Grumpy Old Men: A Manual for the British Malcontent. David Quantick

a couple of American tourists outside, they might bung you a fiver’.

THE ROADS

       ‘A 30 mph limit in a village is a sensible thing. A 30 mph limit on a dual carriageway where some workmen went home two days ago is not.’

SPEED BUMPS

      Also known as ‘sleeping policemen’, either because speed bumps enable real traffic cops to spend more time in bed, or to make less bright drivers slow down because they think an actual policeman is asleep in the middle of the road. The whole language of speed bumps, in fact, is pretty odd. Take the phrase ‘traffic calming’. It’s unclear how traffic is supposed to be ‘calmed’ by being slowed down to four mph while cars have the bejesus whacked out of their chassis and the old chap in front of you is approaching each bump as though it were the River Styx itself. But speed bumps are designed to calm traffic, if not nerves, and they do work. In the sense that pouring thousands of gallons of glue into the road would work.

      There’s the cost – the cheapest speed bump costs £2000 in London. (The cost of the most expensive speed bump built is unknown, but it was believed to have been one that was specially commissioned as an engagement present from Ben Affleck to Jennifer Lopez, and shaped exactly like her bottom).

      Speed bumps are actually dangerous. Houses are burning down because fire engines get held up by the old chap in front of them while critically ill patients are having seizures in ambulances as they bounce over the bumps like cumbersome white jet-skis. This is true. According to the London Ambulance Service, up to 500 deaths a year are attributable to humps, because of the delays they cause to ambulances. Meanwhile in Yorkshire 40 new ambulances had to be taken off the road because they grounded on speed bumps. Oh, and there’s the pollution thing. A study by the Transport Research Laboratory claimed that on roads with humps, emissions from cars of carbon monoxide increased by between 30% and 60%, carbon dioxide rose between 20% and 26%, while nitrous oxide and emissions from diesel-powered vehicles were up to 30% higher.

      Apart from that, they’re great.

SPEED CAMERAS

      Guaranteed to sometimes stop people speeding on any stretch of road where there is one. And then make up the lost time by hurtling like maniacs down the next cameraless stretch of road. Also, often located in bits of road where the speed limit sign is clearly having a laugh. A 30 mph limit in a village is a sensible thing. A 30 mph limit on a dual carriageway where some workmen went home two days ago is not.

PARKING METERS

      They don’t work. People with lots of spare time and coins have proved it, by putting money in and timing meters. You frequently don’t get the full hour. But just try to get a refund and you’ll spend billions on stamps, ink and whatever you drink when you get annoyed.

      And that’s not even mentioning out-of-service meters. There is nothing sadder, and more suspicious, than an out-of-service parking meter. With a bag over its head and a hangdog air, out-of-service parking meters look like hostages. They’re not; you are – a hostage to random parking decisions. Why are these meters out of service? Were they wounded in some bizarre traffic warden shoot out? Have they nobly sacrificed themselves – ‘You go on without me, sarge, I’m just a burden to the other meters’? Or are they just publicity-shy? Perhaps there is a Heat magazine for parking meters, and the ones with bags over their heads are the equivalent of those celebrities you see wearing their unconvincing disguise of baseball cap, sunglasses and hooded sweat-top. Oh, apparently it’s something to do with roadworks or sewage or the phones. Here’s an idea; maybe everyone who digs up the roads could get together and organise their jobs so they’re not digging up your parking spot 365 days a year.

CLAMPING

      The wheel clamp was originally known as ‘the Denver Boot’ until they realised that no-one knew or cared what that meant. Now it is know simply as ‘the wheel clamp’ or something ruder. Wheel clamps are a triumph of technology over ideas. Just as cloning and genetic experiments have led to questionable moral decisions that nobody has thought through, so clamping is an invention that seemed to make life easier, but in fact has done nothing but wreak havoc.

      The reason for inventing the clamp was simple: to keep the streets clear of traffic by penalising drivers and making them put their cars somewhere else. The effect of using the clamp is slightly different. It stops cars moving, thereby paralysing traffic as effectively as if someone had gone round chloroforming every driver on the road. Not only that, those notices they put on the windscreen are really embarrassing. They might as well save ink and just print HA HA in big red letters on them. Oh, and not only do you have to pay for the clamp, the parking ticket is on top of that. Lovely

       … clamping is an invention that seemed to make life easier, but in fact has wrought nothing but havoc.

      N.B. Clamping is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, there is nothing worse than finding a stupid iron triangle attached to your rear wheel like it was in love with your car. On the other hand, there is no more joyful sight than seeing someone else’s car being hoisted up onto a flatbed truck to be taken away and, quite possibly, thrown into a quarry.

MINICABS

      Not to be confused with black cabs (see BLACK CABS), minicabs are taxis in the way that two bits of old sacks tied together in the middle with string are clothing. The criteria for being a minicab do not vary from nation to nation or continent to continent. To be a minicab, a car must fulfil the following criteria: