Last Saturday I experienced two instances of impatience from two young drivers in the space of three hours. One was directed at me and the other instance was against my wife, Joan.

Mine was at a gas station where I had stopped to drop off a passenger. After that task I was maneuvering my car to exit the same way I had come in. It was a both entrance and exit. Doing my maneuvering that hardly took ten seconds, a motorist appeared taking a short cut through the gas station. He tooted me. Not once, or twice but FOUR times.

After completing my exit he followed behind me and we both turned left onto the Linford Pierson Highway whereby he shot past past me and disappeared. He obviously was in a great hurry and an old dodderer like me in an old car was an extreme hindrance to his lifestyle.

Patience was not a virtue he possessed.

My wife’s incident, that I witnessed, was right outside our house. She had moved her car from its parking spot to make way for her friend to put her car there as Joan was going to do the driving.

Joan waited for her friend to complete the task and the road we live on is lined on one side with parked cars although two cars can still pass through – just.

Joan’s friend was walking towards Joan’s car that was waiting and a car appeared from further down the road and blasted with his horn for Joan to move her car out of his way. The driver would have had to wait again less than ten seconds for her friend to have got into the car. He saw all this but he was not going to wait. His hand wenton horn and Joan, who was wondering what was going on, drove off and pulled over for this impatient young man to speed off.

This morning I was driving down the Linford Pierson Highway having gone around the roundabout that doesn’t have any turnoffs (at present). A flurry of cars and a truck passed me by and some crossed over into my lane. I was going to make a left hand turn-off further down to come home. A speeding car shot passed me and proceeded to weave in and out of the lanes to get in front of the vehicles that had just passed me. After doing this, to my amazement, with no signaling he then made the same left hand turn off the Highway that I was going to make ten seconds after him!

What makes some people become so aggressive and impatient when they get behind the wheel of a car?

And as for honking someone do they really think that is going to make a difference?

Why can’t they just take a deep breath, relax, obey the speed limits, and become civilized human beings?

Is ten seconds a very long time to wait?

Is keeping to the speed limit such a difficult task?

Being impatient may eventually kill you, and someone else.

Being patient won’t.