Monday, 23rd February 2015

I was trundling quite happily along the A2 today, maintaining a consistent, sensible and, above all, legal speed of seventy miles per hour, when the exciting, digital signs above the road proclaimed that there was an OBSTRUCTION ahead, and that all were thus to reduce their trundle to fifty miles per hour.

I fell victim a few months ago to a police officer armed with a speed camera. This left me deeply conflicted between my natural inclination to protest my innocence on a vaguely defined, moral level to anybody within earshot, and my natural inclination to avoid agreeing with Jeremy Clarkson.

I knew, deep down, that doing 61 miles per hour when the speed limit was fifty was more dangerous than doing fifty miles per hour. So I was less reluctant to attend the requisite speed awareness course than I would be, for example, to watch an episode of Top Gear.

On the speed awareness course I learnt three things in particular: 1) driving too fast really is more dangerous than not driving too fast. It's more more dangerous than I thought; 2) the correct definition of a dual carriageway; and 3) when the exciting, digital signs above the A2 tell you to keep to fifty miles per hour, there actually is a good reason for it, rather than - as I had always suspected - someone sitting behind a computer somewhere, laughing maniacally as they feed their thirst for power over the speedometers of Kent by arbitrarily imposing temporary limits upon them. No: it's usually because there's an OBSTRUCTION.

All of which confessional nostalgia is to explain why, upon noticing these signs today, I obediently slowed down to a trundlier trundle. The police car behind me was merely incidental.

As is often the way, a couple of miles with no evidence of an OBSTRUCTION began to make me question its existence. Only my newly unshakeable faith in the authenticity of the exciting, digital signs kept these doubts at bay. Eventually, we passed a lorry, innocuously stationed on the hard shoulder. My confusion about whether this could have been the cause of the revised speed limit was exacerbated by further '50' signs, half a mile later.

I hesitantly kept my speed down, until my doubts were allayed by the police car which had trailed me throughout this dilemma, when it pulled out from behind me and sped up. This was all the invitation I needed to conclude that the OBSTRUCTION was, indeed, in my past. So I, too, sped up into the empty lane ahead of me.

This was how the awkward situation occurred. The driver of the police car, having pulled out to overtake me, had as a consequence prompted me to speed up and negate the requirement for him to overtake me. So he pulled sheepishly back in behind me.

I must stress that this gave me no satisfaction; merely a mildly confused indifference. But this quickly transformed into unbearable frustration at what happened next. A cursory glance in my rear view mirror revealed to me that the driver of the police car was shaking his head at me in disbelief. He was outraged at my actions.

My conclusion was that his conclusion was that I had sped up to prevent him overtaking me, presumably because of either a perceived hatred of The Law on my part or, worse, some ridiculous, Clarksonesque pride. I get very frustrated when I feel I've been misjudged. It's worse when it's on the road and I'm powerless to reason with my false accuser. It's worse still when my false accuser could arrest me if he wanted to.

Impotent rage.

Of course, it could be that I glanced in my mirror just as he expressed his incredulity at a story his passenger was telling him about something unrelated. I hope I haven't misjudged him.