Matthew Panter: Angry motorists and potholes are driving me mad!

Walking from store to store at the busy retail park, near to where I live, you can’t help but be aware of a cacophony of honking car horns on the busy roads leading to and from it and around the main island at the centre of the shopping complex.

Now some of these horns are justified. The lanes can be confusing and it’s a difficult island to negotiate.

Occasionally, yes, you have to make fellow motorists aware of your presence or warn these blinkered drivers as they start to veer into your space, seemingly oblivious to anything to the side of them. But there appear to be an increasing number of drivers near me now, who just blast that horn because they are angry.

On one such occasion recently, I was sat at the lights of said roundabout waiting for the opportunity to move on. I’m pretty alert. I certainly wasn’t day-dreaming.

I was fairly eager to get home to be honest. I don’t like visiting the shops that much.

So, as those lights made the switch to green, the handbrake was off quickly. I was all set to go in an instant, a split second, but then it came, beeeeeeeeep! A loud, crisp, booming horn sounded behind me. There was no delay.

How could I have gone quicker I thought? Sprint hurdler Colin Jackson, one of the all-time greats, used to describe how he tried to get off to a flying start in a race by going on the ‘B’ of the Bang.

Well, I certainly didn’t wait for the ‘ang’ before there was movement. Any quicker and I’d have been ruing a false start.

And it wasn’t the first time this had happened at lights. On one occasion, my partner Amy was set to start off as the lights turned but a pedestrian was still making their way across. And there it was again, that resounding blast saying ‘move’. Were we really to just go and run over the pedestrian?

Just last week I was also on my way back from seeing my mum, Linda, in hospital, with my dad, Albert. It was dark and rain was coming down fairly heavily as we drove home down some country lanes. Sure, the speed limit was 60mph on a particular stretch of road but with rain battering down on the windscreen my dad was quite rightly, cautious while driving. A couple of cars soon appeared behind us and I could see, through my mirror, almost pent-up rage building in one motorist – a middle-aged chap – behind.

In a flash, with no thought to the conditions, he seized an opportunity, not without risk, to zoom past and blast that horn. I just don’t get how some people can be so angry and in such a rush on the roads and, when coupled with another big problem right now – potholes – I’m starting to think I really don’t like driving anymore, which hasn’t always been the case.

Where potholes are concerned, repairs needed are at an eight-year high, according to a new report.

The annual Alarm survey by the Asphalt Industry Alliance (AIA) found local authorities expect to fix two million potholes in the current financial year, up 43 per cent compared with 1.4 million during the previous 12 months.

Some of the unfixed potholes around my way are, quite frankly, a disgrace. Several times now, I have feared the worse for my car having hit a pothole that I haven’t spotted on a dark night.

A short trip can feel like an Indiana Jones adventure, navigating giant holes in the ground. Maybe I should take a whip with me, like Dr Jones – it might come in handy one day.

Life in the car feels like it’s mirroring everyday life right now, both at home in the UK and across the world – a sometimes bleak and miserable journey, with a lot of bumps and cracks in the road and lots of obstacles to overcome. I’d take up cycling – a very worthy way to travel, great for the environment and your own physical health. But having seen how some motorists act towards fellow drivers, goodness knows how cyclists must feel!

Maybe I’ll just take to walking where I can and wear headphones to block out the horns of those so desperate to get from A to B in superfast time!