By EWAN KENNEDY
2 April 2007

I've just had a conversation with a young fellow who has reached the exciting age where he can begin to learn to drive. A nice bloke with a mature attitude and plenty of common sense, the sort of lad you instinctively know will get on well in life.

He wasn’t angry when I spoke to him, merely bemused at what had just happened. Because he had failed his first theory test for a learner’s permit, failed for what he considered was a very silly reason.

He had been asked if it was legal to exceed the speed limit to overtake another vehicle. As I said, common sense was one of his strong points, so he had said yes.

After all he had seen it being done from the passenger seat on countless occasions. Many times with his Dad at the steering wheel, sometimes with me and on numerous other occasions with a variety of other drivers. The one thing we all had in common was a good driving record, several had never had a crash in decades of driving, and we all had a sensible attitude whenever we were behind the wheel.

Yet, every one of us had all broken the law on numerous occasions by getting past slower cars in the shortest possible time to maximise safety.

I, for one, intend to keep on behaving exactly the same illegal way. The idea of crawling slowly past another vehicle on the wrong side of the road for far longer than is necessary is too ridiculous to even contemplate.

And if I was forced into contemplation it would take the form of the nightmare of watching an oncoming truck bearing death down on me as I glanced at the speedometer to make sure the needle was sitting on the right side of the law.

There are those who are going to write in to say that the law is the law and should be obeyed no matter what. To them I say – no I had better not put it into print or I will be in even more trouble…

Why overtake in the first place? Because it’s not uncommon to get stuck behind other vehicles for miles on end. Vehicles that are slow because they are heavy and have barely enough power, or slow because the driver isn’t particularly good at what they are doing.

The former, usually truck drivers or those towing caravans, horse trailers or the like, frequently do the right thing and make life as easy as possible for others to overtake when an opportunity arises. I will then accelerate to as high a speed as is safe, and to hell with the speed limit.

Then there are the those who are simply poor drivers, yet for some reason have been incorrectly passed as fit to be behind the wheel.

Typically these people drive at, or a fair way below, the speed limit on the straight bits of road, but slow down far too much when the road starts to follow the landscape around bends.

After being stuck behind them, often for frustratingly long periods, you finally see the road straighten again and pull out to overtake. Only to find that the slow driver has accelerated up to the speed limit again. They should have realised they have been holding up a line of other cars, but for whatever reason make no attempt to let them past.

So I, and by this time a string of other car drivers, have the choice of staying behind the inconsistent slow driver, perhaps for hours, or technically breaking the law by going over the speed limit.

Is it any wonder my young friend is bemused?