Anyone experience it?
Are you a calm, chilled out driver or are you really impatient with the incompetent drivers on the road today?
I prefer to see myself as a pretty calm, chilled out driver but I think I just experienced my first round of "road rage" in my first 6 months on the road.
Picture the scenario: I've just dropped my old man off at a Sunday social - a local journey I've done every week since I've bought my car. The Cardigans are the song I'm merrily humming along to, courtesy of Radio One. I'm in my home town - busy shoppers are unpredictable, so cars are in a queue steadily milling along at 20mph. We clear that and I'm in a generous mood today. I see a roadside cleaner trying to U-turn into my path so still doing under 30mph, I give way and he thanks me with his hazards.
I pass my house. I'm on my way to Homebase. I know those roads really well. The heavens are sprinkling, but not enough for the wipers. I'm doing 30mph. The road is wide and clear so I accelerate up a tad to the end where there's a zebra crossing followed immediately by a roundabout. Anticipating this, I decelerate through the gears and brake to give way to the car on the right, finally turning right myself.
Now there's another stretch of road with a set of traffic lights, a pelican crossing about 100m down from this, followed shortly by another roundabout which I intend to turn left at.
It's this stretch of round that I notice a black T-reg Toyota Celica with a 30-40yr old blonde middle class lady behind the wheel, tailgating.
Where did she come from?
I imagine she was on the previous stretch of road but I can't be too sure. She could have joined from the roundabout but that's irrelevant - she's a bit too close for my liking.
Okay, it's not a problem for me. I continue to mill along at 30mph with her tailgating me. I know there's a pelican crossing coming up and there's a jogger that I'm anticipating to carry on across the crossing so I slow down accordingly. The jogger doesn't, so I build up my speed only slightly because a roundabout is coming up.
Now all this time the Celica is still tailgating me. The road is wide enough for two cars, but unless you're doing silly speed (which I wasn't) people rarely use it to overtake. Which she could have done if she was in a rush/stressed/impatient.
So I indicate left rather early to tell her that I intend to turn left at this roundabout hoping that she continues straight on. This is where she starts to act like an idiot.
I see her swerving right-to-left, in what I'm assuming is impatience and a want to overtake. We're 10m from the roundabout. She tries to overtake me on the left a few seconds after she sees me indicate left and I get into that position. She has to brake because I'm effectively cutting her off. We're still at 30mph in town, so I have no idea why she's being a complete tool.
We stop at the roundabout and she's pointing at her eyes to me. I'm assuming because I cut her attempts to overtake on the left (LOL?) off. I knew she was there. I knew she was tailgating, and wanting to overtake. She had plenty of time and space to overtake me at 30mph+ before the pelican crossing, but she didn't. So I didn't see why she had the right to overtake me on the wrong side, at more than 30mph, with less than 10m from a roundabout. She didn't even signal left, so I hoped that I wouldn't be in her way
rolleyes for much longer.
Oh, wait... she's turning left too! (Great, where's her signalling?)
So there's yet another pelican crossing immediately after this roundabout which I stop for pedestrians. She's cutting the YMCA shapes now.
Enter: My first round of road rage!
I stare at her in the mirror and mouth "What the <bleep> is your problem?!" (referring to her erratic driving during the previous stretch of road). I repeat this phrase several times modifying it with as many obscene words I can think of, accompanying it with the Italian hand gesture; shaking my left hand in the air fingers stretched and fingertips joined. I have no idea what she was mouthing back. Probably something along the lines of "My husband wants his car back now or I'll have to take public transport for the rest of this week!" or "I'm late for my finger nail appointment!" amongst other idiotic, irrelevant, numbskull typical women phrases you can throw at me. Cause I'll be damned as hell if she was complaining about my driving...
Anyway, to put a lid on this. I was tempted to get out of the car and cause a scene because we had stopped at a pelican crossing. Instead I opted for the "go slow, and stare her down" option instead. This seemed to irate her. I guess it was a psychological victory for me because she got intimidated and had to drive with elbow on side window, head in hand, eyes clear of my rear mirror.
This is really not my style. Usually I never even get into these situations because I'll be the polite driver to give enough space, time and communication to my fellow road users so everything flows nicely. But today just really spoilt what should have been an easy, mellow Sunday morning drive for me.
Anyone care to share their "road rage" experiences?
