It’s all the rage these days on our roads... and I don’t miss driving to work

ON my walk to the railway station one morning this week I witnessed something I had not seen for a long time. Road rage. And not just one incident, but three.

Perhaps it was because I had left the house 10 minutes later than I ordinarily would and the traffic was heavier?

Or maybe it was one of those mornings where a higher percentage of motorists were seemingly in a bad mood?

Whatever the explanation, I found it quite fascinating as I had not experienced it in such a long time.

This can, of course, be put down to me not commuting by car into Derby each day any more – and not having had to do so for more than 18 months now.

Since we closed our offices in Siddals Road, my commute is now by train which is far less stressful than it was and enables me to get more work done.

The downside, of course, is that apart from some mornings over a laptop screen, I rarely get to interact in person with my colleagues.

In fact, some of them I have never actually met, which might sound astounding, but is the new way of working for hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people since the pandemic hit.

So to witness what I did on my 30-minute walk to the station came as something of an unwelcome surprise. The first happened not five minutes after I left the house when one driver cut across into another one’s lane with little or no notice.

The deep sound of the horn genuinely made me jump and as I turned around sharply I heard the expletives loud and clear from the “victim’s” window.

No more than 10 minutes later, the precise same type of manoeuvre happened again but this time the motorist who had cut in, his face puce with rage, simply put his right hand out of the window and stuck the middle finger up at the driver whose space he invaded.

And then moments later a bloke in a car parts delivery van had to slam on his brakes to avoid careering into the back of another car. It was actually his fault as I could clearly see him looking at his mobile phone as I waited to cross the road. But it didn’t stop him shouting out “for ***** sake” at the top of his voice in a shallow attempt to deflect his misdemeanour away from himself. In my younger days, in a previous working life as a salesman, I drove thousands of miles across the UK each year.

As such, I witnessed road rage on a daily basis, especially on the M25 when I circumnavigated London each week on my way to see clients and potential customers.

Am I happy I no longer have to do that and instead sit on the train into Derby each day? You bet I am. Regular readers may recall last week’s column in which I defended my right to ignore the online trolls who hunt me and other journalists down as their own lives are so empty they have nothing better to do?

In it, I told how my wife said to me a few weeks ago “everyone’s angry these days”.

On this week’s evidence, she is not wrong and perhaps things are getting worse?

Am I happy I no longer have to drive to the office and instead sit on the train into Derby each day? You bet I am.