A few days ago I was driving to Gawler, South Australia, from our camp half an hour away. I wasn’t keen on driving into Gawler – it’s busy and crazy and has traffic lights, and roundabouts with five or six roads out of it – so the plan was to pull over just before I got to Gawler and let Daddy take over. But I missed the stopping bay and ended up at the first roundabout. Ok, I could handle a roundabout. Except when I tried to take off again, the van stalled. That’s not unusual, and I’ve done it before, and I can handle it. But this time there was a line up of cars behind me, and the first one in the line was in such a hurry he blasted on his horn the moment he saw a gap in the traffic and I didn’t go. I quickly restarted the van and tried to drive forward, only to stall again. The impatient driver behind me slammed his hand on the horn again. And I’m thinking as I re-restarted the van and finally got through the roundabout, for crying out loud, don’t my L-plates mean anything to you?
When someone is learning something new, do we expect them to do it right? Or are they expected to make some mistakes along the way? When I was teaching Sparkie to beg, she’d only lift one paw up for starters. Imagine if, while I was gently encouraging her to lift both feet up, a stranger yelled at her for not doing it right straight away. She would have baulked, refused to do anything, been confused. Nobody would do that, nobody would yell at someone else’s dog like that. And yet when I didn’t do the right thing fast enough, I was tooted at repeatedly. People say how the younger generation has no manners, no respect for others. And yet, both negative experiences I’ve had on the road have been with adult drivers. The “I own the road” attitude from older drivers needs to stop. How else can new drivers learn respect for other road users?
In the meantime, the bus fit out has started. The black rubber flooring is getting pulled up and new vinyl tiles laid.
We’ve finalized the change of ownership and today we break camp (not literally) and head to Victoria. We have two shows lined up now – the fundraiser next week, and the Hamilton Show in October. Sparkie learning another new trick, as is Freya. Sparkie hasn’t done any agility since Quorn but the rest of the team has.
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