Are you a calm, chilled out driver or are you really impatient with the incompetent drivers on the road today?
I prefer to see myself as a pretty calm, chilled out driver but I think I just experienced my first round of "road rage" in my first 6 months on the road.
Picture the scenario: I've just dropped my old man off at a Sunday social - a local journey I've done every week since I've bought my car. The Cardigans are the song I'm merrily humming along to, courtesy of Radio One. I'm in my home town - busy shoppers are unpredictable, so cars are in a queue steadily milling along at 20mph. We clear that and I'm in a generous mood today. I see a roadside cleaner trying to U-turn into my path so still doing under 30mph, I give way and he thanks me with his hazards.
I pass my house. I'm on my way to Homebase. I know those roads really well. The heavens are sprinkling, but not enough for the wipers. I'm doing 30mph. The road is wide and clear so I accelerate up a tad to the end where there's a zebra crossing followed immediately by a roundabout. Anticipating this, I decelerate through the gears and brake to give way to the car on the right, finally turning right myself.
Now there's another stretch of road with a set of traffic lights, a pelican crossing about 100m down from this, followed shortly by another roundabout which I intend to turn left at.
It's this stretch of round that I notice a black T-reg Toyota Celica with a 30-40yr old blonde middle class lady behind the wheel, tailgating.
Where did she come from?
I imagine she was on the previous stretch of road but I can't be too sure. She could have joined from the roundabout but that's irrelevant - she's a bit too close for my liking.
Okay, it's not a problem for me. I continue to mill along at 30mph with her tailgating me. I know there's a pelican crossing coming up and there's a jogger that I'm anticipating to carry on across the crossing so I slow down accordingly. The jogger doesn't, so I build up my speed only slightly because a roundabout is coming up.
Now all this time the Celica is still tailgating me. The road is wide enough for two cars, but unless you're doing silly speed (which I wasn't) people rarely use it to overtake. Which she could have done if she was in a rush/stressed/impatient.
So I indicate left rather early to tell her that I intend to turn left at this roundabout hoping that she continues straight on. This is where she starts to act like an idiot.
I see her swerving right-to-left, in what I'm assuming is impatience and a want to overtake. We're 10m from the roundabout. She tries to overtake me on the left a few seconds after she sees me indicate left and I get into that position. She has to brake because I'm effectively cutting her off. We're still at 30mph in town, so I have no idea why she's being a complete tool.
We stop at the roundabout and she's pointing at her eyes to me. I'm assuming because I cut her attempts to overtake on the left (LOL?) off. I knew she was there. I knew she was tailgating, and wanting to overtake. She had plenty of time and space to overtake me at 30mph+ before the pelican crossing, but she didn't. So I didn't see why she had the right to overtake me on the wrong side, at more than 30mph, with less than 10m from a roundabout. She didn't even signal left, so I hoped that I wouldn't be in her way
rolleyes for much longer.Oh, wait... she's turning left too! (Great, where's her signalling?)
So there's yet another pelican crossing immediately after this roundabout which I stop for pedestrians. She's cutting the YMCA shapes now.
Enter: My first round of road rage!
I stare at her in the mirror and mouth "What the <bleep> is your problem?!" (referring to her erratic driving during the previous stretch of road). I repeat this phrase several times modifying it with as many obscene words I can think of, accompanying it with the Italian hand gesture; shaking my left hand in the air fingers stretched and fingertips joined. I have no idea what she was mouthing back. Probably something along the lines of "My husband wants his car back now or I'll have to take public transport for the rest of this week!" or "I'm late for my finger nail appointment!" amongst other idiotic, irrelevant, numbskull typical women phrases you can throw at me. Cause I'll be damned as hell if she was complaining about my driving...
Anyway, to put a lid on this. I was tempted to get out of the car and cause a scene because we had stopped at a pelican crossing. Instead I opted for the "go slow, and stare her down" option instead. This seemed to irate her. I guess it was a psychological victory for me because she got intimidated and had to drive with elbow on side window, head in hand, eyes clear of my rear mirror.
This is really not my style. Usually I never even get into these situations because I'll be the polite driver to give enough space, time and communication to my fellow road users so everything flows nicely. But today just really spoilt what should have been an easy, mellow Sunday morning drive for me.
Anyone care to share their "road rage" experiences?
)
