A rant about tailgaters.

A lot of things have been annoying me lately. The rise in energy prices, petrol prices, food prices, the Special Agent Oso ‘Three special steps’ song, the shiny Irish bloke that presents Channel 5’s ‘Milkshake’ in the morning, I could go on… And on… Perhaps my shortened temper and general lack of tolerance is due to the absence of sleep – Little Dude is teething, teething heavily and has been very vocal on the subject, usually at around 03:00am every morning.

Currently at the top of the list, the thing that ‘grinds my gears’ most is tailgaters. Yes, that old chestnut. The pet hate of every motorist, a pretty obvious thing to get annoyed about and probably in most people's top 3 of things that piss them off whilst driving.

I don’t have a placard in the rear window of my car exclaiming ‘Baby on board’, ‘Little person on board’, ‘Teething nightmare on board’, ‘Disney obsessed 3 year old on board’ or any other variations of the theme. I’ve never liked the idea, they would obscure my view and in my opinion, they shouldn’t be bloody necessary as the two large car seats are clearly visible to anyone who gets anywhere near the back of my car.

Last Monday’s incident was a far too common occurrence. We’re in a line of fairly slow moving traffic with a learner driver up front (which doesn’t bother me, we all had to learn sometime), I’m a few cars back and what do I see looming up in my rear view mirror quicker than a cheetah with a bum full of dynamite? A white van. Cue heavy sigh and a quiet muttering to myself of ‘Great, here we go again’…
The aforementioned pillock sat on my rear bumper for a while until I managed to pull over and let him pass (and taking the below photo – registration number changed for comedy effect), he then carried on bullying other motorists in front of me before disappearing into a side street in a cloud of tyresmoke and diesel fumes…

My early driving days included a spell doing a lot of courier work around London and Essex so yes, in the past I have been at the business end of some pretty gnarly, poor, inconsiderate driving. However, time has mellowed the man and now my primary concern is simply getting my children from point A to point B safely and comfortably. It’s a shame that these days, my slightly more chilled out driving style somehow seems to attract every moron who happens to be in a hurry. Maybe it’s payback for the ‘courier’ days, I don’t know, I just wish they wouldn’t do it when the kids are in the car.

Thinking about it, perhaps I will get a placard for the rear window:

‘Sleep deprived short-tempered dad on board – Don’t even try it’