IT is an unusual driver who is not tempted occasionally to break the
law. An empty dual carriageway stretches before us, the needle is at
70mph, the car is rock-steady . . . Which of us has not checked in the
rear mirror to see if a police car is on our tail? Vroom vroom, our
instincts cry. Let's see if she really does a ton . . . Naturally, we do
nothing of the sort. We deny it utterly. And yet we might confess
readily to breaking other regulations. Among the most irksome are those
to do with parking, and the insidious spread of double yellow lines. We
merely need to buy a paper, or a tin of beans, yet every available
parking space is taken. It is the bolshevik local councillors, we tell
our passengers. They are not only anti-motorist, but anti-trade. They
want to ruin the very shopkeepers who pay for their luxurious offices.
Ah, who has not then taken a chance -- looked carefully in every
direction and then parked for an illicit moment or two?
It is a situation causing much anguish to traders in the little
village of Chalfont St Giles, Buckinghamshire, where the local traffic
warden, Miss Sandra Evans, has been catching too many victims for their
liking. ''She hides beneath the archways, and comes whizzing out like a
spider from a web,'' said Mr Alexander Thom, who has collected 200
protesting signatures. ''People want a bit of a leeway on a yellow line,
but she over-reacts.''
The law is the law, of course, but there are times when its custodians
should show mercy. One recalls the case of James Agate, who urged his
chauffeur to go so fast in a built-up area that they were stopped by a
traffic policeman. The officer took off his gauntlets and looked grim,
but then recognised the chauffeur and gave him a smacking kiss on the
lips. ''Off you go and don't do it again,'' he said. ''Who was that?''
Agate asked. ''I don't remember his name, sir,'' said the chauffeur.
''But we were in the Guards together.''
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