Road rage

It's 11.10am on a Sunday. I've just bought some flowers as a gift for my friend who has invited me to lunch and I'm driving out of my local shopping centre in the southern Melbourne suburbs on to the main road adjoining it, this is an 80kph divided four lane road and as I'm turning left on it I have a "Give-way" junction whilst the line of cars to my right who are turning right have to wait for traffic lights.

I stop at the Give-way sign and wait for half a dozen cars to pass, the road is now clear for 150m or more, I turn left and keep to the inside lane, I check my rear view mirror, nothing in sight. I drive for about five seconds then take my foot off the throttle as there is a set of red traffic lights 100m distant.

Suddenly a brown Commodore appears to my left, he's come from behind into a left turn slip lane. His driving, somehow, seems aggressive. Oh well I guess he's turning on to the freeway which the slip lane feeds. I've now stopped at the red lights about four cars from the front.

The Commodore rolls to a stop half on, half off the slip lane at the freeway entrance he's about 10m from me. The drivers door opens and a large, solid man aged between 30 and 40 gets out and begins screaming abuse at me and then begins waving a hand axe at me. I hit the central locking. I can't go forward but behind me is still clear I could try a racing reverse turn and hope I don't roll the little Getz I'm driving. He's still screaming and axe waving at me but I can't hear his words as the windows are closed and the AC is on. I sit looking at him rant and wondering how it must feel to carry so much anger around with you.

After about 20 seconds the lights change to green and the cars in front of me, thankfully, take off quickly - they would be able to see axe boy and can probably hear him too. I follow them and, in my mirror, see him get back into his car and continue on to the freeway.

I can only assume that when I pulled out of the shopping centre I must have impeded his progress in some way but I had not seen him, there was no sound of emergency braking and my mirror was clear. Additionally the outside lane was clear and could have been easily used to pass me also it was at least five seconds after I started before he appeared on the slip lane to my left. I really have no idea what happened to make him so angry.

It seems to me the level of aggression in society has increased considerably over the past 30 years or so and I understand such incidents are not that uncommon. I'm glad that before too long I shall be spending the vast majority of my time in the bush and away from the tensions of suburbia.

If the police cannot protect us from such random aggression, and they can't, then it really is time to consider how we may protect ourselves and whether the laws regarding firearms for self-protection need changing.

16th September 2018