Having 30 odd years of driving experience (no convictions, no points, no parking tickets) including 20 years driving emergency vehicles, I'd like to get off my chest something I did 10 or so years ago of which I am ashamed.
A weekday, on the M4. I am descending into a wide valley in lane 2 about to overtake a line of trucks in lane 1. Lane 3 is occupied by another line of cars. One of the trucks pulls out with one flash of his indicator forcing me to slow from 70mph to 55mph quite quickly. I get round him as we are about to ascend the next hill. I am angry, so I pull in front of him, slow down to about 45mph, and when I see that he is at my speed, I accelerate back up to 70mph up the long hill. As I glance in my rear-view, I see the two flashing headlights and the shaking fist of a trucker stranded in lane 2 unable to accelerate or make reasonable progress.
I was immediately ashamed of my actions. I had retaliated because I was angry. I had made someone else angry. How did he cope with his anger? Did he cut someone else up later that day? Did he cause an accident? Was someone's vehicle damaged, or was someone injured or killed as the result of a chain of actions in which I played a part?
I don't know, and I never will. But i will never forget my feelings as I accelerated away up the hill.
What's the worst thing you've ever done behind the wheel?
|
i assume the lorry driver bottled it up with the rest of the hastle they have to put up with, then when he got home at the end of the week gave his misses a couple of black eyes and gave the nippers a good hiding too...thats what used to happen to me....i was that nipper
|
|
did he turn on his amstrad stack system though when he got home?
|
|
no we had a radiogram, it was loud enough to drown the screams
|
|
|
|
How did he cope with his anger? Did he cut someone else up later that day?
Drivers of low power-to-weight ratio vehicles get used to being baulked in the run-up to hills by people in far more capable vehicles. Usually the baulking is not deliberate but the result of simple idiocy and unawareness. However as the carphound accelerates away up the hill the truck or 2CV or Skoda Estelle or whatever can only flash its lights as a sign of irritation, if the driver can be bothered.
Of course if it's a Skoda or even 2CV the chances are that it will pass the idiot a couple of miles down the road. If it's a lorry though it may not be able to catch up. But the driver will watch the same idiot for the next half-hour or so a couple of hundred yards ahead, getting in everyone else's way, faffing busily in and out, brake lights going on and off as the driver forms the centre of a black eddy of bad vibes infecting the vehicles around it at an average speed ten miles an hour or more below the motorway limit.
Isn't that what it's like on our motorways? If not they must have improved.
|
|
|
>I was immediately ashamed of my actions.
Stop beating yourself up about it. He probably knew exactly what he was doing when he pulled out in front of you and couldnt give a toss, even though what HE did WAS dangerous.
FTF
|
|
Yes, agree, time to move on. Put it down to experience and next time count to ten, or whatever, to get over the frustration. There are idiots on the road whenever and wherever you are.
|
In a car ? Well, it was a very long time ago but it involved an MG Midget and my ex wife's younger sister..............
;-)
|
You may have saved him from a certain death a mile up the road.
That's what I think when I get a puncture or break down. It could be fate's kind hand. :)
|
|
|
well,humphback you have led an interesting life. does it still bring a smile to your chops?
the stupidest thing i did was about 25yrs ago. i overtook a line of slow traffic to find the front vehicle was turning right so i had to sit in the wrong side of the road till the right turner had completed his manouvre. was my face red. jag.
|
|
@OP: I guess you've seen the film "Duel"!
|
@OP: I guess you've seen the film "Duel"!
HA HA! I have, indeed. It was nothing like that, though.
BTW I'm not beating myself up over it. I just raised it to start a bit of a discussion really.
I should have seen the situation developing and shouldn't have reacted. I am over it, honest!
|
|
|
@OP: I guess you've seen the film "Duel"!
Some would be very surprised by just how fast some of our trucks could go before tamper proof limiters became the norm, and thats all i'm saying..;)
Well SD, i won't codemn you for reacting we've all done stupid things and like you after the heat of the moment has gone realise just what a clot we were...trouble is there's so many of them to remember (mine) and i haven't got all night.
I do condemn the truck driver though, i've witnessed far too many of these unplanned 1 flash of the indicator (if you're lucky) and out, seen drivers forced into fast moving traffic in the outside lane or almost onto the armco....often it's not by accident either but deliberate bullying...one particular evil specimen i felt compelled to report, only by a Saab drivers skill was there not a cross over pile up, then the evil spec did it again to another poor soul....once may be a mistake, twice in 2 miles is criminal.
|
|
|
|
|
"it involved an MG Midget and my ex wife's younger sister.."
When I first scanned that I thought you meant your ex wife's sister and a small person...
|
|
|
|
|
|
safedriver: if that's your worst motoring death-bed confession, I doubt that St.Peter will deny you access to the pearly car park :-)
|
|
|
