Tuesday 26 April 2011

Drivers' hall of shame update

This fine Easter weekend the family and I drove up to the northeast of the country to spend some time with my wife's parents. In a departure from usual practice, my wife drove. I therefore decided to make a list of offending drivers and update the "Drivers' Hall of Shame" that I started earlier. The distance from our place to theirs is about 180 kilometers (112 miles), but I didn't start keeping track of things until we were about 30 km into our trip, so we can say that I monitored about 150 km (93 mi.) of road. In that 150 km/93 mi., I managed to record 25 offending drivers, an average of one every 6 km (or if you like, one every 3.72 mi.). In fact, there were probably more like 35 drivers breaking the law. Sometimes two or three would pass us at one time, and I wasn't able to write everything down in time. (And one car passed so fast that I wasn't even able to see the licence plate.) Just for the record, my wife drove right at the speed limit. The most common offence was speeding, but there was plenty of reckless driving, some of that bordering on vehicular assault (or assault with a deadly weapon). This trip took place on Friday, 22 April.

So, in no particular order:
FDL 559--dark blue Chrysler Voyage--passing dangerously (reckless driving)
DEC 692--silver Toyota Yaris--tailgating, speeding
CEZ 365--silver Jaguar--speeding, passing dangerously
ECK 968--Skoda Octavia--speeding
FCZ 041--VW Golf--speeding, passing dangerously
EEK 062--Citroen C5--speeding
LSA 565--VW Passat wagon--speeding
BCZ 835--Peugeot wagon--speeding
DGZ 897--Audi wagon--speeding
BOS 500--silver Lexus--speeding
EZE 648--blue BMW--speeding
LSA 990--black BMW 4WD--speeding
BOH 117--VW Passat wagon--speeding
EDF 326--white Ford Escort wagon--speeding, tailgating
EUC 252--red Ford Transit--speeding
CZZ 967--blue Toyota Corolla wagon--speeding, passing dangerously
CDE 680--Subaru Impreza--speeding
FUF 600--gold VW Golf--speeding
ETD 464--Nissan Almera--speeding
FCF 202--Mercedes Benz--speeding
RVL 868--blue BMW--speeding
DOR 142--white Renault van--passing illegally
EET 974--dark VW van--tailgating, speeding
DZE 974--silver Honda Accord--speeding
FCZ 007--green Audi A4--speeding

I have a personal message for the drivers of those cars. Number 1: You broke the law and deserve to be punished. Number 2: By driving dangerously, you are directly contributing to the "War on the Roads" (as the grotesquely high number of fatal traffic accidents has been called in Lithuania), and you are directly endangering yourselves and all other people on the roads.

So, hey, grow up, will ya? When are you going to understand that it isn't some other guy or some faceless, nameless, drunken driver that is the problem? You are. Change your ways before your driving leads to the death of someone.

1 comment:

Expat From Hell said...

I have made the drive from Riga to Vilnius and back many times. I have never seen such driving, and it doesn't surprise me that there is so much "war on the roads" there. In fact, I think it is a Baltic phenomenon - my feeling is the Riga-Tallinn drive is even more dangerous. They need to stop, or the "tris milliones" won't be true for long! EFH