New Adventures on Tarmac

I don't have much of a temper, really. My general demeanour stays somewhere between 'nonchalant' and 'mild'. 'Anger' isn't really a part of my daily life.

Until that is, I pull onto the M3 on a Monday morning, and onto a tightly packed boa constrictor of a car park.

Stationary vehicles stretch as far as the eye can see, like in that REM video for Everybody Hurts. How apt that the video to accompany one of the most morbid songs *I have ever heard* would be set in a traffic jam. Cars ease forward so that their bonnets are no longer visible in my rear view, just their windscreens. They are so close in fact, that I have to lean out of my window to make sure they're not touching my rear bumper.

I can see the whites of their eyes. I can feel a switch click on "simmer" somewhere in my mind and consider leaving the warmth of my car confronting the 'personal-car-space-invader' while shaking my fist. Instead, I lock my doors and wait, the temper switch clicked to 'off' once more. I consider doing some emails on my Blackberry, then nervously glance around for police and decide against it anyway. I look for another distraction. The radio perhaps? No, Terry Wogan is reading emails from his TOGG (Terry's Old Geezers and Gals) fraternity, instead of reading the producer's script, which may even be the same thing. A CD perhaps? No, I've listened to the Glockenspiel sample on Tubular Bells once too often this week.

A driver restlessly change lanes to make sure every available space is filled, rarely with an indictor light flashing, all just to gain a few metres advantage. A motorbike zigzags between the cars and the gaps between the lanes, moving far to close to lane changing car. Another disaster narrowly averted.

Then the traffic moves and you move past the same car, their lane at a standstill, and all the while making no real effort to disguise one's smugness at their failure. The traffic moves and forward on they go once more.

All of a sudden the traffic lunges forward and everyone's moving at a pace far beyond the national speed limit. Get caught in the fast lane and you will be pushed out or otherwise rammed by an aggressive oncoming vehicle. Move into a slower lane and you're left to cast the driver an evil look, only to find the only other person getting their attention is the one on the other end of their mobile phone and their face is defiant, yet otherwise expressionless. It's a wonder more accidents don't happen.

Which is why, when I leave my house in the morning and see a damp road ahead of me, even if it's no longer raining, I know I'll be in late, because other drivers just can't deal with it.

And what the flying F*** is it with rubbernecking??? Considering most drivers' flagrant disregard for speed limits, why do people slow down so much just to get a good look at someone else's misfortune??? The amount of times I've waited patiently in a painfully long queue, only to drive past an accident - moved safely off the main road - and for the traffic to open up to a normal pace, is astounding.

Another enigma is why the government imposes congestion charges in central London to keep out cars, and then allows train passengers to be charged £26 for a one day travelcard...