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Driver L Radley is pleasantly surprised by a Mini driving with all due care and attention.
Page 13
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There's not a lot that surprises me these days. I can't even be bothered to get irate when yet another car goes careering across my bows on the M25, But I was pleasantly surprised last week when I came across a Mini doing less than the speed limit on the A13.
I was even more shocked when it indicated and carefully merged with the queue on the slip road to the M25 in a safe and polite manner. I almost tainted when it stalwartly refused to tailgate the car in front, instead letting several others in.
The picture started to look distinctly odd when our Mini reached the coned-off van that was causing the queue in the first place, and not only did it again merge safely, but so did the cars around it. As the road opened out again approaching the roundabout, there was no mad accelerating scramble to get to the lights. Instead, there was an orderly rolling into place.
This seven-or-eight-car oasis of manners continued around the roundabout as if they were all on test, and proceeded to accelerate smoothly down the motorway slip, matching their speed to the traffic and holding back to allow the lorry already on the carriageway to exercise his right of way. The Mini then sat quietly behind said truck until there was plenty of room to overtake, which it did in a textbook manner before indicating and returning to the left-hand lane, The Mini concerned was five years old, had a set of toy boxing gloves hanging from the rearview mirror, and was driven by a lad in his 20s, who judging by his attire should have been bullying his way through the traffic like the world was going to end then roaring off across three lanes without so much as a mirror check. However, not only was he driving with due care and attention, but so were all those around him.
Then I looked closer. In the back window of the Mini were some white decals. They read: "LEE DALE. RIP. 25.3.85-23.1.08." A quick Google search when I got home revealed that Lee had sadly died in a car accident. Who says shock tactics don't work?