Highway Queen

I'm starting to feel like a regular motorway user - much to my own dismay - due to the amount of times I've visited Hamilton lately. I went back to Cowtown this past weekend, the previous weekend, two weeks prior to that, the weekend before THAT, two weeks prior, and then the weekend before that as well. Which takes us as far back as my birthday trip to Rotorua, sooo you know. I've been a few times.

Rabid and borderline insane motorway users never cease to amaze me. This past Saturday, while I was on my merry (okay, that's not true. I was grumpy and sleep-deprived) way to Hamilton on SH1, I noticed the car behind was following me rather overzealously. Tailgating me, if you will. Next thing, he'd pulled up alongside me in the central lane, and was attempting to get back in my lane, without getting in front! I kid you not. He was actually trying to cross the line into my car. I couldn't quite believe it, and, in a spur of the moment decision, I sped up sufficiently and crossed the lane in front of him and kept speeding. So, rather than sticking to his original plan of moving back into the lane, he begins tailgating me again, at this new speed of 130kph. And then, again, all of a sudden, he's alongside me, in my original lane. I can only guess at what this guy's game was. This all happened about 400m before the Te Irirangi Drive exit, at which he shot across all three lanes, without notice or indicating, and headed off up the off-ramp. What an odd fellow.

It's really no wonder, the amount of crashes that occur on SH1, after witnessing this sort of behaviour on a weekly basis.

I admit I am not a model driver. For a phase in 2007, my friends refused to get in my car with me, because once on the road I did not travel at speeds of less than 80kph, give way, or share the road well with other motorists. I've since honed my ways, but slipped up today on Taharoto Road in Takapuna, changing lanes while driving through a set of lights and as such cutting off a pink van. Oops. Well, the drive of said van wasn't going to let me get away with it, following me so closely I wondered if he might hit me, and sitting on his horn. When I continued to drive, appearing oblivious, he drove up beside me, still sounding his horn, then slotted back in behind me. And then he did it all over again. Was this really necessary? I mean, people cut me off ALL the time. ALL the time! I don't suddenly lose my head and go on a kamikaze mission, guns blazing and fists swinging. I realise that people make driving errors on the road, feel angry about it for a few seconds, and then write a blog about how much I hate them. Sometimes I'll commit their number plate to memory and swear revenge on their ass, but I live in Auckland. There are like, 325 million cars here (slight exaggeration).

Chilly down on the roads, friends!!