Don't mess with me!

I am a nervous, cautious driver, so since passing my test I’ve never had a car accident. I work on the principle that if you hit something slowly, you’re going to cause a lot less damage than if you’re going fast, and I always defer to the other driver. However in the freezing cold weather before Christmas, I was unfortunately caught up in an accident where a, let’s say, driver-in-too-much-of-a-hurry-for-the-road-conditions, skidded on black ice, crashed into my car which spun around and was then crashed into by another car. Fortunately no-one was hurt, however my car was a complete mess. As there were no independent witnesses our insurance companies agreed to sort their own clients out and as I don’t have fully comprehensive insurance that basically meant I wouldn’t get a bean. So with money tight in this economic climate it meant making the best of a bad job, bartering services to get a friend to bash out the worst dents and finding a second-hand replacement door – which is in a delightfully contrasting colour to the rest of the car.

Now you might think this is all a tale of doom and gloom, but there is a positive side to this tale. I regularly drive to the next town and the traffic filters down from two lanes to one lane. I always let the other drivers go first. But now, with my newly ‘enhanced’ car, I’m being treated like royalty. Everyone wants to let me go first, so at last I’m revelling in the joys of assertive driving.