Give Me a P...

Driving into work this morning, I was stuck for really some time behind another driver.

Now, let me get something straight. I have every sympathy for learner drivers. If I'm stuck behind an L Plate - that's fair enough. We all had to learn, we've all been there, we were all slow once. Some people still are. I'm mentioning no names.

But this person wasn't a learner. Quite the contrary, in fact. They were displaying a symbol upon their vehicle that demonstrated that they had, most certainly, passed their test and were a fully proficient and qualified navigator of the road.

The P Plate.

The P plate drives me mad, if you'll pardon the pun. If you don't know what a P plate is (you're not from the UK, you've been living under a rock, you thought it was a dyslexic learner), it's essentially a sign you put on your car which says that you are, not a learner driver, but you have passed and are a new driver.

These are not compulsory, like L plates are for learners, and so there is really only one reason why a new driver would want to put these on their Nissan Micras (they're always Nissan Micras), and that is that they might have passed their test but they're still not entirely convinced that they're very good at it.

You see, the P plate says, "Yes, I'm a driver, but I'm new, and I wanted to warn you about it because, frankly, I could go straight into a lamp-post/pedestrian/articulated lorry at any given point, and I thought you should know". Why else would you want to warn drivers that you are new at it?

The road is a dangerous enough place as it is. And if you have a P plate, I want to ask you something. If you are not confident enough to drive without feeling the need to warn others of your presence, DON'T DRIVE AT ALL!

You don't get P plates in other walks of life. If you're lying in hospital, and your surgeon appears next to you saying "I'm taking out your appendix later, but frankly, I've not been doing this long and you might want to tidy some things up now". A lawyer doesn't stand up in court and begin his case for the prosecution by saying "By the way, I might be wrong about all this evidence and points of law because I'm new!" Even with driving in other situations, it doesn't happen. A new bus driver doesn't say to those boarding his bus "This is my first day, you might want to find something to hold onto".

So don't get on the road and endanger me and my family if you're a rubbish driver!

Get the bus instead. And if the drivers new, hold on tight.