Safe Speed Forums

I think I've mentioned this before, but it's still worrying me...

There's a guy lives across the road from me and I'd say he's in his late 60s. He has a Rover Metro that hasn't moved for about 2 months and thankfully the tax runs out at the end of June and I don't think there's any chance of it passing another MOT, so hopefully the problem will solve itself...

But... his ability to drive the car is non-existant - I watched him last night for about 10 minutes, trying to move off. He had the indicator going and the steering pointing the right way, but he was sat still, revving the thing to about 8k (I really did think it was going to go pop) and I don't think it was even in gear (either that or it's more knackered than it looks). I don't actually know him so I'm not happy talking to him (yes, I'm a coward...), but us there anywhere I can report him as being unfit to drive? The thought of him being let loose on the road is truely frightening...

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Science won over religion when they started installing lightning rods on churches.

I find these questions incredibly difficult.

On the one hand safety is a priority. On the other hand 'telling tales' on people is pretty ugly.

Obviously safety wins, but there are a couple of hard to resolve caveats.

- Firstly we can't really know that safety is being compromised. Sometimes things that look quite dangerous are safe because the risks are highly visible. Sometimes other factors mitigate. In this case you have said the car hasn't moved for two months. That's one hell of a mitigation. Even though he's hopeless, he would have to be 60 times worse than average to equal average daily risk.

- Secondly I find it very difficult to trust the authorities to react appropriately. Sometimes we see an over-reaction and sometimes we can get no reaction at all.

So we don't really know the danger or the response. Acting in such circumstances is risky because the cure may be worse than the disease but on the other hand not acting may be worse...

Like I said - I hate these difficult questions...

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

Hypothesising here then, would the question be easier to answer if Sixy could be more positive that she had seen him do things that presented a genuine road safety hazard?

I suppose anything that reduces the number of 'unknowns' must help.

But there's a risk of observing an exceptional event and assuming that it is more commonplace than it really is.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

As you say, he hasn't actually gone anywhere in this car for 2 months. From your description of his behaviour it could be that he's just occasionally running the engine for a while to make sure the car is still in working order, and not actually intending to go anywhere. It's risky to jump to conclusions.

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed