The Freelance Cynic: traffic

You know what really grinds my gears?
Vans that are so up themselves they feel their need to have their company name written backwards across their bonnet so you can read it your rear view mirror.

Of course this trend was started by ambulances. Now personally, I have to wonder how, when confronted by sirens that whine louder than Louis Walsh and more lights than a chain smoker, anyone would still have to look in their rear-view mirror to check they are, indeed, being followed by an Ambulance. And even then you think the hulking lump of white and yellow metal would be enough identification without the need for its name to be plastered all over it like a pair of Nike Trainers. For Doc's sake, ambulances are just one offence away from being a public disturbance, If you installed them with drum machines they'd be mobile hard house discos. I fail to see how having some fancy backward lettering makes them more noticeable. It's like putting a red nose on a porn star. That's simply not the bit that anyone notices.

But ambulances can save a life and for that we should cut them some slack. After all the life they're saving might owe you money and as such we'd all be a little worse off without them.

But I find it completely unbelievable that it would ever be useful to be aware that the van following you was full of orange Tango. If anything, that would just make me slow down and move into the middle of the road, just to make sure that the horrible beverage doesn't get delivered. You would think it would be enough that the vans are bright orange with bubbles, but no, they have to decorate them with their fancy stylish backwards writing as well, as if they believe they were designed by that famous Italian inventing artist, who wrote his diary backwards. You know who I mean, that Leonardo fellow who inspired the DaVinci code. Leonardo Dicaprio, that one

But the number of back to front words on the road is only going to increase. Because, if I looked in a mirror and saw a word that was readable in the normal left to right fashion, my concept of reality would be recalled faster than a children's toy from China. Believing up to be down, and left to be right, I would veer off the road into a ditch. And when they finally came to rescue me they would find me sitting upside down on the grass, rocking back and forth, mumbling random phrases out of Alice Through the Looking Glass. And obviously, I couldn't be the only person who would react in such a way...

And all that, of course, would result in a hell of a lot more ambulances...