Road Manners: There's a new breed of road hog about. It's young, female, well-dressed and aggressive.
Correction: pavement hog. (Let's not say path hag.)
Move over, Mr Stereotype Road Rage man, you've got company. Make room for Ms Punto and Prada, bane of the sidewalks, menace to pram pushers, the sick and the elderly. They wince as she drives up on the pavement, jump as she zooms out of the apartment block gates scattering all around her.
Here's three recent sightings. The suspect is 18 to 29, smartly dressed and often displays what Germaine Greer calls "two fat fingers of cleavage".
Sighting one: Outside post office in Dublin suburbs, middle-aged pedestrian, (self, age 58) is pinned against wall by Mitsubishi Midriff Girl parking with two wheels up on pavement. Bang on car wing, which is crunching my thigh against wall. "Sorry, I was on the phone."
That's all right, then.
Sighting two: Central Dublin, recent bank holiday weekend. Tanktop Katie parks Ka on pavement, forcing young mother with double buggy and toddler off pavement and on to street to get by.
Sighting three: Any day outside Ireland's myriad apartment blocks. Girlies in pastel Puntos and Nissan micro minis zoom in and out across pavement while pedestrians leap out of way. See sad old geezer shuffling along, see shuffle turn to scuttle, turn to jump. Nothing quite like it.
They learn it from Mummy in the Range-Rover, on the brat run, dropping them off at and picking them up from Dublin's poshest schools, scattering the little people-passing pedestrians.
Of course they don't kill anyone. Not Cleo in her Cliona - should that be the other way around? - Not Hyundai Helen. Not that I know of.
Mostly it's just bad manners rather than dangerous driving. Anyway, parking on the pavement is a sort of upside down legal requirement in Ireland, like the one rule that's always observed, the one that says bicycles must not have lights.
Still, it makes you wonder. Intentionally bad in-your-face driving used to be a male preserve. Now it seems to be a female lifestyle choice. Doesn't look much like progress. Not to this pedestrian.
Maybe my judgement is flawed. I'm still getting phantom pains where my leg used to be.