Look! No Hands!

There were a couple of stories on the BBC News site today that caught my eye.

 

The first involves driving along hard-shoulders.

 

The short video tells us how certain motorways around Birmingham have the option of letting people use the hard-shoulder for driving down during busy times with the option of the shoulder reverting to usual shouldering duties if someone needs it.  I have driven on that very motorway myself under those same circumstances.

 

Very clever.

 

The video then goes on to tell us that The Highways Agency want to shut off 300 miles of hard-shoulder altogether to ease congestion.

 

It doesn't mention what happens in the event of a breakdown on one of these stretches.

 

Very un-clever.

 

Especially when you look back to this BBC video story from the Summer.

 

The second BBC story today involves this twerp:

He was caught by a "safety camera" - I put that in quotes because we all know it's a speed camera - driving his Volkswagen at 62mph with his hands on his head.  He was banned for a year and fined nearly £700.

 

Good.

 

Lord knows how long he'd been going like that, he's certainly doing it for the full length of the video.

 

This guy, also in a Volkswagen has got a mate with him and is doing the same thing: 

I suppose he does have an excuse, though, in that his is a self-driving Volkswagen.