Driving Stress

I thought obstacle courses were for school sports days or army training, but over the years a new one has evolved in our lives. It's called the public highway... in other words, the roads we drive on. 

It consists of:

• Road humps, speed cameras, width restrictors, bus lanes, cycle lanes, low emission zones, congestion zones, parking cams, parking restrictions, potholes, average speed zones, 20mph zones (complete with speed bumps too);
  
  
• Roundabouts with traffic lights (aren't both designed to filter traffic? So why do we need two controls both doing the same thing?); 
  
  
• People sticking prams into the back of cars with the roadside door wide open, protestors walking really slowly in the road and not being moved on despite breaking the law; 
  
  
• Yellow box junctions, tailgaters, ditherers in hybrid vehicles saving the planet, pedestrians who do that funny, half-hearted run into the road and then walk the bit right in front of your vehicle; 
  
  
• Vehicles passing you on the inside on motorways, drivers who think the indicator is the new steering mechanism so when used, it entitles them to switch lanes without looking first, vehicles that only drive in middle lanes (why do people hog the middle lane so doggedly, even when it's not busy; this effectively turns a three-lane motorway into a two-lane one - most drivers realise you have to overtake on the right and go around the middle-lane hogger - hence the traffic jams that develop; 
  
  
• Drivers who think that a motorway slip road is something you accelerate on and then just drive out onto the carriageway at whatever speed they fancy, irrespective of how busy it is or how fast the traffic is moving, and with zero regard for who is already on it; 
  
  
• Joggers who think it's okay to run on the road, cyclists with their holier than thou ‘I’m a better person than you,' green, moral high ground attitude (it’s still a vehicle nobhead, get insured, stop riding on the pavement, stop riding across pedestrian crossings and stop taking your vehicle on trains);
  
  
• Jaywalkers, yellow lines, red lines, people pressing the pedestrian crossing light when there are no vehicles about except yours, pedestrian lights, busses getting priority everywhere and sheep (err... if you live in the country.) 

And it's called Driving In the United Kingdom. 

Roll on driverless cars! 

Wait a minute! Don't we already have those? Yeah, of course. We've had them for years. They're the ones that pootle along in the centre lane of the friggin' motorway, totally oblivious to anything else going on around them!