I wrote a couple of weeks ago that I thought that if stupidity could be eliminated from our roads so would what we call accidents. And then I witnessed an incident of stupidity so grave, so outrageous, that if I had the power I would have liked to have caught up with the cretin responsible, and at that point I would have pointed out to him that he had provided evidence that he was so stupid as to be a clear and present danger against all humankind. I then would have placed a bullet between his blank eyes.
The incident took place on a roundabout that is encountered when exiting a motorway. The roundabout is also used as part of the system to enter the motorway. There were four cars involved. I was car number one; the car ahead of me was car number two. We were both using the left hand lane of the two-lane roundabout. Car number three was an Audi that entered the roundabout in spite of the presence of the two of us. That was the first stupid thing to happen, although not particularly dangerous. Car number four, a red Volkswagon also decided to squeeze on to the roundabout. The Audi took the first exit and was gone. The red car increased its speed and inserted itself across the path of the car ahead of me, just as that driver was about to cross over to the right hand lane to leave the roundabout.
No collision occurred, but the margin between the two cars must have been so small I wouldn’t have tried to pass a slip of paper between them. The other driver didn’t even touch his brakes as it happened all so very fast, but I’m fairly certain there would have been a lot of cursing in that car.
The most awful part of this scene is that had a broadside collision occurred, when the police attended they would have applied the blame on the driver who was ahead of me, as the law states that no car may lawfully leave a roundabout at the expense of impeding the progress of the car in the right-hand lane. For red car driver to have deliberately inserted himself in that position takes the act of stupidity to a very high art.
That bothered me intensely, and every time after that when I came on to that roundabout I remembered the incident. About ten days later, while being on the roundabout in the left-hand lane, as I approached the point at which traffic from the motorway should have come to a halt, another dopey driver shot out alongside me and sped up to get ahead of me so that he could do the exact same thing as red car driver. That did enrage me, but it also taught me a lesson. In order to control such morons, and apparently there are more than one on our roads, I need to take charge of the right hand lane as soon as possible and to hold my ground.
As for yourself, you may wish to take this as a reasonable warning.
Copyright © 2008 Eugene Carmichael
