April 27th, 2025Kyle’s Rant
As I glide into the last third of my life, my thoughts and priorities change, and I seem to be getting less tolerant with no stomach for fools.
Don’t get me wrong, I love to be foolish, used to be quite a hellraiser in my younger days, and am liberal with the dad jokes. (Husband says to wife,’is this cup half full or half empty? Wife says ‘please just take my bra off’. Boom boom.)
But when it comes to the ludicrous behaviour of others, with a particular focus on the youth, I have no patience.
My theory is that this has been going on for an age, as every generation reaches a time of stability and looks back on the ones coming through and complains bitterly.
However, this time things seem to be different – youth crime is up and the elderly are not respected, just targets. The only way an older woman gets helped across the road is during a carjacking when she is tossed into the gutter sans handbag.
Accountability for one’s actions doesn’t seem to be much of a priority anymore for many young people, but I have decided to hit back.
There was a road-rage incident I was tangled up in the other day which involved a truck so close behind me that the collision alarm sounded on the 80kph stretch of road out to Glenlyon.
These tailgating events and general dangerous situations are so common in the country, particularly involving P-platers or large trucks. I don’t know what a truck driver would do if an animal did hop out onto the road or I felt like I wanted to tap the brakes for a bunch of birds who were gnawing on some roadkill.
So, I waited until I got to the roundabout in Daylesford and I kept going around the roundabout until I was following the truck.
The driver pulled up erratically outside the Daylesford Railway Station and quickly hopped out – perhaps to have a go. But he didn’t realise I was simply after some details from his door which, once obtained, was followed by a quick phone call to his company and my job was done.
My point is that although there seems to be no accountability, there are still pressure points you can push. We shouldn’t let bad and dangerous behaviour go unpunished.
We are so used to ignoring unruly behaviour on the streets because of the threat of violence and self-preservation. But we need to fight back and pot these dickheads any way we can.
Threaten their livelihoods by potting them into their workplaces or the police. It is hard enough just driving and trying to stay alive on the roads with the potholes, animals, fog, ice and distracted drivers let alone idiots who are in a hurry.
Speaking of potholes, there is a stretch of perfectly good, sealed road just beyond Blampied on the way to Newlyn. Recently this approximately 1000 metres of road was redone, which took a few weeks and a fair bit of traffic delay.
Just metres from the end of this smooth new seal that didn’t need fixing and almost outside Maze House, is a real doozy of a bunch of bumps it seems the roadworkers missed (WTF).
I know it is not a local council-maintained road and it is probably maintained by VicRoads but how do people whose duty in life is simply to find the bumps and fix them miss such a dangerous set of holes literally metres from the end of the works.
It’s not as if they finish a full day in surgery and are a bit tired as they climb aboard the steamrollers and they make a little boo-boo missing the actual stuff that should be fixed.
Road rant over… (Ed’s note: To all the young people out there doing the right thing, and the roadworkers just doing their jobs, The Local apologises. It’s been a long week for Kyle…)
