Driving an automatic made me quickly realise how impatient fellow motorists are

Recently my husband was involved in an accident. My three kids and his niece and nephew were in the car at the time when the car was struck by a truck.

Thankfully none of them were injured but my reliable Ford Galaxy took the brunt.

And so last week it was time for it to go off to be repaired and for us to get a replacement car.

The kids were so excited at the thoughts of a ‘new’ car and I smiled when I saw another Ford Galaxy drive up as I knew what they’d say when I arrived home with the same car.

I was told the car was an automatic, which I had never driven before, but was sure I would have no problem driving. Wrong. As soon as I left the car rental office it began.

A van who had followed me out of the premises, nothing to do with the car rental office who couldn’t have been nicer and warned me of the difference of driving an automatic, was the first to put manners on me.

The confusion between the brake and missing clutch led to my first complete stall in the middle of the road.

Now coming out behind me the driver was aware I was in a rental and didn’t just decide to stop dead to anger him.

Nevertheless I was blown out of it as I scrambled to restart the car.

Foolishly instead of heading for Grange I decided to go into town and buy a few groceries.

My trip around Aldi was filled with fear and dread at the thoughts of getting the car out of town without injuring myself or others. And so despite the eternal diet a bag of sweets was purchased to keep me calm.

Just at the roundabout at St Anne’s the car decided it hated me as much as I hated it and gave up.

Now I followed the directions on how to restart, but it was having none of it.

And so the blowing behind me began. Once by the car directly behind me, and once by the car behind that.

By the time the car behind me blew again I heard my mother’s strong Cavan voice in my head saying ‘ let them wait’. So I calmed myself and tried once again to start it up as the second car whizzed by me, despite the black ice everywhere.

Finally it took off and the sweets and myself made it home in one piece…well maybe not the sweets.

But I started thinking; here I was in a people carrier stalled at a roundabout. There was no concern that I had stopped in haste to tend a child or that anything could be wrong.

Unfortunately, people die at the wheel from heart attacks. But no one bothered to come up and see was everything ok; blowing a horn twice seemed the best course of action.

Yes we are all busy and yes at times we all need to be somewhere. But we will all get there.

Bar checking in for a Ryanair flight, two or three minutes here or there of being late is not going to change the course of someone’s life. A little bit of patience is what is needed. And so if you are stuck behind someone travelling below the speed limit on a main road instead of getting frustrated just stop and think is there more going on there. Maybe they are travelling to or from a sad situation or maybe they have a lot on their mind.

Or maybe, just maybe they are having the journey from hell in an automatic car and are wondering how long will the whiplash last?