A Driver's Nightmare - Chapter 01
by Mike Redbotham

Copyright on this story text belongs at all times to the original author only, whether stated explicitly in the text or not.

It had been snowing heavily; the roads on the hills around our city were blocked resulting in long delays. However our city, in the valley, had escaped the worst and the roads were reasonably clear.

Having to take a friend home late at night, I joined the eastern by-pass at a roundabout, having right of way before a lorry, which was traveling in the same direction.

He followed me closely to the next roundabout. Being a local driver and knowing that there are speed cameras on this road, I kept to the 40mph limit. Although by this time snow had ceased falling, the roads were still treacherous.

The lorry followed me closely with full headlights blazing in my rear and side view mirrors.

I felt I had no option but to slow to what I considered a safe speed with a huge vehicle so close behind my small saloon. I opened my window and tried to gesture to the driver to pull back but with no effect.

As I reached the next roundabout, I was able to accelerate away from the lorry and resume the speed limit of 40mph. However, within a short distance, he again caught up with me and took up station extremely closely, still with headlights blazing. Again, I felt it necessary to slow to a safe speed. When we reached a traffic light controlled the lorry took the right hand lane whilst I continued ahead, thus ending this worrying ordeal.

I was furious and am sick and tired of bullying drivers trying to force others to drive beyond the safe speed by 'tailgating'. On returning home I found the name of the company which owned the lorry on the Internet and fired off an e-mail complaining of the driver's conduct.

I was working at home the next day when the doorbell rang. Opening the door, I was confronted by a tall young man with long blond locks, looking very sheepish. "I am the driver who followed you last night", he said, "My company has sent me to apologise to you".

"You had better come in," I replied.

As I directed him to the living room, I eyed him up. He was not your typical, fat, big gutted lorry driver. It was obvious he worked out with his broad shoulders and narrow hips.

"What's your name?"

"Chris".

"And what have you got to say for yourself?"

"I'm sorry. I was stuck in the snow for four hours, late for my delivery and trying to make up time."

"Obviously, you wanted me to drive faster than was safe. And, if I had been driving faster, 5, 10 or even 20 miles per hour, how much time would that have saved you? 2, maybe 3, minutes at the most! Would that have justified risking an accident?"

"I suppose not. I can only say I'm sorry."

"I'm afraid that is not good enough! You need to be taught a lesson that such driving is simply not acceptable. Have you never heard of safe stopping distances?"

"Well, yes and I should have been further back. My company wants to know if you will accept my apology."

"Well, I don't! I think you need to be punished so that you don't forget this incident and, more importantly, remember