Falling Down

Remember the movie Falling Down, starring Michael Douglas, where this guy gets out of his car in the middle of a traffic jam and just walks away? Well...

Lorna and I had just parked the car near work as usual and the street we park in is one of those where it gets parked on both sides of the road so there's only enough room for one vehicle to pass up the middle. On the whole, there's never that many problems as most drivers tend to either slip into a space or just hold back until the way is clear but not this morning.

One car was coming along the road from one direction and another one started in from the opposite end. He must have seen the other car and there were spaces he could have pulled into but no, he kept going so they inevitably met head to head. Now normally one would have admitted defeat and reversed but when they both just sat there staring at each other through the windscreens, we had to stop and see what was going to happen.

A few minutes passed and then the second guy gets out of his car and has words with the first bloke, who didn't open his window or seem to respond. We thought "This is getting interesting, might be a fight!"

He gets back into his car and again, they sit there for a few minutes (while we're standing there laughing) and stare at each other. Then bloke number one, gets out of his car and we think "Definitely looking like a fight now or he's going to do a Basil Fawlty on the other guy!" but no he ceremonially waves his keys, remote locks the car and walks away. By this time I'm knotting myself but thinking "Hah, he's going to stand around the corner until the other one reverses off" but no, he casually plods off down the street leaving the road completely blocked.

Maybe, like William 'D-Fens' Foster, he was just having a very bad start to the day and that was the last straw! We had to get into work so missed the conclusion but there was a bin lorry just exiting our drive and heading that way so chaos was about to ensue. Wonder if anyone called the police as the driver could have been arrested for wilfully obstructing, without lawful authority or excuse, free passage along the highway, contrary to s 137 of the Highways Act 1980 (got that from one of the lads in the office who used to be a copper).

Wish I'd had a camera or camcorder!