We see some pretty strange things on the roads around the Western Bay of Plenty.
You think 16 sets of traffic lights at one intersection will be weird? Well not as bizarre as the characters who drive through those intersections!
A scary example, (right) snapped by a Sun reporter on the weekend:
A guy driving along Cameron Rd with dog on lap, hanging out the driver's window.
Everything from cellphones to cigarettes, fluffy dice and amorous advances; all have been blamed for causing accidents. But how a motorist can drive safely with Hairy McClary giving him a lap dance is anyone's guess.
Or maybe the dog was driving while the owner took a break?
Here at Rogers Rabbits, we don't recommend you EVER let your dog drive. For starters, if it's a Labrador, you will constantly end up at takeaway drive-throughs.
Collies tend to herd all the traffic through intersections, then close the gate.
Gun dogs never indicate, however they will point.
American mastiffs drive on the wrong side of the road.
Retrievers have a bad habit of being obsessed with the stick shift.
Saint Bernards get done for DIC.
Poodles keep checking their lipstick in the rear view mirror.
Afghans are okay until they drive through military checkpoints and the car explodes.
(Luckily Lassie follows close behind and will call for help, administer CPR and make a cup of tea.)
The Dingo will steal the baby out of the carseat.
Pugs have a habit of setting off the airbags in transit, so in case of accident, their noses don't get any worse.
Treeing Walker Coonhounds drive well but get arrested at random checkpoints because the officer's don't believe their name is real.
And all dogs have a habit of following too close – sniffing right up the exhaust pipe.
Meanwhile, why is smoking and driving not banned?
It is clearly a health risk which ever way you look at it – not just to the smoker, but those in the car and in other vehicles. (If the lung cancer doesn't get you, the crash will)
There's a lot of harping on about cellphone use while driving yet you don't hear much of an outcry about smokers. This is clearly a greater cause of car crashes recorded last year, these figures just released by police.
WHY DRIVERS CRASH:
262: smoking a cigarette, playing with radio or using glove box.
147: showing off (including 46 racing and 25 doing doughnuts).
130: looking at someone/scenery outside the vehicle.
96: on a cellphone or two-way communication device.
93: emotionally upset.
30: distracted by an animal/insect inside the vehicle.
16: trying unsuccessfully to commit suicide.
I guess there's not much hope for the emotionally-upset, suicidal arachnophobic musician chain-smoker, who drives while skiting to his mates on a cellphone about the great scenery.
We invite you to send in your quirky photos. Whether on the Bay's highways or anything else you'd like to share on these pages – we'd love to see them.
Send your contributions to
brian@thesun.co.nz or post to
Rogers Rabbits, PO Box 240, Tauranga.
Slogan with bite
Thanks to John & Marion Penwell of Katikati who, following our story last week about Australia needing a new tourism slogan, offered this:
'Tired, stressed? Come to Australia, and after coping with SNAKES-SPIDERS-CROCODILES AND SHARKS you will return home even more stressed (if any of the above did not get you first!)”
The Penwell's slogan is all the more appropriate with the news this week that the remains of an Aussie holidaymaker have been found inside a 14 foot crocodile.
Original reports said that a wedding ring had been identified in x-rays, although officials are now downplaying this. But they have confirmed that the saltwater croc did consume a person.
Makes the odd sandfly at Papamoa seem almost bearable.