Slow Children?

On the daily trip to the railway station, to start his long, expensive and tedious commute, Constantly Furious drives past a large school.

Naturally, given the overwhelming urge the State feels to 'invest' in the protection of the chiiiiiilllldren from the rest of us, it is near impossible to navigate that short stretch of road, owing to plethora of speed bumps, road narrowing and flashing electronic signs that infest it.

Gadgets, doubtless costing thousands of pounds, measure your speed and then - because an old fashioned speed limit sign is clearly no longer good enough - flash at you sternly to slow down even more.

CF would be impressed if even Lewis fucking Hamilton could pick his way through the rats' nest of jutting kerbs, central islands and white paint at more than 30mph, but Nanny knows best, eh?

And all this, even though the school is set well back behind a grassed area and a car park, a good hundred yards from the road. And the vast majority of kids are delivered by bus, to the doorstep, so they don't miss out on that popular clinical obesity trend the young people seem to enjoy. And there's nothing but fields on the other side of the road, so any 'student' crossing the road would only do so if they had a sudden inexplicable urge to stand in a fucking ploughed field.

Passing this morning, CF noticed the ubiquitous yellow fluorescent jacket of a man-with-a-clipboard. Then another. And another. There's another. In all there were seven people standing beside the road, amid the forest of road signs. Two of them had speed guns, pointing at CF's car.  The speed was noted on the clipboards, probably along with the cars registration, CF's ethnic group and any other 'useful' observations to feed the State's enormous database. CF is surprised he wasn't pulled over to give a fucking DNA sample as well.

So what were they doing, these employees of the state? Why are we paying for seven seemingly healthy working-age adults to don the traditional yellow vest of public sector wages and stand by the road in this small Cambridgeshire village?

CF didn't really have the time or the inclination to stop and chat – later, clipboard monkeys! - but their purpose was obvious.

They were carrying out a little survey, the seven of them, to make sure that we were all obeying the speed signs. To make sure that nobody was roaring past the school and endangering any of the kiddie-winks. Presumably, they will gather later today and collate their results, then pass them to another committee, who will then colllate all-the-teams-across-the-lands' results, then pass them to another commitee to review them. All to ensure that we are all continuing to obey their instructions.

Perhaps, if naughty people are still going too fast, even more road signs will be put up. Perhaps the road could be made even narrower. Perhaps it should be dug up altogether, and replaced with a layer of broken glass and rusty nails, that we really can't drive over at all.

Oh, but we need be absolutely sure, says Nanny, that no-one, no-one, is driving past this school in a way that we think might put the children, the poor, innocent children over there in the distance, in any danger as they make their way to school.

There was only one tiny, tiny, flaw in their plan. One teensy oversight.  One thing that meant these poor fools were wasting their time and, naturally, wasting our money.

It was six fucking thirty in the morning. 

Why, you may wonder, could they not do their survey at 8:30, when the precious children are actually arriving? Or at 4 in the afternoon, when little dears are leaving? Simple: because by then, of course, the road is completely log-jammed, clogged with buses, 4x4’s and teachers’ mopeds. No-one’s breaking any speed limits then.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the Nanny State in action. Give me strength.

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