Inadequate traffic authorities

The current driving test is predicated on anti-social priority. Advice and practice stem from that odious premise, so the driving test unleashes cohorts of barbaric drivers onto our barbaric roads. The Highway Code says pedestrians have priority at junctions. This morning I was walking along a pavement and had started to cross a side road, following the broken double white lines, when l heard a car approaching from behind. I was aware of it slowing down, presumably to turn into the road that I was crossing. As an assertive ped, l wasn’t about to bow and scrape, so I kept going. Only when I heard him screech to a mini emergency stop did I turn and look into his startled face. He was one of the great unleashed: he was assuming priority, and assuming I would be intimidated. Although I was peeved at him and his ignorance, my real contempt is for a system which encourages him to think he owns the road, and that people on foot should defer to him and scatter. There is a grand canyon between the Highway Code and the assumed rules of the road that no authority – not the DfT, nor the DVSA (Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency), nor the DVLA or whoever is in charge of the inadequate driving test – thinks of bridging.