Eric Thompson: It's trolley dolly trouble

Many Kiwi motorists are just as bad with a shopping trolley as they are with a car. Photo / Supplied

There's a direct correlation, I reckon, between the skills required with a shopping trolley and the skills required to manoeuvre a vehicle in a supermarket carpark.

This became particularly evident over the Christmas/New Year period, when the weather gods decided a four-week deluge was in order.

The hoards of Aucklanders and others from around the country who make their annual pilgrimage into my backyard of Warkworth, Matakana, and Omaha were most put out when going to the beach was ruled out because of crap weather.

So, instead, they all decided to go supermarket shopping.

Just because it's been raining for a few days there's no need to buy up everything in the supermarket. I know the Mayans have told us that the world is going to end this year, but stocking up the larder as if expecting a nuclear winter is odd to say the least.

This, despite what a number of you might think, is not me making up observations. Us locals often regale each other with stories of visitors who head lemming-like to the supermarket at even a hint of inclement weather.

However, back to shopping trolleys and carparks. Hands up anyone who has gone shopping and has been confronted by two, invariably women, having a natter in the middle of the aisle with their trolleys side-by-side, blocking any chance of anyone else getting past?

These are the same people who stop in their cars in a carpark to have a quick chat through the window, causing a gridlock.

Ever been hit in the back of the legs with a trolley that is being pushed by someone not watching where they're going? Haven't we all.

These are the same folk who'll either drive into the tree, hit the curb in the parking bay or clip your car's rear panel as they try to squeeze in, or reverse out of, said parking spot.

It's too depressing to go on. And the state of New Zealand driving has made the news in a piece in the New Zealand Herald headlined "NZ driving angers visitors". It's not just the visitors who are miffed at the appalling skills of Kiwi drivers - it's the rest of us poor local sods who have to share the road with numpties as well.

Road horrors

Bob McMurray's response to last week's column on dogs in cars sums up the feedback I've had.

"After reading an article by t Eric Thompson, I thought I would take closer note of the cars around me on the journey," he wrote.

"I saw, variously, four dogs leaping around back seats; one dog on a driver's lap; two separate rigid trucks doing 75km/h in the middle lanes; three kids in the back seat of a four-door ute unsecured and jumping around; one MPV with about 12 passengers (an eight-seater I think) and kids in the back bit behind the rear seat; more people on the phone than I can count, and four texters.

"Then there was one Peugeot with a lady driver doing her eyelashes in the mirror; and an elderly gentleman driver trying to light a cigarette, and failing miserably."