Susan Morrison: 20 limit out of reach in Capital

Joggers frequently overtake cars in the city. Picture: Greg Macvean

It’s pretty rare that you can tear up the streets of the New Town like a boy racer in a cranked up Corsa. More often than not I watch joggers serenely overtake me, not to mention the occasional gurgling child in a pram.

Given the speed we usually manage to reach in this city, we’re only one step away from having a man with a red flag in front of the car.

If the council is on a drive (see what I did there?) to make our motoring behaviour more socially responsible then why stop at speed? Surely the driving etiquette department of the council can look at some other anti-social behaviour?

We could start with some of the frankly insane parking we endure. We all know this city wasn’t built for the motor car. Space is at a premium, I get that, but here’s a tip, turning on your hazard lights doesn’t make your car magical.

It doesn’t make it invisible, and it doesn’t mean it can hover above the traffic, leaving the way clear for other people who want to use the road to drive along, such as buses, which regularly find they have to manoeuvre past some 4x4 dumped outside a primary school while mummy picks up the children.

So many of the roads outside our primary schools get turned into a sort of deadly cross between The Crystal Maze and the Hunger Games, that I’m starting to think this is some sort of selection procedure for a new generation of Scottish athletes, as long as Car Weaving And Dodging becomes an Olympic sport.

Then there are the owners of the very powerful car stereos. We know they are very powerful, because we can all hear them, whether we want to or not. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy a good sing-along as much as the next woman, but there is a time and a place for heavy death metal thrash garage, roof-rattling rap and building-shaking bass.

And it’s not at the Foot of the Walk on a Tuesday morning, particularly if its very early on a Tuesday morning when it’s still dark, and there are folks actually asleep in those flats your car is idling in front of while you wait for the lights to change.

Or at least, they were asleep, until the beat box on wheels blasted into their consciousness.

Old lady drivers show us way to slow

THE speed limit isn’t really a problem for me. Contrary to what the Yorkshire husband believes, I am not a speed queen, and am in training to be a little old lady driver.

You know, one of those tiny drivers you can’t actually see, apart from two tiny little mittened hands on the wheel and a bobble hat, or perhaps the top of the silver haired coiffure. Tell you what, get stuck behind that particular hell on wheels and you start praying for 20 miles an hour, because you’ll be lucky to go above 15.

Perhaps we should just organise patrols of little old lady drivers to endlessly cruise about the city.

That’ll keep the speed down.

Restaurant’s a bad Korea move

We can all look forward to enjoying bit of North Korean culture when Kim Jong-Un opens his new restaurant in the city.

Apparently its will be just like actually going to North Korea without actually going, which is just as well, since it’s one place I actually don’t want to go.

No offence intended, but it doesn’t really come over as being terribly inviting.

I’m not mad keen on big displays of gymnastic dancing and people holding up cards to create huge images of triumphant tractor drivers and the beaming face of the boy wonder.

I assume they do that so they can remember what he looks like, since he disappears from view with the same totality as Nessie outside the tourist season.

Tell you something, though, I won’t be using the wi-fi. These folks shut down Sony. What could they do with my holiday snaps?

Take a tank to double parking

WE used to live on one of the notoriously narrow streets of the colonies.

It was common to find the street blocked by cars double parked on a road no wider than a fat dog, which was a pest on the one hand, but life-threatening when emergency services couldn’t actually get to the emergency.

For a long time, I felt that the council should purchase a couple of surplus tanks from the army and use them to crush any offending motor dumped so inconsiderately and clear the path for ambulances.

Oh, I do wish I hadn’t said that. It’s going to be in some manifesto for the next council elections.

In which case, bags I first shot at the tank.