Autogeddon

These last couple of weeks, I've had the temporary use of a car after over a year reliant on public transport. For one, this means I get an extra 25 minutes in bed in the morn, which can only be a good thing.

In exchange, I have to put up with my short patience on the road. It's genetic, you see. My dad in general is a guy so mild mannered he makes Clark Kent seem like the Hulk. Once on the road and stuck behind a tractor (which happens a lot in Cumbria) he is prone to go into rants so profane Malcolm Tucker would blush.

Like father, like son. In the afternoon especially, my blood pressure rockets and I'm thankful just to get home without seeing a vein in my forehead popping. Seeing some knobhead doing 50mph in a 30 zone makes me have fantasies of being a traffic cop so I could pull them over and shoot the tyres out. Then maybe dish out a kicking, Jack Regan style.

Part of this, I reckon, is down to getting older. Trivial things seem to bug me a lot more than they used to. Some of those high up on my shit list include:

Bus and Taxi Drivers
First thing my pop told me when I started learning: "never trust anyone driving a taxi or bus". Sound advice. Buses know their strength and use it with no regard to anyone else, taxi drivers just canter round the city using their own interpretation of the Highway Code.

Dozy Gets at the Lights
You all know the type, those who seem to slip into the Twilight Zone when waiting for the light to turn green, then seem to need an extra five seconds to remember how to shift the car into gear and release the handbrake. Honestly, life is just too short to have it spent stuck behind someone who can't tell the difference between red and green.


Lane Swappers
Driving down the Kingsway, heading South of the city, can be an annoying experience. Matters are not helped by fuckwits bombing down the dual carriageway, switching between the lanes at rapid pace to try and earn a few extra seconds. If, like me, you try to leave a wee bit of a gap between yourself and the car in front, then it's an open invite to these arseholes, who tend to then promptly slam on the brakes. When I am King, I will ensure these people are tracked down, have their cars taken away and crushed to the size of a Rubik's Cube.