This is Union Street in Torquay, a busy shopping street. Also one way. The big red thing is a bus, the car on the left is a taxi parked on a taxi rank the bit in the road where the passing stranger is crossing is a speed hump. Union street has 6 such humps. You can also see Union Street is not the widest street in the known universe. So today I was driving down there more or less in the same position as this bus. I was doing about 10 mph as the pavement on my right was full of pedestrians, one in particular had come to my attention. She was pushing a baby buggy and looking like she was going to cross the road. Now one problem that does happen is mother, who would scream hysterically if she heard that a pedophile was living anywhere within a 100 miles of her precious child, will still push buggy and baby into the road before looking round just in time to see an 11 tonne bus squash buggy and contents. So careful watch and foot on brake peddle. Giving her and buggy all this attention meant I wasn't really watching the taxi at the front of the rank. I knew he wanted to go as the right indicators were flashing but I am still in an 11 tonne bus that would make a mess of his shinny new taxi if he pulled out in front of me. Now one thing is we tend to drive with our headlights on and I had just gone over a speed hump which makes the bus go up and then down and this looks like I have just flashed my headlights, which in this country is used as a signal saying,"You can go." Taxi pulled out. Lady with buggy had looked round, seen me approaching and stopped at the curb. Taxi driver realised I wasn't stopping and stopped. Space between taxi and buggy 9 feet. Bus, 8 feet 4 ins wide. Close.
The moral of the story is if you park on a taxi rank in a street with speed humps and it appears that some one has flashed their lights for you to go think about waiting for a moment or two just in case they didn't flash their lights. Or Torbay council could move the speed humps some where more useful like the local land fill site. Or we could all do as the Department of Transport would like and stop flashing.
