Road rage isn't an uncommon occurrence on New Zealand roads. Photo / 123rf
Kevin Page is a teller of tall tales with a firm belief that laughter helps avoid frown lines. Page has been a journalist for many years and has been writing a column since 2017.
OPINION
I was driving along minding my own business the other day when the subject of this week’s yarn fell into my lap.
Well, figuratively speaking it fell into my lap. It actually snuck up on me from behind, out of the mist and rain.
I’m talking about something we’ve probably all experienced at some stage or another – road rage.
For Mrs P and I, it occurred one afternoon recently on the way home from a far-off location.
Long story short, we weren’t familiar with the bit of road we had to travel and with the weather packing in all around us, decided to play it safe speed-wise and not push the boundaries of sensible driving.
Most importantly, Granddad and Narney also had two little people in the car. It’s hard to drive too fast and sing all the words to Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star at the same time. So we didn’t.
Unfortunately, for one “motorist” – hereafter referred to as The IA (Impatient A***hole) – my approach did not go down too well and, eventually, we had a little, er, discussion.
Anyway. Here’s the background.
I’m driving along as mentioned and, if I’m being completely honest, I’m probably going a bit slower than I normally would. I’m happy to admit that.
In my defence the road was a bit narrow with minimal places to pull over to let traffic by and I’m being a bit more cautious than usual. But, in my opinion, I was not driving like the “f***ing moron” The IA said I was.
He told me this during the “chat” we had when I did eventually find a place to pull over.
I’d deduced it was necessary to do that because there was someone trying to drive up my exhaust pipe and flashing their lights and honking their horn for about five minutes before I found a place to pull over.
And guess what? It was The IA.
Now, I don’t know about you Dear Reader, but I’m generally a placid individual these days. I’m happy for someone to let off steam without antagonising them so we can all go on our merry way.
Which is why I elected to stay seated and let The IA come to me. Initially, anyway.
Once I saw him in the mirror heading my way, I thought it might not be good for any altercation to take place in front of the two littlies and Mrs P in the car – the latter wanting to get out herself and give The IA a piece of her mind and/or a clip round his wing mirror, if you know what I mean.
Anyway. Resigned to the fact my going to meet him might be seen as an act of defiance and I could very well end up with a smack in the chops for my trouble, I set off to face the music.
And Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star it most definitely wasn’t.
For what seemed like an hour – but was probably more like 30 seconds – he called me every name under the sun plus a few more. He insisted I’d been holding traffic up for half an hour and simply shouldn’t be on the road.
Naturally, I did not agree, but I figured there wasn’t much point in arguing or suggesting his tailgating of me wasn’t particularly clever, so I just apologised, said I wasn’t familiar with the road, turned and walked back to my car.
Amazingly, The IA did the same.
But wait. There’s more.
As I put my seatbelt on and tried to calm a still-angry Mrs P, I looked in the rear-vision mirror and discovered The IA’s passenger had got out and was now coming round to give Yours Truly his 10¢ worth.
I have to say by this stage I’d reached that point where I’d, well, had enough.
I’m sure there’s an expert out there who will tell you I shouldn’t have done or said what I said – and I’m sure they are probably right, it probably doesn’t do to antagonise someone who is obviously a plonker – but as I say, I’d had enough. I needed to go all tough guy John Wayne – even for a few seconds.
So I did.
I got straight back out of the car. Turned to face the oncoming passenger square on, raised myself to my full height and snarled: “And your problem is ...?”
Actually, I’m not sure I did snarl. I’m not a snarler. Maybe I made the comment with just the right amount of conviction.
Regardless, it did the trick. The passenger stopped in his tracks about 2m from me and quickly summed up his options.
Thankfully, he decided getting out of the rain was the best one available to him and we both headed back to our cars.
Naturally, I let The IA go ahead and his passenger gave me a one-finger salute as he drove past, which was nice. At least he didn’t get all wet and look stupid for nothing.
Eventually, we made it back to base safely where we relayed the tale to the troops.
Others shared their stories. It was quite surprising that among the five couples present, all had experienced road rage of one form or another.
The best story came from Fishy Fella, thus named for his love of seagoing pursuits – obviously - who recounted a tale from his youth where he had been driving with his father down a country lane.
The road was narrow and ahead on the other side of the road was a car that he was to discover was driven by an elderly couple, clearly lost.
They were trying to complete a three-point turn to go back from where they’d come, but were having trouble. The three points had turned into 33 with more to come as Fishy Fella and his dad pulled to a stop and waited.
Out of nowhere came an elderly resident on an equally elderly pushbike, apparently going about 2mph.
Fishy Fella said the scene played out in the slowest of slow motion with he and his dad having a front-row seat to bear witness to the drama about to unfold.
As the cyclist went through, without a care in the world at 2mph, the elderly motorist crossed over the centre line while still trying to manoeuvre – also about 2mph – and hit him, knocking him off his bike.
Uninjured, apart from his pride presumably, the cyclist got to his feet and started remonstrating with the driver who, perhaps surprisingly, tried to pretend nothing had happened and just continued trying to make his u-turn.
This incensed the cyclist who disappeared momentarily and returned with a branch from a tree that he then used to hit the offending vehicle.
By this stage Fishy Fella and his dad were in hysterics. As were we, trying to picture the scene.
By all accounts the whipping of the car went on as long as the manoeuvre did. And the driver never once stopped, got out to check on his victim or even acknowledge the incident.
Last seen they were heading back in the direction they’d come from. U-turn complete.
Possibly even singing Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star as they drove away.
'He's really flourished and his love for the game is pretty inspirational.'