I recently observed a car being violently ‘kerbed’ by a young couple. The car was travelling down a straight road by a pub that was the only building for several hundred metres on either side. The pub car-park was next to the pub with kerbs for the footpath leading into car-park. The car turned to park on the footpath using the turnoff to the car-park but going too fast. The near-side front wheel bounced high as it ran onto the kerb and the car turned off the footpath back onto the road. When on the road the front wheels turned again to the kerb and met it. I got the impression that the friction on the wheel tugged the steering wheel from the driver’s hands and the car went back again onto the footpath and stopped. There was a puff of blue smoke and a young woman leaned from the driver’s door. A young man climbed out from the passenger door and looked under the front of the car.

I asked my wife had she observed the event, but her attention had been distracted by a hub cap bowling by us and down the road.

Perhaps an unscheduled and expensive first driving lesson ?