If you're nervous...

...what are you doing up here?
A couple of weeks ago, on the way back from skiing, we got stuck behind a flatlander who was clearly very, very nervous about mountain driving. She was barely touching 10mph in her minivan, and was driving with her hazard lights on. Even the slightest bend in the road caused the brake lights to come on. Now we have a law here that states that if you're holding up traffic on a mountain road, and there's more than three vehicles behind you, you have to pull over and let them pass. There were plenty of opportunities to pull over, but she ambled past every one of them. In the end, it resulted in people overtaking her in dangerous places, and you'd think she would have got the message when even the ski bus overtook her on a double yellow line. But no - she kept dawdling downhill, and by the time we got to the bottom, there were a good thirty vehicles behind her.
I did briefly consider that it might have been vehicle trouble that was making her drive so slowly, but as soon as we got out on to regular roads, she was off without any hesitation.
In other words she was selfish, irresponsible and unobservant. If you've read my blog for any length of time, you'll know I have very little time for drivers like this.
Use your mirrors. Understand the rules of the road. And if you're heading into territory you're nervous about, then here's an idea: don't go!

Turn left on red?

My final blog post about the recent trip back to England : why aren't they allowed to turn left on red? The equivalent of turning right on red in America? It solves so many congestion issues at junctions and intersections and it's so obvious. Because I now live in America but go back and forth with some regularity, it's always difficult for me to not turn left on red for the first day or so when I go back. I'm so used to doing it at home and it comes so naturally, that I have to think hard to stop myself breaking the law in England. Although having said that there have been several occasions where I've done exactly that - absent-mindedly breezed through a left turn lane on a red light because nothing was coming. Fortunately I've never been spotted doing this by anyone in officialdom but I'm sure it'll happen one of these days.