Road wankers

A lot of my workday is spent out of the office with clients and potential clients and today was no exception. It was a little unique in that I went from well north of the city to well south and clocked up just under three hundred kilometres for the day. That's unusual as I usually try and ensure my appointments are in the same vicinity because it's more time-efficient. It wasn't possible today though, and much of my time was spent in the car.

I don't waste time when I'm driving preferring to use it to make calls. I have a habit of putting everybody's number, company and position into my phone and there's hundreds of them there which always gives me someone to call, a touch-point, with existing or potential clients. It was no different today, although I still had time to notice road wankers.

Non zip-merging road wankers

The first of many near-miss incidents today was a zip merge issue.

Zip merging is generally when two lane merge into a single lane although there's other situations in which it should happen. Both lanes of cars keep moving forward and merge in alternating fashion into the single lane; one vehicle from the left, the next from the right, another from the left and so on. It means traffic flows smoothly and virtually uninterrupted and there's no need for heavy braking or rapid acceleration.

But here's the thing, people are fucking wankers when it comes to zip-merging.

They either hit the brakes needlessly hard to allow someone else in which causes a possible rear-end accident risk, give way to multiple vehicles stopping an entire lane, or accelerate so hard to get ahead of the next car as if that extra ten metres of road they gained is going to dramatically improve their lives. Wankers!

I almost had someone drive into the side of my vehicle today, just to try and get ahead of me and, all the while, the person behind me accelerated to try and get around me and ahead as I moved left to head off the other person. It was bonkers, and not in a good way like I am.

Spending so much time on the road, I see so many little incidents that could actually go really badly, and I have to wonder why, all of a sudden, drivers seem to have forgotten how to drive.

Distraction and impatience

I blame distraction and impatience I guess. Mobile phone driving is probably one of the most prevalent causes of vehicle accidents these days; and with people's egos well out of control that desire to skip ahead in front of someone else seems so compelling that people are willing to risk vehicle damage and possible injury to gain that small piece of road ahead. Furthermore, I think people have forgotten how to be polite, to wave someone else in, or thank someone for letting them in with a courtesy wave. Typical behaviour for society I guess; that is to say, terrible behaviour.

I managed to get through my day without dying on the roads but so many do not, and there's that many vehicle accidents around the place I'm surprised crash repairers don't make up every second business...But then manufacturers make cars to throw away these days huh?

How about you and your location? Are road users courteous and respectful of others? Are road laws adhered to or do people just do what they like? Is mobile phone driving a thing, inattentiveness? Have you had a near miss or even an accident? Maybe you're a road wanker?

Feel free to comment below and let me know.