{"id":5493,"date":"2011-09-15T17:29:13","date_gmt":"2011-09-15T16:29:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/?p=5493"},"modified":"2021-02-10T15:47:49","modified_gmt":"2021-02-10T15:47:49","slug":"objects-in-the-rear-view-mirror-may-appear-closer-than-they-are-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/?p=5493","title":{"rendered":"Objects in the rear-view mirror may appear closer than they are*"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Mankind has been evolving (unless one believes the branch of science fiction that calls itself &#8216;religion&#8217;) for tens of millions of years.<\/p>\n<p>In that time we have:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>crawled from the primordial soup<\/li>\n<li>staggered on to our hind legs<\/li>\n<li>found the most efficient bipedal way to walk<\/li>\n<li>learned to craft tools, weapons, clothes, fire<\/li>\n<li>experimented with quasi-socio-political structural&nbsp;hierarchies<\/li>\n<li>decided that the one we dislike the least is a kind of benign, mildly-despotic type of consumerist-fuelled, borderline-democratic structure.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>We have also fashioned a voting system which guarantees that only the most useless, short-sighted and intellectually-challenged members of our society are elected to office, to represent us.<\/p>\n<p>And the lunatics, who are very clearly in complete charge of the asylum, are at it again.<\/p>\n<p>The House of Commons Transport Select Committee have produced a report that says &#8211; what a large amount of ordinary road users have known for years &#8211; that the standard of driving in the UK &#8216;Is Very Poor And Must Get Better&#8217;.<\/p>\n<p>*applause*<\/p>\n<p>Some road users, say the committee, drive so badly that if things were better there would be less congestion, travel times would be quicker and there would be fewer accidents.<\/p>\n<p>*more applause*<\/p>\n<p>And what is the Transport Select Committee&#8217;s suggestion?<\/p>\n<p>To have a new, stricter driving test.<\/p>\n<p>*standing ovation*<\/p>\n<p>Poor driving, adds the committee, is costing the UK \u00a3billions fiscally alone, never mind the uncounted cost of what bad drivers are doing to the blood pressure of other road users.<\/p>\n<p>But.<\/p>\n<p>The terrible standard of driving is going on now, yes?<\/p>\n<p>Yes.<\/p>\n<p>It is costing the UK hundreds of lives a year and \u00a3billions right now, yes?<\/p>\n<p>Yes.<\/p>\n<p>So when the new, stricter, driving test is introduced, it will be mandatory for all drivers &#8211; everyone out there with a licence *right now* &#8211; to take it?<\/p>\n<p>Erm.<\/p>\n<p>It will, won&#8217;t it?<\/p>\n<p>Umm.<\/p>\n<p>Because, as the Transport Select Committee has rightfully identified, it&#8217;s the people out there on the roads right now who are the problem.<\/p>\n<p>The problem isn&#8217;t a bunch of people who have not yet started school, is it?<\/p>\n<p>No.<\/p>\n<p>So the new, stricter, driving test will be introduced as a mandatory retrospective?<\/p>\n<p>Hawww.<\/p>\n<p>No.<\/p>\n<p>There, I said it.<\/p>\n<p>No.<\/p>\n<p>Amazing.<\/p>\n<p>Well done, mankind, at having produced such a prime bunch of intellectual fucktards.<\/p>\n<p>And well done for voting them in to office.<\/p>\n<p>The Transport Select Committee are (just for the record),<\/p>\n<p>Louise Ellman<br \/>\nSteve Baker<br \/>\nJim Dobbin<br \/>\nTom Harris<br \/>\nJulie Hilling<br \/>\nKwasi Kwarteng<br \/>\nJohn Leech<br \/>\nPaul Maynard<br \/>\nIain Stewart<br \/>\nGraham Stringer<br \/>\nJulian Sturdy<\/p>\n<p>Well done everyone. Well done.<\/p>\n<p><em>* with thanks and apologies to the excellent Jim Steinman, for him allowing me to use the title of his work in this way.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mankind has been evolving (unless one believes the branch of science fiction that calls itself &#8216;religion&#8217;) for tens of millions of years. In that time<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stuff","two-columns"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5493"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5493\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}