The perfect storm is on its way.

A few days ago, I was waiting to cross the road in sunny Bournemouth. I was being quite careful as the two types of driver we have down here (boy racers and pensioners) are fairly uncoordinated and quite unlikely to stop to help once they have mowed you down.

I felt, or maybe vaguely heard, a sort of thrum, like the quiet old-fashioned milk-float we used to get down here. But, no, it was an electric car, the size of a family estate, purring along rapidly, like a silent assassin.

A few years ago we were told that electric cars would come with an app that would make the noise of a normal car engine, so pedestrians and cyclists would know when they were in imminent danger. But that turned out to bullshit.*

People who buy electric cars don’t want their environmentally friendly motor to sound like it is a polluter, so they prefer to let the rest of us be on the highways and byways, using only our sight as protection against their ineptitudes. Apparently, an electric car only starts to be audible at 22mph. It could reduce you to a smear of entrails at half that speed.  

The other major problem (not challenge) is that over 50% of our population have become phone zombies and refuse to look up from their mobile devices for any reason at all, navigating the pavements and crossing roads using only their sense of smell.

I suppose it is Darwinian in nature, but there is going to be a huge cull as Zombie Britain gets cut down to size by the virtue signallers. Hitting the snowflakes as they obliviously cross the road will be like shooting fish in a barrel.

This is not a challenge, it a great big murderous problem.

So, be careful out there. 

*Apparently a law about engine sounds will come in next year