I’m sure you’ve seen the ads, the ones with the young “cool dude” in his hotted-up car hooning around the streets like he’s king dick of the super penis clan. The response from onlookers is a wave of a limp looking pinky finger reflecting their thoughts of how big a man they think he really is. Despite the obvious lack of female bad drivers in these ads (little bit hard to apply the same metaphor to women) they make a good point - speeding, no one thinks big of you. Unfortunately they don’t seem to be overly effective.

There are speed limits for a reason. They are called limits for a reason. They aren’t “speed suggestions” suffixed with a question mark. Different speed restrictions apply for learner and provisional drivers for a reason. These rules, well not all of them (thats another argument), aren’t there just for funsies, they are there for good reasons.

Is it a case of some weird god-complex, where they believe the p-plate is some sort of invincibility shield protecting them from all the stupid things they are capable of doing to themselves while behind the wheel of a car.

You say “I’m a good driver, so I should be allowed to speed”, or “I’ve done super special driving course X, so I should be allowed to drive as fast as I want”. I say you’re kidding yourself. How many of the P-platers that have gotten up close and personal with telegraph poles in recent months also thought they could speed for these same reasons?

Is it a case of some weird god-complex, where they believe the p-plate is some sort of invincibility shield protecting them from all the stupid things they are capable of doing to themselves while behind the wheel of a car. Do they not realise that if (or when) they crash that there is a chance that they’re going to hurt someone other than themselves, and that the collateral damage isn’t limited to just their passengers, but the passengers of other cars and unsuspecting pedestrians. I suspect not.

A few months back there seemed to be an endless stream of young drivers writing themselves off and taking others with them. More often than not they were doing things they shouldn’t have been… like (but not limited to) speeding. Best of all is when they combine multiple infringements, like say drinking, carrying more passengers than your licensed to carry and then driving head on into traffic.

They say is the police’s fault. Really? Did they teleport into the offender’s car and cause the crash? No, didn’t think so.

Yes, its very sad, these people were somebody’s children. But somehow people can’t seem to agree on who they should blame. The least likely person to get blamed usually seems to be the driver, some will blame God (or the weather/conditions if you don’t believe in that sort of thing), some will blame the Government for the poor condition of our roads (fair point, but it not their fault), some will blame the lack of proper ‘defensive’ driving skills being taught to young drivers, and some will say its just a tragic accidents and no one is at fault. And some will just blame the police.

Now the latest uproar surrounds an incident that saw an entire family wiped out by a speeding driver a couple of weeks back. Apparently, according to some, this was the fault of the Police… not the driver… That this driver was part of a police chase seems irrelevant to me. It was their speeding, and their car which hit the car the family was traveling in, not the police. It takes two to have a police chase, if you don’t run there’s no chase.

People say that there should only be chases in a life or death situation, and why does something like recovering a stolen car fit into that category? I don’t know, ah, perhaps because they’re breaking multiple laws? They say is the police’s fault. Really? Did they teleport into the offender’s car and cause the crash? No, didn’t think so. How about blaming the idiot who was being chased, he’s the one who was doing the wrong thing.

And it wasn’t the first time for this genius. Apparently this moron only awoke from a crash induced coma 10 months ago, and now he’s landed himself a permanent one. Good. That should stop him killing anyone else. That might sound harsh, but you explain that to the family of the multiple people he was responsible for killing on that weekend, and see what they think - obviously those who think its the cop’s fault won’t agree.

It doesn’t matter how strict/stupid they make the laws its not going to stop dickheads doing stupid things and killing people.

Then this last weekend ex-F1 champ Lewis Hamilton got busted fishtailing his way away from Melbourne’s Albert Park GP circuit, he got a media bitch slapping and most people (me) probably just had a giggle. I personally hoped that he’d get locked up and wouldn’t be able to race, giving Mark Webber a better chance at an elusive victory.

Following Sunday’s race Webber made some comments regarding his thoughts that Australia is becoming a ‘nanny state’ (a fair comment, and itself a good topic for here in the future), and added that Lewis had found this out pretty quickly. This was somehow turned on is arse to make it sound like Webber was condoning speeding. Sorry? What?

Yes, Lewis was stupid, and he should have known better. Was Mark endorsing ‘hooning’? No fucking way, it was all blown out of context. His dig was at the governments/authorities/rule-makers who believe that if they add more regulations and restrictions then less bad things will happen. Bullshit. It doesn’t matter how strict/stupid they make the laws its not going to stop dickheads doing stupid things and killing people.

Charade-man thinks his penis will grow if he has a drag race with Commodore-man, despite the fact that he’d have to push the heap-of-shit Charade to the limit to do so - multiplying the chances of disaster.

The cars aren’t the problem here, its the shit-for-brains minority behind the wheel. You can own fast, expensive, powerful cars and not be a complete knob. I need to reinforce this, I’ve got nothing against fast cars, or the people who drive them, my problem is with the idiot minority who do dumb shit and in the process ruin the reputation of other drivers, resulting in anyone who owns a fast car being labelled as a hoon. Just because your whizz-bang Ferrari can cruise at 200km/h doesn’t mean you have to. And it isn’t even idiots in fast cars, idiots in shit boxes are probably just as bad.

I can easily imagine some ‘fooly-sik’ dude in his Mum’s Daihatsu Charade sitting at the lights next to some other ‘fooly-sik’ dude in his V8 Commodore. Charade-man thinks his penis will grow if he has a drag race with Commodore-man, despite the fact that he’d have to push the heap-of-shit Charade to the limit to do so - multiplying the chances of disaster.

Too many families in this country are too well aware of how these incidents end, and its usually with a sudden population reduction brought about by stupid people, doing stupid (unnecessary) things, injuring and killing innocent people who just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. For those that cause the accidents, killing themselves in the process, I see that as natural selection. Deal with it - the families of the victims have to.

What’s the solution? Honestly I don’t think there is a good one, apart from perhaps amputating the right leg and left arm of anyone who thinks they are awesome and should be allowed to speed. Perhaps that’s too drastic, maybe we should save that special treatment for any poor souls who manage to actually survive a self inflicted accident that claims the lives of innocent bystanders.