The road to hell

I will do pretty much anything to avoid spending time on the M25, mainly because however long I leave to complete that section of the journey, it’s always way short of the mark. Friday night was a case in point; got stuck through the roadworks going from the A12 junction down to the Dartford Crossing. What should be about 20 minutes maximum took more than twice that. There was no obvious problem or reason for the delay. Coming back the same way yesterday, I witnessed first hand how one person’s idiotic and selfish driving can cause these so-called ‘phantom jams’. A VW Golf GTI came down the slip-road on to the motorway at a ridiculously fast speed, cutting across the white hatching to head through too-small gaps to get to the outside lane. I was probably eight cars back but everybody in front of me instinctively stood on the middle pedal because of this one reckless individual. We all bunched up, we all came to a virtual standstill and for no real reason. This Mexican Wave of red lights spread back and suddenly what was a perfectly happy snake of drivers became a traffic jam. Brilliant. Some people don’t deserve a driving licence.