Road Rage Jane

I learnt something new about myself yesterday. For a person who spends a fair amount of time on self-reflection, I was quite surprized by this – thought I knew everything about myself already.

I hate traffic – that’s nothing new – but I found out that I do have a tolerance for it I never thought possible.

Not sure if every person who lives out west of jo’burg decided that yesterday was THE day to get in their cars and travel up Christian De Wet/Witkoppen, but the traffic was ridiculous. I joined the queue around about the Randburg SPCA.

I took this very calmly, letting cars join the flow of traffic where I was able and generally being polite. Before 10am, with no caffeine in my system,  this pretty much a miracle. Also, I didn’t want to give anyone an excuse to do damage to my brand new wheels.

We stop-started all the way down the hill, up the other side and on to Cedar road. I remained calm and polite. The traffic opened up until Montecasino (all of about 1km), after which we sat again. By the time I got close to Main Road, I was fed up. I checked the time – it was almost exactly one hour since I left home. By this time I was tired of people pushing in front of me, cutting me off from the yellow lane, making rude gestures when I left more than 30cm of space between me the car in front.

I morphed into Road Rage Jane – hooting, swearing, gesticulating and riding up the arse of the idiot in the BMW who insisted on pushing in. I regained calm after turning onto Main Road and by the time I got to the office, my blood pressure was under control.

And that’s my discovery – I have exactly one hour’s tolerance for traffic. Which is good to know. I don’t think my tolerance of stupidity stretches that far, but maybe one day I’ll discover otherwise.