I’ve said it before and I’ll keep saying it: a lot of people shouldn’t be allowed to drive.

The other day, when coming home from yoga, I got stuck behind this driver who just wasn’t really driving so much as they were dawdling in their car. There’s cars behind them, they’re going well under the speed limit until honked, then going well under again, and again… and again. And this is causing issues, because traffic is being held up for no reason. And eventually it gets to a point where, because of their dawdling, they end up getting through a green and everyone else behind them doesn’t. Sure, in the grand scheme of things, this makes for only a few extra minutes of travel, but it adds up. It adds up when you just want to get home and can’t because people decide that not going at a reasonable speed is acceptable, especially when they have the space to go at a reasonable speed.

Had someone else speed up and slow down of their own accord repeatedly, and that was pretty annoying Had a cabbie decide to dawdle, too, until honked at. Could see that they weren’t looking at where they were going, and based on how they took off after being honked, weren’t near where they were going anyway.

But those are annoyances. Those aren’t the worst accident risks.

Earlier this week I was heading to USYD late. Had to spend time looking for a space to park, started going around a roundabout. Some smart individual in what I’m fairly certain was a Porsche, based on the logo on the front decided to enter the roundabout whilst I was in it. I was to the right of their entryway.

They stopped suddenly, as did I, and they gave me this filthy look as I passed around them (there was, thankfully, space to do so). I got a good look at them and probably gave them back the same kind of stare, but I got a good look and could see it was either some teenager, or person in their early twenties.

Now I think there is a difference between someone who looks young and someone who is young, and this was – as far as I’m aware – someone who was young. Someone who looks young generally doesn’t have that kind of face that’s yet to be shaped by experience. Happy to be wrong. But anyway.

I’ve seen plenty of people who don’t know how to drive and be shitty at others despite their being in the wrong. I’ve seen plenty of people who don’t know how to drive in cars that make me wonder how they can afford them. This was, ultimately, another person who is insignificant in my life, but it really shits me when I see someone do the wrong thing and visibly not own it.

I remember a few years ago when someone took a turn in front of me when I was going straight, and they shrugged as they passed me by. I respect that person more, because they owned it… sort of. Their expression was very much a “Hey, it happens”, which I got, and whilst I was annoyed, I couldn’t hold onto the annoyance. They didn’t decide to give me a filthy look.