Terror on our streets?

You don’t have to look far to find stories about terrible accidents and things that happen to people as a result of transport.

Buses crashing, trains smashing, cars piling up, motor-bikes going down, pedestrians sent flying. Every day, many poor people come to grief as a result of attempting to get from A to B. Yet every year there seems to be some new, faster, better (and presumably safer) mode of transport hitting our world markets; Very Fast Trains, electric cars, super-jets, Holdens with air-bags all round.

Yes, we are always thinking of new ways to entice people to step outside their front doors, take their lives into someone else’s hands and part with the plastic in their wallets.

But there is another little scourge that has been quietly hitting our highways, byways, laneways and shopping strips in recent years. And it’s perhaps more insidious and dangerous than all of the above.

It’s the “Granny Mobile”. Yes, those cute little golf carts you’ll see zooming along a footpath near you.

Now before you start labeling me as a gerophobic Granny Snubber, let me just say at the outset that I am all for elderly and infirm people having the capacity to get around safely and comfortably. Like the rest of us (and perhaps moreso than some of us) they have earned their right to travel about in whatever mode they so choose. So I am not criticizing older people per se.

They deserve to access all the pleasures of life and I think it’s fabulous that they are able to maintain their independence in such a way. Besides, it won’t be too many years before I am one of their number, so it wouldn’t be very smart of me to incite an uprising of anti-grannyism, would it? (Although, I am presuming that in true Baby Boomer style, our future Granny Mobiles will be equipped with GPS, full surround sound, air-conditioning, Skype and an inbuilt foot massager…and that will be just the base model…..).

No, I am not wishing to cause any trouble, but I would like to comment on the sheer number of Granny Mobiles out there in Pedestrian World, the frightening speed at which some of them travel and the capacity for terror in our streets when more than one of them get together.

Take last week, for example. There I was, walking down the main street minding my own business when in the distance I saw not one, but two GMs heading my way — side by side — along the footpath.

“How nice,” I thought. “Two elderly folk out for a ‘walk’ together”.

But my charitable thoughts were challenged when I realized these two Octogenarian Fangio’s had absolutely no intention of going ‘single file’ to allow for us pedestrians!

“It’s okay,” I thought, chastising myself for being so churlish about a couple of old people chugging along the street together, “I will just move to the side and let them past.”

And that’s when it happened. Behind me came the sudden whir and rumble of yet ANOTHER granny-mobile heading in the opposite direction. Yikes! A ‘head on’ was imminent and, not only that, but I was about to become the salami in a golf buggy sandwich!

Fortunately for me, the situation was averted when one of the Grannies swerved abruptly into ‘parking’ position, leapt spritely out of her buggy (like an Olympic pole-vaulter on caffeine) and sprinted lithely into the newsagent to get the last available copy of the Marathon Runners Weekly.

Cowering fearfully against a parking meter with a few other pedestrians who had also dived for cover, I had a sudden realization.

You don’t mess with old people; especially ones with wheels. They have the power, and they know how to use it.

Beep! Beep!