Dominic George: Highway to hell for bad drivers

But David Fagan should have a lane all the way to a Halberg.

Farming Show host Jamie Mackay is always up for a crusade.

Whether it's raising the retirement age or bringing back rucking, he's in boots and all in an effort to change the world.

His latest crusade is gaining a lot of traction, and rightfully so. He wants to get shearing legend David Fagan recognised at the Halberg Awards next year when the great man finally hangs up the hand-piece. And if Fagan adds this year's Golden Shears and New Zealand's Shearing champs to his list of more than 600 titles he may well be in with a shot, as I can sense an early ground swell of support.

West Coast cow cocky Andy Thompson is leading the inevitable crop of naysayers and has questioned whether shearing is a sport or not. I won't dignify his silly argument with a rebuttal, other than to say competitive shearing is obviously a sport. I really shouldn't have to waste words on this, but if it's not a sport then why has the TAB decided to refund all losing bets on the final of next month's Golden Shears as a tribute if he wins?

As our resident Farming Show bookie Kieran McAnulty recently said: "He's in the same company as Roger Federer and Phil Taylor in darts -- two guys that have dominated their sports for a long period."

Now, Jamie and I have differing opinions on many things but one thing we do agree on is the insidious of nature of campervans, or, as I call them, road maggots. These things are an utter abomination and should be outlawed immediately. They're ugly, cumbersome atrocities and their chief purpose appears to be slowing down traffic and frustrating drivers the length and breadth of the country. There's barely a road in New Zealand that hasn't been infested by a road maggot and, what's worse, they seem to be multiplying at an alarming rate.

I can't work out if the inhabitants of road maggots are a worse breed than angry Lycra-clad cyclists. They both share an irrational sense of road entitlement and are a general hazard to all god-fearing normal motorists.

Don't get me wrong, there are some downright rubbish motorists out there and the general rule of thumb here is the further south you travel the worse the driving gets. I think that's a reasonable generalisation. My favourite type is the driver who gets angry at you when they've made a mistake.

Mackay's favoured mode of maggot extermination is a rocket-propelled grenade. Perhaps a tad over the top but he is an angry man after all. I would simply outlaw them, or create special maggot lanes. Better still, an entire road network devoted to them -- no cars allowed. In fact, let's convert the national cycleway into a Road Maggot Highway.

It could also double as the tourist roading network. There's been a plethora of roading disasters at the hands of foreign drivers in recent times, some of them gut-wrenching and almost all of them avoidable. I swear I've never feared for my life as much I did last weekend when I travelled from Dunedin to Cromwell.

There were tourists (yes, it was obvious) who crossed the centre line and drove on the other side of the road for a few seconds for absolutely no reason at all. There were numerous other incidents as well that simply defied belief. If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn't have believed it.

While we're at it, old drivers can also be made to use this highway of hell. The rest of us can drive normally on the existing roads. Old people can barely drive around town in a coherent fashion, let alone cruising along at 60km/h on the open road.

Much like the support for Fagan being recognised for his sporting achievements, the extermination of the road maggot seems to have a lot of early popular support.