Opinion - Moses followers

That chap Moses has a lot to answer for. Y'ken who I mean, the chap with the big stick and a liking for water. Apparently he had an awfy lot of followers at one time, although his popularity waned a bit after a bit of a problem with his prescription, but he took the tablets anyway.

He’s no longer with us, but it would appear that he still has a sizable following. The trouble is, these followers of his don’t have the same way with canals, rivers or sea lochs, so they practice their dark arts nowadays on Motorways.

You can always spot them, out the side of your eye, racing down the slip roads, building up to 60 or 70 and hellbent on hitting the middle lane without lifting. It doesn’t matter how many trucks are nose to tail on the inside lane or how many buses and caravans there are hidden out of sight behind the trucks, these Moses followers have an unerring belief in the power of the parting of the ways.

It happened again tonight, southbound on the M6, and a wee car no bigger than a lady’s handbag gathered itself for a fling down the on-ramp south of Carlisle. It didn’t matter a hoot to the driver that there was a bleedin’ great Stobart and a McBurney in her way (aye it had to be a wummin., but men are just as bad if not worser).

I was in the middle lane about to pass the trucks and I could see the impending drama unfold. The wee car disappeared out of sight behind the first truck and for a few seconds I thought common sense or some form of personal regard had overcome the mad downhill rush. Nae chance.  At unabated speed, it popped out between the two trucks like a burst plook – straight into my path, but I was half expecting it, so like the truck drivers I gave her room.

But it makes you think, because she got away with it this time, she’ll think she can get away with it every time – or worse, did she even realise how dangerous the practice is? One of these days she’ll come across one of those half-asleep foreign truckers who don’t understand the lemming-like zeal of the Moses followers.

Anyway, I survived unscathed to reach the hotel in Nuneaton, for tomorrow there is a tantalising prospect in store at MIRA. Comparing the merits of ‘standard’ tyres and ‘winter’ tyres on a 44 tonne artic.

I wonder if we’ll get marks for how many cones we hit – or miss!