THERE are times when, lost deep in thought, I often ponder the mentality of some of my fellow inhabitants of this little rock.

Take litter and fly-tipping as the first examples. Over the past few weeks an eclectic collection of commercial, household and garden items has been unceremoniously dumped in entrances to fields in the Boulivot heights and its environs on the borders of Grouville and St Saviour. These have included palette boards, flowerpots, garden waste, children’s toys and an old analogue television set.

The places where they were dumped were in quite prominent locations on well-used roads, so it was not as if the perpetrators were going about their anti-social activities surreptitiously.

But if they could be bothered to load up a car or van and make a trip into the countryside, why not take a bit more time and go to the Bellozanne recycling facility, which is, after all, open seven days a week?

Like those who don’t give a thought to burning plastic, rubber and various other potentially hazardous items which, when set alight, pollute the atmosphere, the growing band of fly-tippers suffer from the modern malaise of don’t-give-a-damnitis.

While the majority of Islanders are perfectly happy to be socially responsible citizens, there will always be a brazenly stubborn and selfish minority who cock a snook at authority. No matter what it is, ask them to one thing and they doggedly do the opposite.

Dumping rubbish on someone else’s property shifts the responsibility to another, causing them time and, if they are not able to remove the offending items, money to pay someone to do so on their behalf. The success of recycling initiatives and the usual tidy state of the town and countryside bear testament that, on the whole, the good burghers of Jersey want to do their bit to save the planet and to keep the vingtaines – and cueilettes of St Ouen – looking spick and span.

Yet for every battalion of responsible folk who bundle up newspapers and collect plastic bottles and cans to deposit at the many recycling banks, there is always some thoughtless idiot who will discard a can in a hedgerow, or throw a national daily out of car window so that each page can separate in the breeze to spread far and wide.

The drinks can problem is compounded by some farm workers who have a nasty habit of leaving a veritable drinks cabinet of empty beer cans in hedges, to be flayed into shards of sharp metal come the next branchage. Not only does this exacerbate the litter problem, it also presents hazards for wildlife, grazing animals and dogs.

There is one item of litter regularly deposited along the byways of the Boulivot heights that never ceases to amuse me. From the growing number of empty pots of a particular brand of priobiotic yoghurt drink littering the lanes, I can only assume that while this particular litter lout may not give a hoot for the environment, he or she does at least look after the inner self!

Perhaps the long-awaited and grossly overdue Islandwide separated household refuse collection may at last begin to instil into our community the idea that the days of chucking all and sundry in a rubbish bin should be well and truly over.

I ENCOUNTERED a similar laissez faire attitude when heading west last Saturday morning. This time it was in the form of a typical member of the curious and baffling breed of ‘white van man’ who, conforming to type chose to ignore the 30 mph speed limit along Longueville Road and assumed that attempting to nudge my rear bumper would entice me to drive faster.

Having failed miserably in his endeavours, he eventually got one over on yours truly by sharply cutting in front of the trusty Clio in the underpass. He repeated this manoeuvre along Victoria Avenue whenever he met any driver not daring enough to push the speedometer too close to 50 mph just in case a boy or girl in blue was pointing a speed gun in the direction of oncoming traffic.

Eventually this road hog met his match in a BMW, which easily won the race for the advantage of the merge of lanes at Bel Royal.

As so often happens when a hare attempts to outrun a tortoise, our paths met again briefly at Beaumont, where he had to slow to negotiate the filter-in-turn before he turned up the hill, leaving me to only surmise at what speed, a clear road permitting, he would attempt to sail through the 20 mph zone in St Peter’s Village.

AS life teaches us on a daily basis, there’s nowt so queer as folk, and none more so then when it comes to a man on a mission behind the wheel of a motor vehicle in whatever form it takes.

White van man is not alone in this ilk. Has anyone else noticed how the larger vehicles on Island roads, which are by virtue of their category supposed to drive no faster than 30 mph, tend to go rather faster? If so, could someone at Connex, in States departments and at many delivery and freight operators please remind their drivers of the legal obligation of driving vehicles such as a bus or a heavily-laden container lorry.

Moreover, it would set a good example if the police, who are charged with enforcing the Island speed limits, ensured that they observed them when not on emergency calls.