Blinking Indicators.

It's something that annoys us all - bad drivers. They are everywhere, as we scream from the comfort of our own cars. I had a great teacher from Navan, called Paddy Pryle- himself a former taxi driver. He frightened the bejaysus out of me on my first lesson. He instilled in me the life and death responsibility you have when you are behind the wheel of a car. You are responsible for the lives of others.

But not everyone has such a fine teacher as I did. I was only driving with a provisional licence for six months but I had picked up so many bad habits in that time. It took many hours of driving practice but Paddy knocked them out of me.

I don't often get frustrated in life, but I do behind the wheel of a car. People are idiots behind a steering wheel, and I am no different. But I am a considerate driver.

One thing that utterly irritates me most, is the lack or incorrect use of the indicator. It is such a simple tool. Today, I nearly had two accidents and neither of them were my fault and I still got abused.

Incident one was when I approached a roundabout in the right lane. I was turning right and had my indicator on to go that way. In the left lane at the traffic lights beside me was a woman who had her indicator on, going left. Nothing wrong there so far.

But then she turned right. Into my lane. I had to jam on.

As we approached another set of red lights, I pulled up alongside her. I made the universal sign of 'wind down your window down'. I asked her if she realised what she had just done - but she didn't see any wrong on her part. And then she told me to piss off.

Fifteen minutes later I encountered a taxi driver who was multi-tasking. I drove behind him for about two minutes while he talked on his bluetooth device, whilst pressing buttons on his digital display. His car was wriggling in and out of two lanes, his focus clearly not on the road. I stayed well back.

 

As we approached another roundabout and he took the second exit off the roundabout - again without indicating. Then he started his lane-squirming again. I beeped my horn to get his attention and he jerked his wheel left to pull into the left lane. I moved into the right as I was turning right. At the lights, he beeped at me. He opened his window and began shouting expletives at me for beeping my horn at him. How dare I use my horn for safety!

I think he used the words "Are you blind? Could you not see where I was going?"

If he had used an indicator at all at any stage, I would have known where he was heading. But my powers of telepathy were on the blink.