A blog I have started reading.
An Open Letter To A Scooter Rider
Dear Devil’s Spawn Scooter Rider,
I have been forced to share the roads with you now for nearly fifteen years. Through your own stupidity I nearly killed you in Spain, then I nearly killed you in France and now I find you dicing with death in front of my wheels in Italy. I worry about you. No, honestly, I do. Therefore I have decided to send you this list of helpful road safety hints in the hope that it will make your life a little less pointless dangerous.
1. Scooter Rider, I think I speak for all Car Drivers when I say that we are not mind readers. Although I perfectly understand why you might think so; you see us there, in our air-conditioned, quiet, comfortable and relatively safe modes of transport, and assume that we are superior beings in possession of unseen powers. We are. But not of the mind-reading variety. So next time you decide to undertake just as one of us is indicating to turn right (left if you are Brit, Kiwi, Aussie or other), or overtake just as one of us is indicating to turn left (right if you are etc…), just don’t. WE HAVEN’T SEEN YOU AND EVEN IF WE HAVE, IT SIMPLY HASN’T CROSSED OUR MINDS THAT YOU WOULD DO SOMETHING SO CRETINOUS.
2. Scooter Rider, biology dictates that it is not just Car Drivers that have eyes. Scooter Riders have also been blessed with a couple of their own, and if you hold a legally valid Scooter Rider license, that would indicate that at least one of them is in reasonable working order. I imagine, following a similar train of thought, that you will also have been blessed with the gift of forethought. Therefore, when you see a car parked in such a way that the Car Driver in front of you will be forced to pull out slightly in order to get passed it (badly parked cars in Italy? never), don’t choose that precise moment to overtake us. IT FORCES US TO SCREECH TO A VERY DANGEROUS HALT AND MAKES US VERY VERY VERY CROSS INDEED.
3. Scooter Rider, I know that having a scooter makes scooting in and out of the traffic delightfully simple. I imagine that’s the whole point. However, the opposite side of the road is still the opposite side of the road however you slice and dice it. Please don’t force me to screech to a stop because you and all your Scooter Driver pals are racing towards me, on my side of the road in order to overtake everything on your side of the road. APART FROM BEING DANGEROUSLY FOOLHARDY, IT FILLS ME WITH AN ALMOST OVERWHELMING URGE TO REACH OUT OF MY OPEN WINDOW AND SLAP YOU OFF YOUR SCOOTER AS YOU ZOOM PAST.
4. Scooter Rider, the ‘CCs’ mentioned in your scooter bumph refer to the volume of air and fuel mixture intake in your cylinder bore, not to the castrated cats which appear to provide the sound effects every time you rev your engine. Noise like that is bad, very bad. PUT A SILENCER ON IT FOR PITY’S SAKE!
Scooter Rider, let’s face it. You are not hip. You are not cool. You are not rumbling along manfully astride a Harley Davidson, or roaring along perched sexily on a ferocious Honda Fireblade. No. You are whining along clinging to a battered 50cc Piaggio. Don’t try to redress the damage that does to your ego by ruining my day, or I could decide that a long jail term might just be worth giving you a serious dose of Panda Power.
Keep out of my way safe.
Car Driver
