Have you ever walked along the side of the road on a wet day? It wasn’t really all that great an experience, was it? The only thing that could have made it worse was some mad, reckless person coming along and splashing you with puddle water.
This is exactly what happen recently, and it led to the police getting involved and a little known UK law being wheeled out into the limelight.
Before we get into the details it is worth considering the dangers of splashing people with puddle water. If you are a bit of a tearaway it might sound like a bit of harmless fun. After all, no one ever died through get soaked, did they?
Ah, but you need to stop and think about what your average street puddle contains. Water, that’s right. It’s hardly blooming Evian though, is it? A UK rainwater puddle is usually filled with stinking, fetid and possibly even putrid water. This is a breeding ground for, well, bad things. I would like to be more specific but I think I must have missed Science classes the days we analysed big puddles.
The case in question involves a 22 year old male driver who went through a puddle at “relatively high speed” according to a police officer who witnessed it. In doing so he soaked some kids and parents who were on their way home. This happened in Colchester but the same thing has happened to me numerous times in other parts of the UK.
The Tactic You Need to Learn
Of course, I have now learned the tactic of stopping before a puddle, waiting for any cars to pass and then running like billy-o to get to safety. Sometimes it works and sometime it doesn’t, which is a kind of like a microcosm of life if we are being honest. Sometimes you get to the other end of the puddle of life with a satisfied grin on your face and other times you get soaked to the skin, metaphorically and literally speaking.
The good news is that there is a law to cover this sort of heinous crime. In the UK it is illegal to drive a car through puddle water in a way which leads to a situation in which pedestrians are “splashed”. This is the kind of weird traffic law we need more of really. The driver in question faces a £5,000 fine if found guilty.
Have you ever been soaked by a passing car or – gasp!- soaked someone else?