Wednesday 5 October 2011

Nice Horse

There is a shop called Affordable Art in Torbay Rd just near the bus stop. It sells wood carvings, mostly ducks but now and then something extra turns up. Like this horse.
Lots of people stopped and looked and took photos. PS it took 3 weeks to make and has been sold and it was made to order.

The other thing that turned up unexpectedly the same day was less welcome and almost turned into an RTC happened as I was driving out along the Totnes Rd between Midvale Rd and Winner St. There is a medical centre on the bend on my left and there was a large truck parked across the road, the driver was probably delivering goods to the centre. Now it is a long, fairly gentle bend but the road isn’t too wide and the truck was blocking my view, anything coming the other way would need to be well over the centre line and would be hidden from view. So I slowed down and kept well into the left. While I was still a little way back a car, travelling quiet slowly emerged past the truck. No problem, I didn’t even have to slow down any more. Then, from nowhere as it were, a white car shot round the truck travelling well over 30 mph. A pull to the left on the steering wheel took the bus out of this maniac’s way and a firm press on the brake peddle stopped the bus before it hit the wall at the side of the road. The white car continued along Totnes Rd without bothering to slow down, it’s blue lights flashing and siren blaring. Ok, the police officer driving it was, I hope, on his way to a life threatening emergency where every second counted but he does need to remember the second most important rule in the Highway Code which is, “Always drive at a speed at which you can easily stop in the distance you know to be clear.” Don’t rely on your siren to alert approaching motorist that the last sausage roll in the staff canteen could be gone very soon, they may be driving noisy vehicles and be a little hard of hearing.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sadly this is not unusual despite the publicity a few months back regarding a short video entiled Blue Light Aware issued by the emergency services in Devon telling us private motorists how we can do better to avoid a confrontation with their vehicles on the blues and twos. You cannot when the 999 vehicle is driven in a less than professional manner. They, of all people, should remember their own golden rule 'No emergency is so great as to justify not getting there safely." Fortunately most do remember that but well done to you on avoiding an accident with this 999 driver who clearly had dismissed the rule.

martina said...

ok