<Warning, may contain ranting and unreasonable-ness>. OAP's driving slowly whilst wearing hats.

[Mumofaflump]

Seriously? If you cant manage at least 40 mph down a perfectly good A road with a limit of 60 mph then, in my opinion, you shouldn't be driving.

Every morning I get stuck behind at least one person who crawls along at 35mph. Invariably they are driving fast expensive cars too!

Dont even get me started on those who drive fast cars slowly whilst wearing hats..... GRRRRRRRRRRRR.

Disclaimer - it is a perfectly good road, 60 is a perfectly sensible speed, conditions permitting.

Velour cushions on the back window sill seem to be a favourite with the older driver.

My grandad who is one foot tall and sported a stunning array of headgear, drove at ten miles an hour down the wrong side of the road, and when a car apporached, stopped, and waited for it to drive round him. Terrifying.

I think I have seen the reason for the cushion, tissues and blanket in the layby down the country lane I use as a short cut.

I have gone blind!

Bumpybecky - are you my twin? I just don't get it. They are so uncomfortable driving on a 60mph road that they pootle along at 40mph, but suddenly when we enter a village and a 30mph zone they are such a wonderful driver that they don't need a single millimetre of stopping distance and drive right up to my bumper.

Mind you I've driven down the wrong side of the road and wondered why people were swerving and pulling faces. Could happen to anyone.

LaurieFairyCake

Loves it I do!

Hully - I think I may love you.

Bumpybecky - that is my pet hate too.

I just can't understand why if you feel the need to dawdle in an NSL you also would feel the need to speed dangerously through a village - and 40mph in a 30 is very dangerous indeed.

I'm usually on a bike and while I may treat the NSL as more of a guideline than a rule I treat all other limits with complete respect, particularly 30s.

A particularly childish trick to play is to overtake a 40-dawdler (preferably in a silly 4x4) just before a village, hold them to 30mph through the village while their hat explodes with frustration at the silly woman on the horrid rough motorcycle, then as soon as you get to the NSL sign on the other side of the village, wind it on and leave them for dust, preferably as they are just about to do a stupid overtake on you.

The only advice i ever took from my (now ex) MiL was stay away from cars driven by old men in hats!

Even now i notice it daily. I think they even have a special word for it in Germany!

Mumofalump - I grew up in the countryside, and it is a well-known fact amongst farmers that you can do absolutely anything with baler twine. It makes a stylish accessory, to hold up a sagging pair of trousies, can be used to mend gates, fences, tractors, houses and, obviously, landrover suspensions.

In fact, those heatproof tiles wouldn't have fallen off the Challenger orbiter rocket thingy (apologies for overly technical language) if they'd been tied on with baler twine.

It probably makes an acceptable substitute for spaghetti, if boiled long enough.

Oh - and you can use it to tie up bales of hay or straw with - if you are at a loose end for anything more exciting to do with it!

I live in one of those God's Waiting Room like retirement seaside towns and have developed incredible skills of spotting elderly drivers with or without hats and taking suitable evasive action.

I don't know why people pay good money for things like roller coasters to scare them - driving anywhere near the Post Office on pension day is far more white knuckle!

The reason for my mother's truly awful and terrifying unusual style of driving became apparent when she told me this about her driving test (circa 1954):

When the time came to perform an emergency stop, the examiner asked her to pull over to the side of the road. He got out of the car and informed her that he was going to take the next road on the left and wait at a point some distance down that road. She should wait five minutes, follow his route and be prepared to perform her emergency stop when he jumped into the road in front of her.

She duly waited and then set off. As she drove down the left turn, she espied the exmainer jumping out into the road a few hundred yards ahead of her. Uncertain whether she should stop right there or carry on and stop nearer to him, she chose the former option and screeched to a halt. After a minute or two, she drove up to him and let him in the car.

She passed first time.

Whether or not this explains her penchant for turning corners in fourth gear, crashing into innocent walls or swerving violently into the opposite lane I don't know.

She never wears a hat though.

But she does have an ancient first aid kit (with blunt scissors) and special 'driving sunglasses' in her glove box.

Car in my village has magazines fanned out on the parcel shelf. And a velvet riding cap on one side. I am waiting to see what appears on the other end of the shelf, I was thinking a crop-and-gloves combo, artfully arranged.

Old men driving in hats + pension day in Morrisons = my idea of dante's inferno - truly terrifying.

my fil has a wooden box full of road maps next to his toiletroll-crochet cover-barbie-combo.
everytime I am in that car I put the wooden box into the boot. just so dangerous. this box could behead him.

My dad has a hat. And is an OAP. But, to quote himself 'I may be an old git - that does not mean I have to drive like an old git.' And, to be fair, he doesn't....

GentleOtter, my DSis is a farmer in France - bunnetage and rusty old Citroens are the key danger signals there. Usually means some retired farmer, who is most likely to stop dead in the middle of the road to get out and criticise the fields/livestock/tractor they can see.

My dad has a frilly tissue box, and a hat, on the parcel shelf

It is the law that when are 70 and renew your licence, they make you drive a square japanese car and drive 30% under the speed limit.

I've just been in a queue behind someone driving at a very steady 40mph for miles on the 60mph road, who continued at 40mph through the 30 zone and was last seen heading towards the 20 zone with no sign of any slowing down!

I get that near me too...it's the 40mph in the 30 zone bit which irks most.

I should add there are some technically 60mph limit roads near me which you can safely only do 30 on, and sometimes have to stop altogether to let on another pass...but I don't think quite a lot of drivers know what that round white sign with the black diagonal line through it actually means.

I don't mind people being slower when they don't know the road, I definitely wouldn't be approaching national speed limit on a bendy/narrow and unfamiliar road...but the continuing at 40 through the 30 limit gives them away. I wonder if they can actually see the road signs. Very worrying.

I've also seen several scary near misses (and would have been knocked down myself) with drivers clearly not seeing pelican crossings, slowing down at all, or even registering that they had just driven through a red light or nearly knocked someone down.

Do you think it's the hats that are the problem? Maybe the wearing of them is overheating their little OAP brains, and affecting their thought processes.

I can't explain the cushions or tissue boxes that way though.

Or the tartan blankets.

Many moons ago a friend and I had to go and collect her mother from the police station, where she'd been taken following an accident. She was outraged on the phone, huffing and puffing about the 'lunacy' of the police officers and the 'beaurocracy' that had led to her arrest.

Turned out she'd been driving on the wrong side of the road for about four miles, with people swerving out of the way, and she finally came to a halt when she pranged into someone who'd come round a corner. Thankfully this was all done at about ten mph, so no great damage was done and no-one was hurt.

She then happily confessed to all of us that she'd simply been given her driving licence when she was a teenager living in Brasil. The American Embassy had just handed one over when she reached the right age!

or the problem is the other way round: people who don't take off their hats inside the car have a lack of road awareness?

And don't get me started on the oldies - hatted or hatless - in Sainsburys car park. Mind you, everyone seems to lose the ability to drive upon arrival in a supermarket car park...

A particularly childish trick to play is to overtake a 40-dawdler (preferably in a silly 4x4) just before a village, hold them to 30mph through the village while their hat explodes with frustration at the silly woman on the horrid rough motorcycle, then as soon as you get to the NSL sign on the other side of the village, wind it on and leave them for dust, preferably as they are just about to do a stupid overtake on you.

I admit I've done the same but in my car with a white van behind me. You shall not speed through my village if I have anything to do with it! :)

A hat keeps the elderly driver's brain warm while not being used. And is obviously a useful warning sign to other road-users. Should be in the Highway Code, really.