Knowing When It's Time to Hang up your Keys

I had intended to settle down and write a blog post about our short trip to Madrid. Instead events have intervened and I fear it's time for another rant. So this post is a way of ousting the irritation for me, although you are welcome to read it.

This afternoon I was driving home after a lovely lunch with my "muscle mates" (slight exaggeration but I think they are due a promotion from "gym bunnies"). Unfortunately I entered our village just as the children were finishing the day at the local primary school. To reach home I have to pass the inevitable 4x4's and little hatchbacks vying for parking spaces as Mums wait for their offspring to exit the gates. The situation is made worse by a bend in the road and cars parking and manoeuvring regardless. 

However I proceeded carefully through the melee and around the bend where on my side of the road the lay-by provided for parking for the school was fully occupied but the highway itself was free of obstruction, save for a large vehicle looking to park on the opposite side of the road in front of another car. I slowed down to give it time to inch in and leave my side of the road clear to allow me to proceed. However, a large silver Mercedes saloon car pulled up behind it and as the parking car drew to a halt the Mercedes remained stationary on my side of the road. I anticipated that the driver would realise her error and I made to move forward thinking that it would begin to reverse (after all one of us had to, and I had priority).

Of course, I was wrong. A very elderly lady whose problems may have stemmed from the fact that she didn't seem tall enough to see over the top of her steering wheel kept coming towards me, all the time motioning with her hand for me to go back. Patiently I reversed to a point where, in light of a driveway on her side of the road and ample space at the kerb on either side of it, she could easily pull back onto her side and we could pass. 

No, this was not enough. Despite the mayhem of school traffic behind me with doors opening and closing, she seemed to want me to continue to reverse back around the bend and presumably out onto the main road, a distance of perhaps 30 metres with cars parked on both sides. I got out of my car to speak to her, explaining most politely that she should pull round me by proceeding onto her side of the road. She refused and when I explained that my car had right of way but I had reversed to make room to allow her to manouvre, she told me she wasn't doing that because she was disabled!

I really wanted to give her a ticking off and tell her that if she was so disabled that she was unable to drive her car into a space large enough for a tractor and trailer, she really shouldn't be driving. However, I bit my tongue and pulled across the road into the driveway myself.

Owning a car gives us freedom and independence. In rural Britain where buses are few and far between, I would go so far as to say that they are almost an essential. The trouble is that when you live in a village serviced by narrow lanes, the prospect of meeting a driver who is spatially unaware increases in line with the ageing demographic. It's a dangerous phenomenon that is growing as more and more people continue to drive, despite diminishing faculties. It's not a phase of retirement I'm looking forward to but I hope that, unlike the Mercedes driver, I have the good sense to recognise that when I am no longer capable of pulling over, it's time to hang up my keys.