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I don’t know if every Kiwi’s favorite referee, Andre Watson invented the term Lazy Running (pronounced Lay-seeee Run-ning) or not, hell I don’t even know if it really is a rugby rule or not. I do know that when I was a prop, staggering back into the defensive line and trying to disrupt the opposition halfback’s pass was what I seemed to do all day, that and trying to blindside the rival standoff like a Mack truck, of course. We certainly never got pinged for it in my day, part of the game then, but things change and now it’s seen as a professional foul, fair enough.
Well, I nearly got pinged for lazy running this weekend by another type of referee in the shape of a Police Officer patrolling the South Islands West Coast.
You see my lovely wife and I decided to take Queens Birthday weekend off and drive through the Lewis Pass, down the West Coast and back into Canterbury via the Otira Gorge. One night in Hanmer and one in Greymouth, were outer here. As we came down off the Rahu Saddle I spied with my little eye a patrol car coming towards me in the mist and as I passed him, the indicator came on and he did a U turn and dropped in behind me.
Okay go through the usual mental checklist, rego, warrant, road users, seat belt, speed, no problem I’ll let him pass by slowing down to ninety kph.
No he doesn’t want to; just wants to sit a hundred meters back and follow me, fair enough.
Twenty five minutes later as we were coming into a fifty Km area, doing 1800 revs in 4th gear, bang on 50 kph, he pulls me over.
“You were doing 70 in a 100 Km area and 40 in a 50 zone.” He accuses.
“No mate, not me, I was just driving to the conditions” I reply in my best Andy Haden impersonation.
“What do mean” he said “it’s barely drizzling?”
“Queens Birthday weekend, drizzle, lots of holidaying punters about and you 100 meters behind me” I continued the Andy imitation “But these new tyres I’m running may have thrown my Speedo out a bit”
After he had had a quick look at all the legal bits on the vehicle, he suggested that he would move up to the service station about one kilometer ahead and check my speed on the radar for me.
“Bang on seventy KPH” he confirmed, “Have a safe journey” and then he was off.
Good bloke, my wife and I agreed, I guess he was just checking us out, after all if you’re not driving like a nutter you must be up to something else.
We watched the boys in blue for the rest of the weekend as they were obviously having a busy one; the Otira was coated in a fresh dump of snow and ice, packed with four wheel drivers pumped up on adrenaline from a weekends play and driving to fast, overtaking on blind corners and double yellow lines.
At least one accident that we saw the coppers cleaning up after on the Monday, was caused by to much speed and not enough brains in icy conditions.
They were doing an excellent job, polite, helpful and competent in difficult conditions.
If every one of us would just do a little lazier running and a lot more thinking about how we are driving, it just might stop you getting seriously or even fatally pinged and then perhaps the referees could have long weekends off too.
But then, that is “Just an old trucker’s point of view”
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