Today's Tailgater
Posted: Thu Apr 17, 2014 9:32 pm
Today’s tailgater was a rather fetching sports-saloon Audi resplendent in a luscious jet black with silver fleck. I could almost count how many coats of paint they’d lavished upon this aspiring example of £30K worth of turbo-charged menacing presence clinging to my tail. It came swooping up from nowhere like some sort of giant, snarling vacuum cleaner. I half expected to be hoovered up in one swoop. Oh those lovely halogen lights to brighten my horizons and the flashing headlights that spangled like diamonds in my wing mirrors. I suppose the bawling message here was, ‘I am an important executive, get out of my way at once’.
As I bounced merrily along a twisty single lane Clearway with a steady stream of traffic coming the other way his great immensity couldn’t get past and the frustration and stress levels soon began to show. The huffing, the puffing, the arms out-stretched, then the thumping of the steering wheel and slapping of the fore-head. Here was a big man in a big car armed with the latest cutting-edge sat-nav, climate controls, heated seats, options for touring or sports mode, the most perfect and crystal clear DAB and CD entertainment centre. In this special designer edition model tuned for today’s go-getting alpha-male there was a servo-electric actuator that delivered a rose-scented tissue straight to the corporate snotty nose and an in-cockpit voice warning that reminded the driver that his shirt was tucked into his underpants.. With all that and much, much more my friendly compatriot of the road, pushing inches from my rear bumper was still not happy. All that cutting edge technology, the promise of the open road and unlimited performance buggered by a dollop of beige Morris Minor from the fag-age in which I, had nothing but a wandering speedometer needle and a cold draught from the quarter window to keep me company.
I trundled onwards and couldn’t give a fig. What was I supposed to do, throw myself into the ditch? I decided it would be in the interests of both parties to ensure we remained well within the lawful speed limits so I slowed the tempo down a little, changed down a gear and gave him a waft of smoke. Oh, that did it; he straddled the double whites and thought about a fly-past even with a flat-bed lorry coming up fast the other way. Then he dipped back in at the very last nano-second, the levels of red-faced rage and steam pressure rising. For six miles our dalliance continued until, at last I slowed some more to make my left-turn for home. His Immensity lurched past, tyres digging hard before launching up to time-warp acceleration. Good-bye Mr A.
OW
As I bounced merrily along a twisty single lane Clearway with a steady stream of traffic coming the other way his great immensity couldn’t get past and the frustration and stress levels soon began to show. The huffing, the puffing, the arms out-stretched, then the thumping of the steering wheel and slapping of the fore-head. Here was a big man in a big car armed with the latest cutting-edge sat-nav, climate controls, heated seats, options for touring or sports mode, the most perfect and crystal clear DAB and CD entertainment centre. In this special designer edition model tuned for today’s go-getting alpha-male there was a servo-electric actuator that delivered a rose-scented tissue straight to the corporate snotty nose and an in-cockpit voice warning that reminded the driver that his shirt was tucked into his underpants.. With all that and much, much more my friendly compatriot of the road, pushing inches from my rear bumper was still not happy. All that cutting edge technology, the promise of the open road and unlimited performance buggered by a dollop of beige Morris Minor from the fag-age in which I, had nothing but a wandering speedometer needle and a cold draught from the quarter window to keep me company.
I trundled onwards and couldn’t give a fig. What was I supposed to do, throw myself into the ditch? I decided it would be in the interests of both parties to ensure we remained well within the lawful speed limits so I slowed the tempo down a little, changed down a gear and gave him a waft of smoke. Oh, that did it; he straddled the double whites and thought about a fly-past even with a flat-bed lorry coming up fast the other way. Then he dipped back in at the very last nano-second, the levels of red-faced rage and steam pressure rising. For six miles our dalliance continued until, at last I slowed some more to make my left-turn for home. His Immensity lurched past, tyres digging hard before launching up to time-warp acceleration. Good-bye Mr A.
OW
