Driving Miss Crazy...

It's a beautiful moment when you and the car next to you in traffic both have Blurred Lines on the radio with windows down, on a stunningly sunny day no less, share a subtle agreeing look, then turn it up! I was eventually rather glad for a green light though when the very friendly, but rather butch lass who was my single serving car neighbour started some quite impressive car jiving that I just couldn't match, but may have felt obligated to try... Very amusing flower but having just dislodged my loose and wiggly wing mirror AGAIN in a hit and run with a wheelie bin (no remorse by the way, weeks of it drifting about in the street it had it coming) I'm teetering on the edge of embarrassment oblivion where some spontaneous grooving will either go well and receive approval pulling me back away from the crumbly edge or (more likely) unceremoniously shove me in. I am SO not taking that risk.

This is a pleasantly spontaneous and uplifting moment in the years we spend behind the wheel in your lifetime, a moment that breaks up the strict routine you impose on yourself while driving - and fair enough, it keeps us safe, it keeps us consistent. Skill of driving aside, it got me thinking that car etiquette is a curious thing. You know, when you let people in, when you don't, how you say "thanks!" or how you express your displeasure... 

Now, I'm the furthest thing from a vulgar gesturer, flicking the bird, the V's or whatever, but the other week I did want for some gesture to convey a sense of... "Please, just wait your damn turn!" A car that joined the motorway (or freeway for you across the puddle) came up both behind a slower car and alongside me as I passed said slower car. This fine example of ape-kind hoofed it down the ramp, up behind the poor flower in a Vauxhall Agila and wiggled in front of me through the gap. So I gave him a testy hoot, he made some sort of distasteful gesture to suggest that I should have pulled into the 3rd right lane to let him through at 85mph.

Well how silly of me, OF COURSE I should have let him through, how awful of me to even consider that Ms Agila and myself being already on the road ahead had any right of way over him. Hpw dare I let myself believe that people will wait their turn and not expect other drivers to violently swerve to the next lane to accommodate the lard-ass at such velocity. A least at the speed he was travelling, when he inevitably piles into something all the neck fat will have migrated so far back his neck will be sitting pretty.

Maybe it struck him that he didn't have nearly enough duct tape plastered over the 90's Mondeo, so must muster what's left of his dole together after the fags, the drugs and the seventeen kids (the likely order of priority) to purchase more tape before B&Q closes.

It was this moment after I sought a gesture that didn't exist, that as I eventually sauntered past him - due to foolish judgment of his next overtake - that I reverted to the simple but effective patronising head shake. He was vibrating in my peripheral vision and probably boiling over with a fat head wibbling about like poached eggs, but I was somewhat satisfied. I would have been more so if you could just let these sorts of people know in nothing necessarily more than a small gesture that manners are still important, it's what provides those harmonious little lifts in life and I think, it's those moments that give society that one step forward and it's the reckless, ignorant abandon of those little courtesies that take it three stomping steps back.

For example, something that I hate that my husbee-to-be does when he gets irritated behind someone in the car is to rev. And rev. And rev. I see why, it's the first pedal to hand and people just want to stomp on the nearest stompable item when cross, I get it. But this happens A LOT. And they would rarely hear. If they did, it would be intimidating, which is no better than the ignoramus above. All it is a waste of good petrol and an excuse to get wound up.

I like it when this happens: You indicate to move into the next lane in traffic, they make a gap, let you in, you wave and/or flash the hazards, then they wave. I like it when they wave back, it puts you on the same level. I'm already happy that they've let me in, in busy traffic, but when they wave it's like saying "That's ok" or "Don't mention it" or "You're welcome", which most of us would naturally reply with when someone verbally thanks you. You wouldn't often get someone saying thank you and the other person staying stony quiet. Sometimes they flash the lights after I have moved in and given my thanks, and unless it's accompanied by a wave, I'm sometimes not sure how to take it! Sometimes a flash can be annoyance... Maybe I worry too much, I don't go to that clinic for nothing...

If we drive with a smile ready in our pocket (I'm not saying it has to be plastered over your face the whole journey), will the roads look a much friendlier place? I'd like to think so.