Road RageLast week I had to stop a guy attacking another one in the middle of the road - one had run the lights whilst on the phone and the other had objected. I actually had to take the attacker's car keys out of their car and tell him he wasn't getting them back till he calmed down.
Looking back on it, I was lucky I was feeling all parental and in control or the situation could have panned out very differently.
Have you lost it on the roads, or have you been on the recieving end of some nutter?
(
chthonic, Thu 12 Oct 2006, 21:31)
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Everywhere's fucking full of 'emI'm such an angry person; I knew I'd have lots to say this time. This is my domain.
Road rage (the QOTW-relevant bit): I get it all the time. I live near Basingstoke with its wonderful assortment of roundabouts and these in combination with many, many inexplicably-license-owning fuckwits leads to much fun and games. I had no idea so many cars were manufactured these days with no indicators. In fact too many experiences as a driver and pedestrian of being cut up, almost driven off the road/run over has led to my now imminent installation of large warning signs (not totally humourless ones either) on the roundabout near our place. Locals, watch out for them!
My Dad is ancient (and actually a total prick in the Alf Garnett mould), but is just as angry as me. When I was a kid we faced off against a fella in a van from opposite ends of a long, single lane road. We were half way down and the other guy had only just appeared, but accelerated towards us with no intention of reversing to let us pass. Both drivers exit vehicles. Shouting, squaring up etc. Van guy aims a truly shocking, inaccurate punch and misses. My Dad kicks him squarely in the balls, lays him delicately on the verge, gets into the guy's van and reverses it back to the other end of the road. We continue our journey. Another time he went to call another motorist "a cunt" and in this action lost his upper set of dentures, thus diffusing the situation in hysterical laughter from both sides. Last week I was crossing a road at a set of pedestrian lights in Southampton, when some pikey minger rounded the corner, jumped the red and missed me by millimetres. For the rest of the day I lamented not remembering her registration and tracking her down, as opposed to just stating the obvious in calling her a “fucking retard”. This is what I am like.
Parking rage: I have been in the habit, for years, of making little "shit parking award" certificates and leaving them under the wipers. It works because it a) releases tension for me b) hopefully makes the odd one of them think twice c) doesn’t constitute vandalism. Don’t think I am so anal that these are professional-looking things; they just get written on post-its. And they only get brought out for special occasions, like when someone parks diagonally across three spaces when it’s busy, not just when I judge them to be ever so slightly off-centre or something. Where we live, there are a lot of houses in close proximity and far fewer parking spaces. The council say we are allocated one per house, yet everyone else seems to take about three, then invite their mates over each night to take up another 8 or so. Someone’s even sprayed a “no parking – reserved for number x” on TWO of them. Must do something about that.
I’ve even had “canal rage”, just like ChaRleyTroniC. Also involving stone-throwing scallies in Solihull and a bunch of middle-ages hoorays outside Warwick, yelling at us to “keep to the right!” before crashing themselves. You just can’t get way from it.
Whoever said this place was better than therapy was bang on.
(, Fri 13 Oct 2006, 13:11, Reply)
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