7 May 2004

A 75-year-old widow has been fined £200 for driving too slowly.
Mary Lamond was doing just five miles an hour as she approached every bend on a twisting road in Stirlingshire.........

......Stirling Sheriff Court heard she did not usually drive at night in the dark and that she was wearing a new pair of glasses she was not yet used to.

The court was told that a massive queue of traffic built up behind her as she slowed from a maximum speed of 35mph down to a walking pace as she approached every bend on the twisting A81 between Dumgoyne and Blanefield, in west Stirlingshire.

The retired teacher's car, leading a long procession of fuming motorists, was eventually spotted and followed by a police patrol, who at first thought the driver must be drunk.

Craig Harris, prosecuting, said it was dark when Mrs Lamond was spotted, at about 1900 BST on 18 October last year.

He said: "She indicated to the police that she wasn't in the habit of driving at night in the dark.

"I might add that there was no suggestion of any alcohol having been taken."

The retired teacher, from Bearsden, pleaded guilty to driving carelessly and without due consideration for other road users by braking at each corner "in a manner so as to cause the vehicle to slow down almost to a halt" and by driving erratically at five to 35mph, causing other drivers to take evasive action to avoid a collision........

.......Sheriff Liddell fined Mrs Lamond £200 and endorsed her licence with six penalty points.

After the case, motoring organisations said the former teacher should think about giving up driving.

Spokeswoman for the RAC in Scotland, Sue Nicholson, said: "People who drive as slowly as that cause as much difficulty and danger on the road as people who speed."

From:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/3694201.stm

 

I found myself behind one of these on my way back from Matlock to Manchester the other day. She was 'driving' a Ford Ka, always at 10mph below the posted limit, and every time something came in the other direction, she would brake and move to the left. She also hit the brakes every time the road went downhill. It was impossible to pass her because the road (A6 ?) has been 'improved' and has either double white lines or central bollards every 100 yards.
In the end I had to pull a risky trick to pass her (my 190 bhp Corolla helped...) otherwise I would still not be home.

I get it frequently on my commute.

I use a major fast single carriageway NSL.

"Improved" with edge lines well in from the edge, and lots of double white lines and centre hatching (a lot of which have broken edge lines, but few people seem to know what that means anymore).

The actual carriageway is three to four lanes wide along most of it.

But that's no use when the cars coming the opposite way are pushed over to the centre, the cars going your way are pushed over to the centre, no one will do over 50, no one will overtake, and if you try, instread of moving out of the way, they continue between the lines, flashing their headlamps at you.

And now they are "improving" the road further by sticking in bollards and islands and reducing the approaches to roundabouts from two lanes to one.

Mind you, there is a set of traffic lights, with a two lane approach, still left.

Unfortunately, the "driver" who's been trundling along at 30 tends to take the right hand lane, especially if it's empty:

I was once behind a "driver" who did that, and like a fool I followed him, assuming that I would be able to get in front of one of couple of very heavy lorries, or at least the tractor, interspersed  between the half dozen other vehicles in the left hand lane (that had been at the lights long before we got there).

Nope, half of them had got through the lights before he even started to move, and they all had before I got to them.

And they changed!