This column is for the middle-aged man in the V8 ute.
I was prepared to overlook your disregard for road etiquette when you sped up behind me the other day on Old Geelong Road in Hoppers Crossing.
Clearly, the way you were almost touching my bumper and waving your hands around meant you were disappointed in my decision to drive just below the speed limit in busy morning traffic.
I also took into account your possible fragile mental health given you were acting your shoe size, not your age, in your souped-up ute with its doof-doof music. After all, mid-life crises happen to the best of us.
However, all bets were off when you slowed down to shriek obscenities at me as I pulled into a right turning lane. I can’t quite decide which was more sickening – the threat to “smash my head in” or the revolting gesture you made out the window with both hands.
There are plenty of words I could use to describe your actions, however I’m going to stick to one. You sir, are a bully.
The irony is that you probably watched the news reports about Jill Meagher and Sarah Cafferkey and were saddened.
Maybe you even looked at your daughter, wife or mother and worried about violence being perpetrated against them.
Well I’m someone’s daughter, I’m a mother and I have a loving husband.
And you, in your mid-life crisis ute with your ugly attitude, were verbally violent towards me.
You scared me for no other reason than you wanted to reach your destination a minute sooner.
I just hope that when you arrived, you used that minute to hang your head in shame.
Emma Sutcliffe is a Little River-based freelance writer.
