Idiots and Lemmings!

ConcordeGuy wrote: Trust me; nobody here has the intelligence nor the courage to harm anybody. Since it was right in the school car-park she felt nothing was going to happen...

Concky... you trust me, there are plenty of individuals around that don’t give a damn were they are, they will react violently on instinct, on impulse.

I too used to be like you mum, and overreact.

Trust my half a century of experience with these things, and a few years on martial arts and a few decades of bodybuilding. It doesn't matter how tough you think you are, you are in big trouble when you come up against certain individuals.

Not long ago, a guy got into a road rage incident with a guy in a 4X4. The 4x4 driver jumped out and stabbed him to death in the blink of an eye. It turned out the perpetrator was a top organized crime boss. You never know who you will be up against, could be a psycho, could be a criminal.

It's also not cool.

You would do well to encourage your mother to calm down. The stress alone is bad for her health.

They'll soon have their other hand in your other pocket with more forms of "carbon taxes" in the name of saving the planet from from the predations of the human race.

And who pays to clean up the planet when they tax fuel in a so called attempt to combat global warming?

The poor! The rich don't give a damn; they can afford 50 quid to fill the tank.

The rich may be able to afford the 50 quid, but the tax rate on the fuel they use is the same as it is for you.  If they use more fuel than you, they pay more tax than you.  I accept that it doesn't hurt them as much, but I can't say it's patently unfair.

John... when I say 'pay the price' I mean in terms of the effect on a poor persons standard of living, not literally the price paid. The standard of living of the poor suffers in this case and not the rich.  I can barely afford to fill my car with petrol; any further rises effect me directly. Each rise, I have no choice but to drive less, while the individuals that drive past my house in their top of the range Mercedes are totally unaffected by the rise. For the poor to suffer in this way 'to clean up the planet' is unacceptable. If the authorities were to take this seriously they would limit engine sizes, after all, very few of us need more than a 1.3 litre engine.

the same approach is used with so called toll roads to reduce congestion, again the rich don't bat an eyelid if they have to pay to use the road were as the poor can't use the road and are the ones that reduce the strain on the road system by there absence.

Same applies to the idea of charging people to visit a city centre in their cars; no problem again for the rich, but the poor can't afford the charge so can't visit the city in their cars.

The poor therefore ease the congestion in the city centre for the benefit of the rich.

It increases the gap between the rich and poor, never a good idea in a society. The ideal is to narrow the gap between the rich and poor, not to the extent we would see in the communist ideal but to a level that's favorable in a healthy democracy.

As you have said yourself many times, politicians love to increase taxes, on the pretext of saving the planet, their true motivation lies elsewhere though. There are other more effective measures available, but all that concerns them is short term party politics, so any unpalatable measure is not considered.

Any aggressive act, even in response to a 'bonk' in a car is stressful. It releases hormones like cortisol into the blood stream that are bad for the heart and other organs. Technically the personality type is known as a 'type 2 personality'.

Aggression in cars is bad news, both for the perpetrator and the victim. I know, it an issue for me as well as your mum.

Heart rate goes up, blood pressure rises, cortisol, cholesterol, [to aid clotting in case of injury] and tons of adrenaline are pumped into the blood stream, it's the fight or flight reflex, it's the way the body functions. It’s a function of our autonomic nervous systems. It evolved to save our lives at times of crisis, nature didn't envisage, the controls placed upon us by society though.

I know, as I say it's a problem for me as well. It's the way our brains are wired. Some people are naturally more aggressive than others. I've lost count of the number of times I've freaked out in the car.

My daughter has inherited the same characteristic as me where as my son hasn’t.

A roman philosopher once said that the way to cope with such things is to change your expectations. For example, it's extremely likely every time we drive that someone will do something stupid in a car. If you expect it to happen and see it as normal it’s far easier to stay in control than if you regard it as an extraordinary event.

It’s not easy though, difficult to change one's behavior.