The Landcruiser 200 series is the viagra of 4WDs – heavily utilised by men beyond their prime. They don’t see “king of the road” as a marketing slogan, they see it as a title bestowed upon them for a life of accumulating riches by choking the property market so hard it calls them daddy.
You’d be thinking there was an entitlement pump at the petrol station the way these drivers carry on in the city. It’s a unique brand of incompetence and arrogance that makes an encounter with a 200 series driver truly frustrating.
They are absolute masters of the glacial paced cut off. Unlike their aggro younger cousins the Hilux Driver, the Landcruiser driver enjoys a calm, slow horizontal drift into your lane with no signs of indication. Much like getting pegged by a sloth, this is a slow and unpleasant intrusion on your personal space.
One does not simply spend that much on a car and be expected to show basic display of considerations afterall. That’s just not the way God intended Landcruiser drivers to be.
It’s only when they venture further from the leafy burbs of Perth do 200 series drivers truly come into their own. Another key opportunity to experience one of these kings is in the busy car parks of down south wineries.
Once in such rugged terrain, a little switch in their boomer brain flicks and they choose to live out their 4WD fantasies by going “off-road” in the man-made car park.
If you could harness the raw power a boomer feels by driving over a bit of bush to park inconsiderately in a car park, you could solve the world’s energy problems for 1000 years.
As obnoxious as these behaviours are, you still haven’t experienced the 200 series driver’s Magnum Opus – grey nomading. This is when the 200 series driver buys an oversized caravan out of a deep sense of guilt that they purchased an unnecessary rig for their weekly Dan Murphy expeditions.
Once a caravan is attached to the rig, they evolve into their final form and head for the warmth of the state’s North, and in the process create more road rage than meth & Stirling Highway put together.
See, the 200 Series driver is torn between two competing interests – being king of the road and conserving petrol. How does this affect you? Well, you’ll get a good understanding of this paradox when you are stuck behind one doing 80kph on a 120kph road RIGHT up until the overtaking lane comes into view.
Surely, they would let you overtake so they can carry on at 80 and you can get to your destination faster right? Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. At this stage, they will speed up to block your chance to overtake and then slow right back down when overtaking is no longer permitted.
Why? Because you’re a snowflake who hasn’t worked a single day of hard yakka in your life. Presumably.
Documenting the Human Zoo is thirsty work, so if you enjoyed what you read how about buying Belle a beer, ay?