A blast from the past

In the late 80s I worked for a small company in Sheffield writing production control software. It wasn't a bad job - mainly office based with occasional site visits. However, on one of those site visits I went with a salesman called Joe and I came as close to dying as I ever have in my life.

To call Joe unreconstructed would be an understatement. He had stepped through a time warp from the Sheffield of the 70s with his greasy, straggly hair and brown suits. Needless to say he chain-smoked, drank like a fish and went to the pub for his lunch just about every single day. He had an unshakeable conviction that his life experiences had given him a unique insight into the human condition that bordered on arrogance. His way of doing things was the only way and woe betide anybody that tried to tell him different.

Driving down the motorway he stayed permanently in the outside lane, hunched over the wheel daring anybody to get in his way. Somebody did. A woman driver, a subhuman species in Joe's opinion, pulled out to overtake a string of lorries and had the effrontery to be in front of him doing a totally unreasonable 70 miles per hour. He gripped the steering wheel harder and hit the accelerator until he was on her tail. He flashed his lights, sounded his horn and came within inches of ramming into her. The woman found a gap between two lorries to move across but that wasn't good enough for Joe. He drove alongside her, swearing, spitting and swerving from side to side in the outside lane.

I jammed my foot on an imaginary brake pedal and closed my eyes and prepared for impact. Fortunately the woman escaped into the slow lane and slowed down dramatically, disappearing into the traffic behind. The absolute icing on the cake was still to come. He pulled in at the next services, found a traffic cop and reported her for dangerous driving, saying that he had been cut up and was driving defensively. "People like that shouldn't be on the road - absolute menace".

I spent the rest of the journey gripping the edges of my seat in fear and I never went in a car with him again.

Fast-forward 14 years or so and I'm watching Traffic Cops - one of my
favourite programmes on TV. The current series is set in South Yorkshire and it is great fun watching high speed chases round the estates, back roads and motorways of my area. There are licence dodgers, twoccers, speeders and all manner of automotive lowlife that get their respective collars felt by the boys in blue.

On last night's show, the police had received a tip off about a man drinking heavily in a pub at lunchtime who was about to get in his car to drive away. The traffic cop waited at the side of the road and stopped him before he got to the end of the road.

"Bloody hell - I used to work with him!"

He was still arrogant enough to take a five minute call on his mobile in the back of the police car, try to claim that he had some sort of liver disorder that stopped him metabolising alcohol ("I think you should know that before you take me to court"), argue with the booking sergeant about procedure and finally express surprise that he was more than three times over the limit when he had only had a couple of pints at lunchtime.

I think he got a fine and a thirty month driving ban.