A ciotog's victory

While some amongst you may accuse me of laziness last week, when I rehashed a load of stories gleaned from other sources, I have no shame in doing it all over again. It's fun. And it's August. It's that or another rant about penalty points, and nobody wants that, do they?

First off, a subject close to my heart. After aeons of burnings at the stake, abuse and derision, a victory for the citeogs. It appears we're better drivers. According to a survey by a British insurance company, right-handers are almost twice as likely to cause an accident as lefties. On the other hand, we're rubbish at parking, but that's only because we have our highly-developed brains on other more pressing matters, like saving the planet and being better humans than you rightist üntermenschen.

Speaking of üntermenschen, cretin of the month award goes to a New Zealand car thief. This genius jumped into a car parked at a service station in Auckland while the owner was paying his bill and drove off. He failed to notice the motorist's mother-in-law, who was sitting in the back seat.

Hate to go down the Bernard Manning route, but what kind of masochist would actually steal a mother-in-law? The car was eventually found crashed 40 minutes later, mother-in-law intact and robber disappeared, presumably with the head nagged off him.

Any of you considering a motorised jaunt to Germany take heed of this next tale - that of a truck driver who knocked seven sizes of sausage out of a motorist for observing the speed limit last week. This loon's victim was walloped senseless for the heinous crime of driving at 30 kilometres per hour - in a 30 kilometres per hour zone. The trucker was caught and is in deep doo-doo.

And yet another German trucker getting his comeuppance - this time a chap who lost control of his vehicle while trying to swat a wasp and spilled his 15-ton load of jam jars on the autobahn. His attempt to kill one wasp led to him being attacked by thousands of the winged avengers who were attracted by the syrupy gloop covering his every surface. Justice, eh?

Germans aren't all violent truckers, despite the impression I'm giving. Some of them are just plain nutters, albeit ingenious nutters. Take for example the 73-year-old grandfather arrested after fitting a 2.3 horsepower petrol chainsaw engine to his wife's bicycle.

This silver-haired wannabe Evil Kneivel tried to put on the béal bocht with the cops who stopped him as he was tearing around at speeds of up to 60 kph. He said his incredible device was only intended as a joke, something for himself and the lads to natter about down the daycare centre. He promised not to chop down any trees with it.

The German police, not internationally renowned for their sense of humour, were unmoved. His creation is now languishing in a police station in Ulm as he awaits his court date for operating a motor vehicle without a licence.

Finally, my favourite headline of the week: "Angry housewife smashes wrong car". Who wouldn't read that story? The lady in question is a 43-year-old from Essen in - you guessed it - Germany, who after speaking to her husband by phone was so enraged with him over some unspecified indiscretion that she went out with a hammer and started battering the small blue car outside their house.

She smashed the windscreen, side windows, headlights and side mirrors before phoning her husband again and telling him, triumphantly, what she'd done. Imagine his glee when he explained that he'd parked his car in a different street altogether. Then imagine hers as she realised she caused €1,000 worth of damage to some hapless stranger's car and could be facing a possible jail sentence for criminal damage.