Only fools and horses...

I'm not a perfect driver. Some days, I'll admit, I'm not even a good driver (yeah, you heard it here first). I get far too many speeding fines... I think I've had 4 since New Year. BUT! I like to think that I'm sensible and a pretty good driver (on the whole). I've yet to be in an accident - caused by me, that is. (I've had someone reverse into the side of my car in a fit of road rage, in order to reach the car behind me - the target - more quickly!!)

When there is lots of traffic, I've learnt to chill and just accept that I'm going to be stuck in it for a while, so I slow down, follow proper following distances, etc, etc. In general, I'm a stickler for using the correct signals, and (unlike my husband) I stop at red lights and go at green ones. I don't take unnecessary risks when I have passengers (although because my spatial awareness is damn good it may appear to be so to someone who doesn't have quite the same level of awareness).

Today I nearly lost my rag with a COMPLETE IDIOT. Those who know my local shopping centre will know that on a Saturday morning it is heaving. In order to deal with the traffic problem, one of the adjacent streets has been made a one way. This does make life harder in general, because to get the petrol garage you have to go ALL the way around the shopping centre, or all the way around the adjacent block.

Well, some clever twit decided that, at 11am, it would be fine to go the wrong way down the one way, because it was quicker and shorter. He had a fridge to deliver, and could obviously not be bothered to go all the way round.

Normally, I would have hooted, and then pulled over to let the idiot pass. But today, something in me just had had enough. I don't care that it's longer to go around. I don't care that there is lots of traffic. It's not safe going the wrong way down the road - especially when your kids are in the car, and NOT STRAPPED IN.

So I refused to pull over. I gesticulated to this idiot that he had to reverse. But no, he tried to pull over to let me pass. I refused to move. So then he tried to manoeuvre around me, but my car was in such a position that he couldn't get around without scratching the parked vehicles, his vehicle or mine. Graeme then got out to go and talk to him. Maybe, just maybe, he hadn't understood my gesticulations. But no, he had. He just thought that he was more important and so the rules could be broken for him.

Of course, by this time, a string of cars had pulled up behind me. I was starting to feel the pressure to just give in, when the gentleman in the car behind me, and the car behind him, also got out and came to talk to this idiot. Thus, with extreme reluctance, he started to reverse. He tried to pull up behind a delivery truck that was parked in the road, to make space for me to go around him, but I simply refused.

I pulled up close enough to him to prevent him from travelling the wrong way back down the one way, but with enough space to manoeuvre around the truck. Graeme spoke to him again. Apparently, he told Graeme to call the police because he wasn't moving. So Graeme got back in the car and I started to dial. As luck would have it though, just then, not one, not two but THREE police vehicles arrived (at the end of the road to which we were heading).

I flashed my lights and pointed to this idiot, and within a few seconds, I'd attracted their attention. With sirens blaring, one of the police vans drove down the road towards us. At long last, and with a look that would have killed he did a U-turn and left.

Of course, by this stage my blood pressure was sky high, but I was elated. A triumph for law & justice! A triumph for the local citizens refusing to give in to skollies who think they can do whatever the hell they like. Yay for us!!