Not one of the most appealing of titles to this entry but truthful none the less. On my regular commute I decided it would help pass the time a little if I was a little more observant when driving to work. I have to stress that I do keep my eyes open and pay attention to the other traffic, I mean to do otherwise is to invite disaster.
I noticed on my drive in that there are an exceptionally large number of skid marks on the route into work and I was hypothesising as to why this was the case. I noticed that most of them tended to be leading from the fast to the middle lane as they approached junctions. I surmised that these were drivers that had failed to anticipate their exit at a reasonable time and decided to make a crazy death manoeuvre across the traffic in a bid to avoid driving an extra 3km to the next junction. Some of the more worrying ones led into the trees and indeed the central reservation, one can only imagine the face of the driver when they work up and dropped their bottle of Jupiler.
The other favourite pastime is removing aggressive drivers from my arse when they decide that the 128km/h is just not fast enough for them and that a safe distance is really not required behind other cars. I mean after all my brakes must work as well as theirs because all cars have the same characteristics and maintenance levels eh? I have enjoyed many a happy hour banging on the brakes as the umpteenth emergency stop has been carried out by the driver in front of me, this ripples its way down the traffic jam until it either catches someone unawares or it gets to the end. It is a bit like a Mexican wave but without standing up.
I am sure my car has a pothole magnet fitted, no matter how often I drive the route I always seem to hit the same damn places each time, cursing loudly and gritting my teeth as my suspension takes another jarring. It is like flying a spaceship in a computer game and wondering how much longer my shields will last after the next asteroid hits it. It is much the same when I get smacked by rocks thrown up by other traffic.
Something else that is a tad annoying is when the Flemish radio stations die off as I cross into the forbidden territory that is Wallonia. Do you know that I can receive the signal well into France if I am on the coast road? No not in the case of traversing the demilitarised zone entering Wallonia. I just turn it off as to be honest I cannot be bothered to listen to the Syrupy French language.
Today I was witness to some early morning entertainment as I left the E40 to join the R0 ring road. This is a particular pinch point as there are four lanes, two going ahead and then two exiting to the right, the two exiting change to one going left and two going right. Now, the majority of the traffic usually wants to go to the right (the airport direction), but they often leave it far too late and then dive in at the last moment. What is more, they then go down the lane meant for left bound traffic to try and squeeze another place on those going right. They do this at increasing speed as to go slow is to lose out completely. I go left and so often find myself behind some monkey trying cut the traffic up.
Today was special, I got to the junction at about 6.15 ish, I was lined up for my exit with a lane to my right and two to my left, we got to the bit where the solid white line came into play (meaning it is illegal to cross it and results in a severe fine if caught). To my horror, if not surprise, a rather large lorry carrying a heavy load of concrete decided to switch to my lane at the last moment, causing me to brake heavily. Now, that was not all, there were two other cars in front of me, one of which decided he wanted to go straight on and therefore swung across the solid white line, very near to the point of no return (they made it). The second car as expected wanted to go right and duly swung right. It would have impressed the Red Arrows display team and more so in that they were all within a cars' length of each other when they made their moves. Throughout all of this I was keeping a safe distance, having re-assessed my gap between the chopper in the lorry and myself.
I think it was the adrenaline but I suddenly became that much more aware of what was going on from that point onwards.
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