him?  Did he have a mild case of tourettes?  Or is his default position when interacting with others, one of habitually not being courteous to strangers regardless of situational factors?  I don’t know.  I have no idea what the idiot was thinking.

To the Dickless V8 Driver:  I would strongly recommend that you cash in your V8 that you probably like to tinker with on weekends to make you feel like you know something about cars, and perhaps swap it for a nice reliable Camry.  You might also consider having its regularly scheduled services carried out by a qualified mechanic at a reputable service centre while you’re at it.

To the Pushbiking Samaritan:  I hope this unfortunate interaction doesn’t inhibit your instinct to offer assistance to others in the future.  The community needs people prepared to put themselves out for others in the midst of our busy, busy lives.  I also hope the universe is sending you good vibes for offering assistance to someone who seriously needed your help, but as it turned out, seriously didn’t deserve your help!

School holidays are over so it’s back to the daily routine of circumnavigating the burbs to take the Small Child to school.  Over the last five years that he’s been going to school a mere 3kms from home, the drive to school seems to be getting longer and longer.  The traffic seems to be getting worse and worse, and my patience for the situation is getting shorter and shorter as my morning commute takes an average of 40 MINUTES to drive the 6 km round trip.  But worse than the daily morning routine of making sure we have everything we need… and worse than the rude drivers that go speeding past you in the left hand lane only to cut you off and cross three lanes in front of you to turn right… and worse than the sheer banality of morning radio… and worse than the five sets of unsynched traffic lights that I need to traverse on my daily rat run is the plethora of ever so shiny stonkin’ huge 4WDs that all the soccer mom’s insist on driving to the school every morning and afternoon!

That’s right, because they seem to feel that if you’re the biggest thing on the road, then you automatically have right of way in any given situation, making traversing normally quiet suburban streets a nightmare.  So even if you never intend on taking that thing off the bitumen you sure as hell better get yourself one of the biggest legal frickin’ monster trucks that money can buy, else you’re just being down right negligent with your family’s safety. Right?

I am sick of the long line up of 4WDs near the school.  If 90% or more of your driving requirements involves running around town and city driving, then I swear you have no business owning one of these damn things.  They are an absolute menace, especially near a school environment.  Not only has the increased ownership in large 4WD vehicles with their limited visibility seen children being run over in their OWN driveways by their OWN parents overtaking the previously staggering statistics on backyard swimming pool drowning fatalities in Queensland each year –  but if a child is struck, even at low speed, the bonnet of most 4WDs is at your average primary school aged child’s head height… so risk of death and/or serious injury is significantly increased compared to similar impact injuries with smaller vehicles.  Why do we allow people to unnecessarily endanger children by bringing them anywhere near schools?

Furthermore these safety conscious parents insist on parking them in the small side streets surrounding the schools on both sides of narrow roads leaving barely enough space for a compact car to squeeze between them.  And God help you should you come up against one coming in the other direction, because the drivers will just sit there waving their hands around ineffectually, silently indicting their total impotence at manoeuvring their vehicles… ie: their complete inability to reverse their vehicles with anything resembling competence.  No, they won’t even try to move, they will just wait for you in your smaller car to reverse, or pull into a driveway or just get away of their way somehow.  No shit.  Many of these people seriously can’t drive these huge off road vehicles.  They demonstrate laughable lack of skills in manoeuvring their cars, they are completely unable to reverse them, and don’t get me started on how poorly parked they are prepared to leave these suburban monsters creating further hazards!

I learned to drive in a Datsun 180B and an old 1975 G60 Nissan Patrol with a three speed gearbox, no handbrake and a top speed of 80kph downhill with the wind behind it (and for the record I’d estimate that vehicle did well over 80% of it’s eventual 300,000 kms out of the city and potentially between 30-40% of those clicks on unsealed roads).  When I think of all the modern technology and safety gear stuffed into late model 4WDs, for the life of me I can’t understand why these people can’t drive them better?  And I’m tired of hearing the excuses and rationalizations for owning them in the city.

No stuff it,  There should be a three block 4WD exclusion zone in every direction around primary schools, and if you still choose to own one of these stupid suburban menaces, then get out of your damn car 150m away and walk your kid into school.  If you can’t park it properly, and you can’t reverse down a regular suburban street and you can’t see little kids behind or near your vehicle then you have no business driving the damn thing at all let alone near primary schools filled with excitable and unpredictable small children!