Life on the Riviera - On the road

 #1: Never ignore a fellow driver.

I once stopped at a light with my window a third open. A car with two young guys stops next to me. I can feel their eyes on me but I'm keeping my head straight, checking out directions. The light goes green, they throw a ball of paper in my car and drive away. This was only to get my attention because they were upset by me ignoring them. Wankers! (excuse my French)

#2: Never beep.
An Irish mate beeped a guy because he thought they were gonna drive into each other. "I did it for our safety" he said, and thought. The other driver didn't see it this way. He started driving very close to him, nearly banging his car before taking over and braking, into, what French call, "une queue de poisson" (a fish tail). When the road narrowed and the traffic forced them to slow down, the furious driver stopped his car and walked toward the bastard who had beeped him (that was his thinking). At this point, my mate thought :"oh crap, I'm in for an argument". Just then, the guy opened his back door to get a wooden stick out. "Fuck, he's gonna smash my car" thought the poor foreigner. He had several options but thought it was better not to wait and see. So he (quite dangerously) dashed out of the lane (nearly banging an oncoming car) and drove away.

#3 Give a lot of space to people doing maneuvers
Again my Irish mate (an unlucky fellow?) was driving along a small street when he noticed a car coming out of a driveway. Well mannered, he decided to stop and let the driver get out, which the woman did. She reversed into him and drove away under his amazed eyes. He was so bemused he didn't think of taking her number plate. She definitely got out of this one.

#4 Never go near an old driver
I went to pick up a couch surfer at the train station. Out of the station, the driveway takes us to a larger road's middle lane. I need to turn right so I check the mirrors: there's a car a good 10metres away. We're in town driving at less than 20km per hour, so plenty of time for me to put my indicator on and change line smoothly. Everything seems perfect until I look at my rear view mirror. In the car behind me, still a good 2 meters away, an old woman is obviously very angry. I don't read lips but I'm pretty sure I wouldn't like what she's saying. My mum told me to respect my older so I ignore her and focus my attention on the Aussie girl sitting next to me. But I can't help seeing the little grey haired woman getting excited behind her wheel. She's now extending and folding her arms nervously. I guess she wants to give me a hug (or maybe something else, I wasn't sure). My mum told me not to talk to stranger, or hug them, so I decided to ignore her again. She isn't happy with me for refusing giving her some lovin (old people can feel pretty lonely) so she kept waving, mouthing and showing her fists. This went on for a good 2km until I turned right again. I couldn't stop laughing looking at her getting all angry over nothing, but really it's sad.