Things that annoy me now I've passed my driving test.

Right people, listen up because this is important. When I was learning to drive, I was concentrating so hard on not making mistakes and the actual business of, y’know, driving, I didn’t really notice the actions of those around me. Now that I’ve passed, I can afford to relax a little and take in some of the sheer stupidity of the people I share the roads and general area with.

I’m going to start with the one that annoys me most, people who don’t cross at crossings. For God’s sake, it is not that inconvenient to your day to walk the minute down the street to the nearest crossing and cross safely. If you do that, I will stop, wave back to your thank you wave and carry on my way, happy in the knowledge that I haven’t killed someone. If, however, you cross in any other place, I may still appear cheerful, but inside I will be hoping that the next time you do this, you will be run over. Or better yet, you will be hit by one car and thrown into the path of another. This may seem harsh, but it’d be your own stupid fault for not crossing in the correct position and if you had the audacity to take someone to court over this, I would vigorously defend them and hope you get prosecuted for wasting police time. The fact  that this is illegal in America (where it’s called jaywalking) and not here baffles me. Crossings were put in for people’s safety, but if you HAVE to get to wherever the fuck it is you’re going, this rule obviously doesn’t fucking apply.

Cyclists. Jesus Christ, cyclists. There are many things wrong with cyclists, so I’ll start with the apparent fact that red lights don’t apply to you. Like above, when you get run over after jumping a red light, you shouldn’t be able to run crying to the police calling foul when it’s your own idiocy that put you there in the first place. You should not be able to prosecute for something that is easily avoidable. My dad noticed someone doing this and rolled down the window to shout at the cyclist about it (as dads are prone to do) and the man had no argument, resorting to childish insults and eventually dismissing the argument altogether. And another thing, I know that I’m supposed to give you space when I’m overtaking, and I try to, but it’s fucking difficult when your bike is straight down the middle of the road! You don’t need that so much space that it requires me to drive on the wrong side of the road to overtake, and besides, your bike’s only a few inches wide, you could ride right up next to the curb, but no. You have to ride right in front of where my much larger vehicle needs to be, which means I either need to drive past you into oncoming traffic, or blast the horn which will annoy you and you’ll bang on my car’s window as I go past. I should not have to do this! Your bike is slower, smaller and more dangerous (to you) than my car, which means you need to drive in the safest place for you, which is either in the bike lane or as close to curb as possible. For God’s sake, move over.

Oh, but don’t think that this is only aimed at non-motorists. No, I have a few things to say about my fellow road users as well. Firstly, how hard is it to wave when I let you out of a turning or pull over to let you get through a tight spot? If it was the other way around, you would get all pissy with me, so just fucking wave, flash your lights, whatever. It may sound silly, but you saying thank you really makes me feel much better than if you didn’t. If you don’t, I’ll drive past you ranting to myself or whoever my unfortunate passengers may be about how much of a bastard you are, and I’ll basically shout out this entire paragraph accompanied by a sarcastic “You’re welcome!” I do realise this won’t affect you in any way, but if I’m so wound up by you not saying thanks and I crash because of it, I’m fucking blaming you. Also, on a similar vein, I realise that you may be in a rush, or on your way to an important meeting. But if you’re stuck in traffic, there is nothing you can do about it. So why, oh why, oh why don’t you let me into your giant metal traffic snake? I’m sitting at a junction with this wall of cars in front of me just waiting for someone to be nice and let me join the queue of irritated, frustrated drivers. When you pull in front of me and prevent me from coming out, I have to really resist the urge to ram into the side of your car. This is just something which irritates me because one extra car in this traffic jam is not going to make you any later to your poxey meeting, and by pulling in front of me you’re declaring yourself to be more important than me. Fuck off, I need to be places too.

Well, I think that’s gone well. I must point out that the majority of people I interact with whilst driving have been thankful, polite and generally fantastic. You may be a terrible person, but if you are nice to me when I’m driving I’ll regard you as Jesus-like. Thanks for reading, I’m going to be trying to get more regular articles up soon.