Well it is My Right of Way

On the way into work this morning I turned right into Llanbadarn road, as I do every morning. In case you're not familiar with Aberystwyth's splendid road system I shall elaborate.

Llanbadarn Road is one of the main roads in Aberystwyth. It would be a minor road if it was in a city, but it's one of the main roads in Aberystwyth. Llanbadarn Road is a turning on the right from the main road I drive down each morning. In order to turn down Llanbadarn Road it is necessary to enter a right-filter lane. Note that it is a right-filter lane. I say that because on the left-hand side of the road is North Road. A lot of people coming from the other direction will use this filter lane to turn down North Road, which is not what it is really intended for.

I don't have a problem with doing that, I do it myself. If you want to turn down North Road then there is very little choice in the matter. However, the filter lane isn't intended for this, so it's best to leave it until as late as possible to enter the filter lane if you'r going to use it in this way.

This morning I passed the usual queue of cars in the filter lane that were trying to turn down North Road and then entered the filter lane to turn right down Llanbadarn Road. A car was approaching from the other direction and was signalling right to go down North Road. I was coming to a stop by now at the end of the filter lane, waiting to cross the stream of traffic to get to Llanbadarn Road. Which is why I was a little puzzled by what happened next.

The car approaching from the other direction with their indicator on entered the filter lane in front of me. Bear in mind that I had almost stopped, I couldn't have done anything. The lane to the left of me (my only possible hope of refuge) was busy anyway, so there was no way I could have moved anyway. How this person did not see me I do not know, but eventually as they got closer they decided that it might not be such a great idea to plow into the front of my car after-all, and pulled back to where they were supposed to be. Relief. It was one of those stomach wrenching moments when you're waiting for the impact.

But then rather than apologising for his blatant mis-uses of the road, the bloke in the other car (he looked about 60-something) made various hand gestures to the tune of "what do you think you're doing?"! I was flabbergasted. My various shrugs and frantic waving of arms portrayed, I hope, a very accurate image of just how stupid he'd been.