Or the physics of cornering.
Every time a car approached from the opposite direction he would slowly steer a course toward the roadside berm ... sometimes getting worryingly close to it.
Then he would swiftly steer back toward the centre line ... until the next opposing car arrived and he'd veer alarmingly to the left again.
All the while dropping the speed to around 80km/h.
Even if the curve ahead was relatively gentle, the brake lights would go on and we'd be down to 70km/h when 85 or 90 would have been no issue at all.
All I could mumble under my breath was "sell the thing and take a bus".
But the best was yet to come.
Just outside Dannevirke he took a tight corner and narrowly missed a roadside fence because he left his braking too late.
It was a simple, clear and present shortfall in terms of possessing driving skill.
Like the old saying "an accident waiting to happen".
Yep, while he would languish and linger at 80 to 85 on some perfectly fine open road stretches and curves when the passing lanes arrived his foot went down ... he even nudged up to 110 at one point ... and then back down to 85 again.
Hopeless.
Now he wasn't a kid and had some years on his side but his car illustrated his shortfall in driving awareness ... there were dents in the left side.
There has been a sort of safety trade-off in terms of how some vehicles are built.
Go back to the 1950s and the things were made of serious steel.
These days one is able to leave a slight ripple in a door panel if one leans against it.
It's all about lightness (as well as saving a few bob of buying the required steel in the first place).
But back in those early days when the cars were extremely solid there was little in the way of safety measures for the driver.
Seatbelts were not required, the glass should shatter into shards and airbags were a long, long way off in the future.
Today's cars are blessed with great safety equipment, and judging by the activities of the couple of drivers I spotted, they are one day going to need every last piece of it.
In both cases the cars were Japanese sedan models with 2.5- or 3-litre engines so they could get up and go pretty well.
The second guy was just a speed merchant. I saw his lights arriving rapidly as I was again in the Waipuk area on the way back (is it something in the water down there?).
It was odd that he had his lights on as it was bright and sunny.
I looked down and saw that I was barely nudging 100 so it wasn't one of the highway troops in pursuit and I reckon he would have been sniffing around the 120 mark when he took me, then the small utility in front.
The fact he carved back into the lane so fast meant I couldn't get his rego - if I had I would have made the 555 call because he was gassing it big time.
And bad time.
Oh, once upon I time when I was of young years and had fast motorcycles, I would uncap the adrenalin glands but within reason. The one time I did open the taps without well-timed reason I ended up in hospital with a broken pelvis, wrist and leg injuries.
Lesson learned.
I hope the clowns I watched last week don't have to go to same school ... of hard and painful knocks.
Just go to an advanced driving school instead. -Roger Moroney is an award-winning journalist for Hawke's Bay Today and observer of the slightly off-centre.
