manifestos i.e. less gesticulation and cursing probably have more chance of getting the undecided onside. I’ve discovered you can say a lot with the eyes alone (but first you must establish eye contact) and as a bonus feature my Jedi mind control is really coming on.
I’ve learnt too that thou shalt not criticize the driver, oh no. Who am I to point out driving skills that need development and attention? Just a pesky cyclist is all. Of course I have no rights and how dare I take up space on their personal highway? Did I say I wasn’t angry? Phhutt! Oops, did I get spit on you? Regardless of whether the numbskull could’ve killed me, highlighting their shortcomings only ever raises their blood pressure alarmingly and brings out a bit of the old Anglo-Saxon vocabulary. Yeah I’m fluent too but chances are they’re headed for a coronary any day soon so why waste my breath bandying obscenities? Yet you’ve got to look out for yourself, no one else will. So now I anticipate every one on the road is either an idiot or a psychopath. If they’re neither, well great, if they are one or both I’m hardly surprised but I’ll just mutter my scathing critique to the wind, thank you.

Of course the memory-banks, the database of scenarios and driver behavior is ever expanding; driving standards aren’t improving. There is the chance I don’t commute quite so hard these days and have freed up previously over-stretched resources and stolen a fraction more time for electricity to cross the synapses. The result being I see things earlier, react faster and don’t have so many fuel-injected interactions perhaps.
Yet if I’m taking it easy why is that feeling of over-cooked spaghetti legs more of a frequent feature, especially on the homeward journeys? The ravages of time can’t be the reason, surely? Am I giving in too easy? Hopefully not although after so many trips round the block there is a numbing inevitability to what regularly plays out on the roads around me. While still appalled daily by some of the tricks those in charge of a lethal dose of metal get up to I don’t get so regularly wound up. Anger is like electricity in the blood and I have less running through my veins than I once did, the red stuff doesn’t boil up so easy either. Less fire in the belly means less zip in the legs then.

So I’m a little less explosive, physically and mentally these days but I don’t feel duty bound to calm anyone else down. Sure be angry when you need to be but be observant too – like I need to tell you, huh? Anger can be pure rocket fuel and happily it’s one of the most environmentally friendly and sustainable fuels on the planet.
GRRRRRRRR!!!!!!! Flame on!