Rhuthun / Ruthin

A case in point concerning traffic speeds in town came this afternoon, shortly after lunch. It was in the form of the confrontational approach of one of the local fauna, a young boy racer, complete with lugubrious moll beside him. He was behind the wheel of a red "warm" Škoda Fabia. While driving up Clwyd Street, our friend was blatantly ignoring the conditions. I was at Castle Bell and had to shift sharpish in order to avoid an oncoming pedestrian. Nowhere to go but to cross opposite. A downward vehicle had slowed for the give way marking slightly beyond Castle Bell. For me, this obscured what was the rapid progress towards me of the Škoda driver. Halfway across in the face of an unyielding motorist who clearly wasn't interested in my safety and with nowhere for me to go, rather than sprint to safety, I elected to slow almost to a stop. After all, the Škoda driver had neither appreciation of nor consideration for me. Why should I for him? He couldn't see me in the same way I couldn't him, yet on he ploughed into a space he couldn't possibly know to be clear. He with the blunt instrument and I the soft target. And target is how he treated me. "Slow down", I mouthed. And what did I get for my efforts to try to pace the driver? "Are you taking the f*c*i*g p*s*?" is the exact quote. And with uncalled for harsh acceleration and a window-shaking antisocial roar all the way up to the Square, off he went, leaving a thick fog of black filth in his wake from his improperly tuned and unhealthy turbocharged diesel engine.

Roll on changes to the Highway Code that will give greater priority to pedestrians in situations such as this. Not that your average baby driver will ever  consider others. 

We shouldn't be detrimental based just upon the nature of the 20-something's age, language, driving style or vehicle type but, as Olivia Manning put it in her 'The Fortunes of War' novel, "The trouble with prejudice is, there's usually a reason for it".