Drivers – read this!

I’d like to introduce drivers on South African roads to two features that many of them rarely use or even know exist at all: the indicator (or turn-signal) and the seat belts.

Particularly on South African highways, there is a fair number of drivers that totally ignore the need to indicate when crossing lanes, posing a safety threat to both the other drivers on the road and themselves.

Forgetting that many South African drivers don’t check their blind spots when changing lanes or turning, that, combined with neglect for the indicator stalk (yes, that’s the little stick one either the left of right side of the steering wheel with the little arrows on it), is a recipe for a fender bender.

Indicators are NOT an optional extra people. Especially not in large German luxury vehicles (despite everything else being a paid for option nowadays).

Buckle up!

Even more disturbing than peoples’ “covert” movement on our national roads is the number of people driving cars without wearing seat belts. It’s frightening. And the majority of them are people driving sub-R100,000 cars, which are not fitted with other safety features like ABS brakes and air bags (Ed;s note: Airbags only deploy if your seat belt is fastened!).

If you’re in an accident and you’re not buckled up – well, quite frankly you’re the only one to blame if you’re hurt.

I often hear people moan about seat belts being uncomfortable – “cutting” into necks and squashing or chafing all sorts of bodily extremities. But it’s a load of excuses for not wearing a seatbelt.

They also say that seat belts can cause all sorts of damage in an accident – but a bruised shoulder is better than the alternative. And airbags have just as much potential for damage so the point, really is to minimise damage not prevent it.

I really don’t understand what people have against seat belts. Maybe they see them as not being “cool” or “gangsta”. Maybe they’re just plain lazy to take the extra 2 seconds to fasten or unfasten their seat belts when getting in or out of their cars….?

Never mind the fact that it is the LAW to wear seat belts while driving!

Babies and kids in cars

But the biggest “moron awards” go out to those people who either sit with their babies or small kids on their laps in the front passenger seat or allow their kids to stand on the car seats (front or back) while driving.

It makes me so furious that people have so little regard for their children’s well-being – it amounts to child abuse if you ask me.

And the sad thing with all the issues that have been raised in this post is that something bad has to happen before people take precautions.

A person has to go flying through a windscreen in an accident, a child has to fall or hurt itself on the dashboard and people have to die before those idiots who don’t buckle themselves and their children up actually comply with the law.

But I’ve always maintained that people are stupid sheep and maybe we need bad things to happen to stupid people to scare them right. I hear you: “When does that ever happen?”. But that’s a topic for another day.

Cry the abused apostrophe

Of all the punctuation marks in English grammar, the apostrophe (‘) is the probably the most abused of them all.

Now, while I don’t profess to be an expert in grammar, I’m a stickler for good punctuation and it irks me on a daily basis when I see how loosely the apostrophe is used on billboards, on TV and in print adverts.

The apostrophe has a number of uses, including possession, making something plural, showing plural possession, parenthesis and indicating contraction or omission.

Generally people are pretty good at using the apostrophe as a contraction (in words like can’t, won’t, shouldn’t and ma’am).

But when it comes to possession and plural nouns (and particularly plural possession combined) people tend to have a more lackadaisical approach to using an apostrophe, even if one is not required.

The main culprits are acronyms like CD, SMS and DVD – where people will wrongly refer to DVD’s, SMS’s and CD’s in their plural forms.

Even worse though, is the use of “greengrocer’s apostrophes” in nouns like camera’s, bath’s and phone’s to show the plural form.

Although they’re meant to be read as plural forms, they actually read as singular possession, which just confuses everything when these words are used in sentences and not standing alone.

In the case of plural possession, the apostrophe is meant to go after the “s” in the plural noun (for example: “The learners’ books are burning” – the books belonging to more than one learner).

And with singular nouns that end in “s”, the correct punctuation for singular possession is Jones’s and not Jones’.

It’s disturbing that these incorrect standards are being widely adopted by marketing organisations – including a number of big-name advertising and public relations agencies in South Africa.

The question is whether you can blame laziness for the abuse of the apostrophe or write it off to ignorance of good English grammar.

In any event, it does demand that organisations take a closer look at the communications that they put out and ensure that they don’t ruin their reputations with something as simple as bad punctuation.