There's Always a Way Around the Rules

This is a paid post that I'm not supposed to tell is a paid post. It's for a great web site in the U.K. that tells you How to Beat the U.K. Driving Rules. You still might want to keep reading, because I've made it a story about my father. Here's another way to visit their web site: http://www.uk-driving-secrets.com/. Now onto the story about my father.

My father started driving before you had to have a driver's license. I think that made him believe the rules didn't apply to him because, you know, there weren't any rules when he started. The rules were for other people.

He helped my mother learn to drive, and being the rule-following sort she is/was, she promptly got one of those new driver's licenses the state was offering. She had a two-digit driver's license number. I promise. It gave her problems all of her life writing checks because nobody could believe she had a two-digit number. Or maybe it was three digits. Either way, it was tiresome for her to have the clerks stop everything to show everybody. I remember when it was a brass metal tag that hung on her key ring with stamped numbers, like a dog tag. (I must be old!)

My father's number was much higher, in the normal driver's license number range, because he was probably the last person to get a license once they were required. And he probably got it three months after the cut-off date.

You see, the rules didn't apply to him. Still don't.

He went to The Citadel, S.C.'s military college made famous in Pat Conroy's The Lords of Discipline and other books. My father loved it. It was all very structured and strict, which he said was great training for life because it taught him how to get around all the rules.

Both Saintly and Non-Saintly brothers went there, too. Saintly Brother loved it because it taught him how to live within the rules. Not sure what it did for Non-Saintly.

My father's disregard for the rules played out many times in his driving, for which he was often caught. Once he and Non-Saintly Brother were waiting for a table at a restaurant when a Highway Patrolman came in and stood near them. Non-Saintly Brother said to our father, "That's the closest you've ever been to a patrolman and not gotten a ticket."

My father was always losing his license and getting it back -- or not. He did not confide in me about it, but I remember once he got it back and I realized that at no point had he ever stopped driving.

He did the usual things -- usually speeding speed, but also driving the wrong way down a road (it was a shorter route and no one was coming, he said), using highways that were under construction and not open to the public (he once worked for the highway department so he understood how to drive on unfinished roads), etc. I have many childhood memories of getting stopped by the law in several states. Well, any state we were in, frankly. And he always argued with them. Always.

My mother never got a ticket. Guess they balanced out.

Not long before his doctor persuaded him to quit driving I saw my father stopped on the side of the road by yet another highway patrolman. I'm not sure what my father did to attract his attention, but the patrolman was arguing with my father over whether or not my father's S&W .357 magnum revolver was legally stored when it was in the driver's door storage bin. I made the mistake of stopping. The patrolman said, "Your father needs to have his gun in the glove compartment and have it locked."

My father said, "It is in a locked compartment when I shut the car door and lock the car."

My father would still be arguing with him if the patrolman hadn't decided that my father was a cute and charming 92-year-old and let him off with a warning.

The rules did apply to my father, like they do to all of us, but he never let them interfere.

He was a U.S. driver, but if he lived in the U.K., perhaps he could have made use of the U.K. Driving Secrets Guide. I don't think he ever had a problem with a speed camera. The web site philosophy and his seems the same. They say things like, "Why are the police targeting ordinary drivers when they should be catching criminals?" I think I heard my father tell a policeman that once, and the sentence included the words "lazy" and "get off your rusty butt."

I'm not sure that speed was always a problem, but for the average person, that and running lights are the usual issues. The web site linked above says that U.K. drivers risk losing their licenses, their jobs and their social life if they are ticketed unjustly. For all I know the laws in the U.K. are unjust. We have plenty of unjust laws here. The question is, do you beat them, or work to change them? Or ignore them?

The web site also says that the U.K. police are using tickets to gain funding (like many small towns in S.C. with their speed traps) and that highway safety is not improving. This could all be true.

I'm just glad my father's not driving anymore.

Comments

[Transylvanianhorseman]

There ARE speed cameras everywhere in the UK. There is a great story about a foreign tourist who kept driving fast up and down a road to figure out what that box up a post flashing at him was.

There is also the tale of a British man who was fed up with people speeding through his village, so he erected a dummy speed camera on the roadside. Drivers saw it and slowed down. The police wanted it removed, of course. The clever bit is that the builder had configured it as a bird nesting box, so it was illegal to pull it down whilst used by wild birds.

Truth is, driving too fast in urban areas kills pedestrians and cyclists. Actually enforcing the 30mph urban limit makes a lot of sense. Same with drink driving. Same with running red lights. I've seen someone killed through running a red light. Not a pretty sight.

In quite a few years on the road in Britain, I've seen a lot of poor, arrogant, selfish, lazy driving. However I cannot think of any family member, colleague or friend who was ticketed when they weren't actually breaking the law. Funny, isn't it, tyres can be bald "but they won't cause an accident". "I was only 10mph over the limit." The law applies to others: sadly, that is modern British thinking.

Meanwhile, I can think of people who were beaten by the police when walking home quietly from the bar. I can think of black friends harassed by white police. British Police may be prejudiced against the poor, students, non-whites and others, however motorists are not persecuted. And Britain has a good legal system based on proof of guilt.

[Angry]

Um...you've got spinach in your teeth again. (Well actually your site does)

[Angry]

Um...you've got spinach in your teeth again. (Well actually your site does)

[Angry]

...and as you can see, comment posting played-up on me too.

[Anne]

Shoot. Foot. Shucks. Dang it. I try to keep this a family-friendly site, but I'm about to go put spinach (by way of my fist) in somebody's teeth at technical support.

Thank you for letting me know.

I don't know why you got a double comment. I guess I'm eager for more comments and so it's doubling some folks. I'd rather have two than have it swallow them. I shouldn't have said that. That will be next.

[Yvonne]

Oh boy does your Dad remind me of my Grandfather.

He learnt to drive in the Army. He drove for years all over the world. He drove double decker buses on black ice in England and Scotland.

And when he imiigrated to Australia he never stopped driving like he used to.

I have many fond memories of sitting on the fuel tank of his motorbike and flying all over the place. Of being in all his various cars going at warp speed while he leant out the window cursing in fluent Gaelic at anyone who dared get in his way.

My Nanna put a stop to the swearing when I innocently started rolling down my window to scream quite fluent Gaelic along with my Pa. The poor bugger didn't know if he should laugh or cry. He wisely shut up cause I think Nan would have gleefully killed him if he had even TWITCHED at the time.

He finally gave up his licence last year, to my suprise. His reason was that there are just too many idiots on the road now. I hadn't the heart to tell him he was the biggest one of them. I don't think he ever obeyed the road rules unless he had my children in his car. And then he drove like a saint.... but still managed to teach them both a few words I would have preffered they not learn yet :)

And he never understood why I refused to let him teach me to drive. I wasn't sure I would be able to survive learning to drive like I was on a rally track with no concern for any other cars, people, road rules, speed limits or objects in my path.

The biggest suprise.... he never ever got caught, or ticketed!

Sorry it's so long, but thanks for the fond memories this envoked :)

Yvonne