Nothing surprises me with people anymore. I've had many threats from car and van drivers when I've spoken to them politely.

My favorite incident was on the South Circular when I wanted to turn right and was waiting for a road worker to move the cones so I could turn into a side road when an oncoming stupid person decided to stop and then give me a mouthful of abuse about how I was causing people behind me to be held up (obviously too stupid to realise he was doing the same to all the people behind him for no good reason). What he failed to notice was his shouting abuse was getting the attention a policewoman standing on the pavement who then came over and had a few words with him :) It really made my day.

What worries me is the way that people are so easily prompted to go into "abuse" mode at the slightest provocation. I recently applied a light toot of my horn to alert a reversing motorist coming out of a parking bay, only to be called a host of horrendous unpublishable names. Why?

Usually it's the ones in the wrong that start getting angry and abusive.

Sorry to read of your experience oldroverboy. It is a sad indictment of the lack of manners, courtecy and basic respect that seems to abound these days. A chap who uses my local uses a brilliant ploy to shake up inconsiderate drivers. He too lives in a cul-de-sac with limited road width. When some idiot double parks he goes out and starts photgraphing the car. When is asked (usually impolitely) what he is doing he replies ' Just so the council tow truck gets the correct vehicle'. He then says 'Didn't you see the signs?' What effing signs? The tow away zone signs when you enter the village. Because of limited access there needs to be a clear road for emergancy vehicles at all times. There are no signs of course but it always works and they move their vehicles. Maybe worth a try next time. Cheers Concrete

A fireman told me recently that they are allowed to drive a fire engine down there to an emergency without regard for the sides of the cars - as they should, in my opinion.

That reminds me of something I saw as a kid, I was in Tesco with a neighbour and there was an old man and his wife moaning about the time it was taking to get served. When we got outside a D type Ford truck had done a tin opening job on the side of his bright yellow Mk3 cortina with the wheelnuts on it's front wheel, he went from being miserable to being really miserable.

On the same vein how the parcel lads cope day in day out with often over 100 deliveries and collections in an 8'6" wide vehicle i do not know, should be medals issued all round i couldn't do it, i always try to let those lads go whenever possible, we have may parcels delivered and the vast majority of them are decent sticks.

I'm with you there, I think I'm hard done by if I have 4 drops on the same trailer. I'm never that pushed for time and I still find it bad enough going into some tight places.

When we lived in Sunny Carmarthen, a car had parked very inconsiderately on a corner and the driver of a large vehicle was struggling to get past, so I offered to guide him... He declined till i said "you'll get a bus through there.". and that was what he was driving... said thank you with a toot!