Barbara Murray Art

There are few things that get me annoyed, but if ther is one that is more likely to tip me over into anger it’s the habits of drivers. Now I am usually a very calm driver, not prone to road rage. I let people out in front of me if I’m in a queue; I don’t shout at other cars and I don’t react often to things I see that I know are wrong.

But some days…

Like today, for example. Driving to work on the A66 can be a slow experience. It’s a single carriageway road and if you get in a line of traffic behind a slow wagon, there is no thing you can do except drive along at 40mph. Most of us accept that, but there’s always one, isn’t there? so today, I am travelling along at 40, having left a nice stopping distance between me and the car in front. when suddenly the car behind thinks he should take a risk and darts out despite some oncoming traffic, darts back in again just as suddenly, causing me to brake. AND filling the gap I’d deliberately left in case I had to stop suddenly. so now I have to pull back further and incidentally, he didn’t manage to get any nearer the front of the queue, so I followed him all the way to Cockermouth.

Which leads into the next idiot on the road. When approaching a roundabout, the left hand lane is for turning left or for travelling straight on. the right hand lane is used for vehicles turning right. But occasionally, there is someone who is too stupid to know that or is simply idiotic enough to use the right hand lane as a means of overtaking on the roundabout. One such idiot did that this morning and I had to swerve at the last minute to avoid hitting him as he cut across the front of my car.

I could feel myself almost getting annoyed. But managed to reign it in, because what’s the point? I wouldn’t be able to change the behaviour of idiots by shouting at their vehicles. All it would do would be to raise my own blood pressure.  but I do wonder at the lack of skill on the roads. No wonder there are so many road traffic accidents.