I'll start by defining some terms I use because different people interpret some words differently. "Stupid" has nothing to do with intelligence. Intelligent people can do stupid things. For example, smoking. Everyone knows that smoking is bad but both very intelligent and less intelligent people smoke. Now that is stupid. A person that smokes deliberately does something that not only affect their own health but they also are perfectly happy to be selfish bastards and pollute the air for others. So it is knowingly doing something that leads to adverse effects.
I have lived in the UK for about 28 years. It is a tiny, rather soggy, somewhat overpopulated island. Actually, it won't feel so overpopulated if people would just consider the fact that they live on a tiny island with very narrow streets. Now if you know that, why do you buy the biggest car on the market? Why do people drive around in SUVs?
No, you don't need an SUV to cart your son's cricket gear around. Considering that most of these SUVs have low profile tyres, neither the SUV nor their owner has every seen anything but a nicely tarred road. And the fact that you could save my day by pulling me out of the snow in front of the Co-Op because the council couldn't be arsed to salt the roads does not really justify it either. It happened exactly once in the 28 years I have been in the UK and it wasn't a life-or-death situation. Obviously I was really appreciative and it did avoid further inconvenience for me, but boasting about that being the reason for having a big gas guzzling air contaminating monster somewhat put a damper on it all.
There should be a law against these vehicles in this country. If you have ever been to the UK and seen the roads - especially in the older villages and cities - you'll know how narrow they are. I live on an estate that was built in the 70s so you would think that is would be somewhat better. But no, 2000 years later, experience hasn't taught anybody in the building industry anything. People park in the street because garages are typically to small to even fit a VW Up and many people have more that one car. So even if the road has two lanes, since there are cars parked on both sides the roads are reduced to fit only one car. Then you also have the numb-skull who lives on the bend that parks his van right on the bend (which should be illegal and if it is it is not enforced). Now you have traffic from both directions having to go through a blind bend and people in England do not typically look further ahead than the bonnet of their car or slow down appropriately when they can't see further than the bonnet of their car.
It is no wonder that England doesn't have a working public transport system. Even if the buses are running (no thanks to ongoing strikes, snow or icy weather and breakdowns) the traffic is so bad that there is absolutely no chance of a bus being on time.
Oh, and this one takes the cake. The bus that I take runs between Bishop Auckland and Eldon Square (Newcastle). These are the two big bus stations and then there is another big bus station just before Newcastle, Gateshead. But Newcastle is the main city. When Go North East decides the bus is running too late, they have the bus turn around at Gateshead, leaving up to 50 people stranded at Newcastle. Maybe stupid is way to generous to use on that one.
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