Roadman

I’m only twenty-eight years of age but already, I regularly find that I’m slipping behind with slang and the language of the “cool” kids. It really is an effort to keep up when everybody your own age continues to use the same slang that we did ten years or so ago. In short, you just aren’t exposed to the new wordz on the street so unless you work with some younger people or have a much younger partner then you really can’t be blamed for thinking “huh?” when you hear some of that fresh speak.

But I like to believe that I’ve been doing okay recently. That is until I heard a new descriptive from somebody in their early twenties.

Roadman.

To me, a “Roadman” is a hi-vis, hardhat-wearing road construction worker. I might even be able to believe that it could be the title of a so-bad-it’s-awesome 80’s B-Movie but it turns out that a Roadman is neither of these things.

“Roadman” is apparently the new term for “Boy Racer” or “Chav”.

You know the sort. They drive around in cheap hatchback cars that have been dressed up to look and sound furious. They believe that dropping their car, fitting a wobbly, oversized exhaust (de-silenced of course) and applying crappy cosmetic upgrades can result in a car that is superior to the standard factory version that a manufacturer spent millions on designing. Said cars are so powerful that they are unable to stick to speed limits in built-up urban areas (don’t forget that each bit of tacky plastic bolted on to the exterior adds at least an extra 10bhp) and the obnoxious, thundering exhaust note rattles windows in its quest to disguise the car’s 1.2l origins.

As for the owners of these superb automobiles, you will usually find them backed up in the corner of a McDonalds carpark with their seats dropped as low as they can go and reclined so far backwards that they are essentially lying down. Supermarket carparks and desolate industrial estates are alternative haunts for the Roadmen and their supercar-terrorising bean can exhausts on wheels. They don’t tend to do anything in particular other than simply hang around in tracksuits, smoking spliffs, littering and saying things like “Know what I mean, mate?”, “Innit, bruv” or “Wag one, geez”

Thing is, the name “Roadman” is too good for these people. First of all, it includes the word “man” and it’s difficult to consider Adidas-garbed, drug-smoking loiterers who see the Vauxhall Corsa as a serious performance vehicle as actual men. Secondly, it’s an insult to the guys working on the roads who are getting confused with jobless boy racers still living off mommy and daddy.

I’d like to know where the Roadman name originated from but I fear it may involve unearthing a dastardly scheme by the more elite chavs to give their creed some more credibility via the establishment of a new, more serious umbrella term for people like them. It’s the kind of shit that may result in me being made to disappear after a few days of being tailed by black undercover vehicles. Fortunately I’m reasonably confident that I’d be able to spot the operatives of this arm of the MIB thanks to the quaking exhaust note of their cars.

So, the Roadmen. Now you know.