Do You Even Brake, Though?

I live on a university campus. The recent February floods cut off all of the university's main access roads to our town, leaving just a single country lane to serve as the only route onto campus for thousands of the students. This same lane has to be traversed by those of us who live on site but work elsewhere. We are the unfortunate souls who must routinely imperil our lives to travel like salmon against the flow of student traffic along this narrow country lane. 

The posted speed limit for this lane is 20mph but the students tend to view this as more of an optional, casual suggestion rather than the law. They hurtle down that lane, flooring it as though they have just heard breaking news there is actually toilet paper back in stock at Aldi and they’re trying to get there before it all sells out.

My main issue with them speeding on this lane is less about them breaking the law and more about them potentially breaking my face with their car. There are only two places in the single lane where you could 'safely' pass another driver - and even that requires you to partially infiltrate the hedge with your vehicle, so speeding down this lane is really the only way to guarantee that, sooner or later, someone is gonna face-plant their dashboard. 

Student drivers, what ever happened to honouring the line from the Driver’s Pledge; ‘First do no harm’ huh?? 
OK, now that I think about it... that line might in fact come from the Hippocratic Oath which I believe is what all hippos have to pledge to mankind upon reaching hippopotamus adulthood. But I think the sentiment still applies here, so I’m sticking with it.

It is my strong suspicion that - if given the opportunity - student drivers would run the Popemobile off this country back lane! I’m surprised the university hasn't actually asked us residents to sign a Liability Waiver because these students are being pretty cavalier with our lives. Really, the only people who should ever be forced to leave this campus and contend in these perilous conditions against the flow of student drivers, should fall into one of the following four categories: 

   1. Donald Trump. 

   2. Harvey Weinstein. 

   3. Anyone who doesn't adhere to the 2m social distancing rule.

   4. Whoever is buying up all the toilet paper in Gloucester. Seriously; it’s tough times around here -  people are wiping their butts with their pets and Pot Noodle lids these days.

But I digress.

On my first morning using that country lane, after my initial ill-fated incident with 10 student drivers, I realised two things: 

Realisation Number 1. This was no longer my easy morning commute - this was now the hazardous Wild West with the motor running. 

Realisation Number 2. There was no way I was going to survive my new morning commute without harnessing my inner Vin Diesel and purchasing a v-shaped snow plow and mounting it to my car’s bumper. 

There is nothing like starting your day by running a gauntlet! When you’re actually on the road, it all tends to go by in a bit of a blur of unbridled terror. While you’re driving, you’re really just devoting all of your mental energy to two things: constant threat analysis and sphincter control (they don’t tell you that in the Fast & the Furious!) And I will confess out loud that, yeah, I consider myself to be a superb driver. By that I mean that I have never killed or injured anyone - human or animal - with my vehicle. Not to brag, but I have also never driven my car into a building, pedestrian, or goat so you can trust my practically semi-professional automotive driving opinion here where I call almost all student drivers “imbecillic maniacs.” 

Now, to be fair to them, student drivers do have a lot going on behind the wheel. They are new to the whole driving thing, so they are still practicing placing their hands at 10 and 2; all the while simultaneously making phone calls, applying dry shampoo, eating pizza, canoodling, putting on makeup, taking selfies, and turning up the volume on their car’s sound system until everyone within a 2 mile radius can also experience their bass notes as they reverberate deep within their sternum. So it’s no wonder that they really don’t have time to adhere to pesky little things such as speed limits. I get it. I’m not an unreasonable person. All I ask is that you slow down a tad between 6:30am-6:45am while I’m out there. Oh, and pick me up some toilet paper when you’re at Aldi and we’ll be cool.