The Menaces on the Public Highway

I apologise to those who may have read this before - I had my blog hosted on another site which gave me a lot of problems so I changed to Blogspot - but I think it is worth

re-publishing...

These characters are usually referred to as "boy racers"; however, I have observed that this epithet is something of a misnomer, as invariably they are neither boys, nor racers and can be either male or female ranging in age from eighteen to eighty; and are usually driving people unfriendly vehicles, i.e. 4x4's or those bloody monstrosities that are sold as keeping the little wifey and kids safe from other drivers. This driver, once most common on the motorways, now appears to have migrated onto the highways and byways of this green and pleasant land. The impatient driver cannot bear to be behind slower moving traffic, although there may be a good reason why it is moving slowly, and has to drive at the optimal distance, usually eighteen inches, from the rear of the car in front to try and intimidate the driver into speeding up; this driver also does not like to see a space in a line of traffic without trying to fill it, regardless of why the driver in front has given themselves room to manoeuvre. Not only does this driver overtake to fill a space in a line of traffic when they can proceed no further, but does so regardless of the risk to other drivers.

Then we have the other type of impatient driver; the driver who leaves it until the last possible second before embarking upon their journey. This driver habitually overtakes at great speed, more often than not at the most inauspicious place again unmindful of the danger caused to other road users. Without fail this driver disappears into the distance in a cloud of spray hoping to get to their destination - usually to work - on time. The net result of this maniacal rush into oblivion is that the said maniac catches up with a queue of slower moving traffic a few miles down the road and is consequently caught up by the very drivers whom they had previously overtaken at warp speed, thus failing to achieve the required result of their manoeuvre, that of getting where they are going more quickly. Almost everyone tolerates the impatient driver, and makes room when they see them looming at very near the speed of light in the rear-view mirror, that is except for other impatient drivers. We are all guilty of allowing this type of driver to get away with their appalling antics without a word said; but what happens if we perchance overtake the impatient driver? It is at this point that those good and careful drivers become the subject of numerous forms of abuse, from the visual kind - the one or two finger salute - to the usual string of verbal invective which apparently makes up the vocabulary of this poor, down trodden, souls who were - according to them - doing nothing more than minding their own business. One does, at times, feel like requesting that these drivers travel in perpetually abating circumferences preceding an evaporation up the orifice from whence flows the effluvium created by their automobile's engine; however, this would have no more effect than to drag one down to their monosyllabic level.