Very hard rain and water on the road here all day. So, you'd think that ol' misses so-an-so in her micro-breadbin (I think it was some kind of Fiat) would take a bit more care. Nope. She met me on my side of the road, driving round a bend like a madwoman (she's over 70!) and just missed me as I dived into the hedgerow, fortunately unscathed in the Suzuki. Looking in my rearview, I just caught her over-correcting. At considerable speed she disappeared into the ditch (Arran Meet attendees know all about this - some more than others) rotated the breadbin 180 degrees by using a small oak tree for assistance and flipped it onto it's side with a grinding crunch. I feared the worse as I backed up but she was lucky.

She was okay, the car was mincemeat. A pick-up driver stopped and we towed the car's carcass out of the ditch and rolled it into a layby.

She apologised most profusely for her "bad driving" and said how upset she was to see that she could have caused much more damage to others. I'm pretty sure it was reaction time from me which saved any damage to the Suzuki or ourselves.

I do feel strangely vindicated by this event. I continually get scowling looks from old fogies round here, muttering and shaking their walking sticks at me, even at 20mph. It usually happens in the S2000 of course.

Still, it's getting freakin' dangerous round here...We had a fatal accident last week (white van against cyclist. Guess who lost...) and several other major collisions as well.

 

Speeding on Arran is simply a

In summer, there are just too many walkers or cyclists that might be lurking round the next bend and if there's an oncoming car, you've nowhere to go.

At least on the mainland, if you have a near miss, you have the comfort of knowing you'll probably never meet the victims again. Not the case on an island, unfortunately ...