X is for The Xmas Sunday Driver

X is a nightmare letter. Last year I cheated and did X is for the Kissable Letter to get myself out of a hole (my ignorance of words beginning with X) and this year I am going to cheat again by doing X is for Xmas which means effectively I write about whatever I want. Hurrah! Three cheers for ingenuity!

So X is for the Xmas Sunday Driver.

As someone who does a lot of driving, I deplore Sunday drivers because they are always, always, always, getting in my way and slowing me down. I am one of those people who drive to the speed limit so if I get stuck behind an elderly couple driving at 40 mph in a 60 mph zone because they are admiring the pansies on the roadside I instantly turn into a road-raging monster. I know it's hard to believe that a sweet, English rose such as myself could ever be angry but when I have places to go and people I want to see before I die I am like the Incredible Hulk on speed.

However, in my experience, Xmas Sunday drivers are the absolute worst of their breed. I always know when Xmas is approaching because of the sudden appearance of Sunday drivers on the road during the middle of the week. It's bad enough they disrupt weekend travel with their visits to bird sanctuaries but, in December, they descend onto the roads causing monumental havoc wherever they go. You may have thought the increased number of road accidents in the darkness of winter is due to poor visibility but it’s not – it’s due to Sunday drivers venturing out from their bungalows to do their Christmas shopping and holding up the traffic at every junction in the entire Western Hemisphere.

So the midweek arrival of the Sunday driver is mine and probably other every commuter’s worst nightmare. The sheer randomness of encountering a Sunday driver midweek can turn even the most resilient of commuters from a sane, competent adult into a suicidal maniac prepared to run down the M1 wearing his pants on his head. You can always spot a Sunday driver because they are either consulting a map, have their hazard lights on, or are driving so slowly it looks like they are parking up for a picnic. This total lack of road awareness is due to the fact that the only other times of the year Sunday drivers venture out midweek are for MOTs, GP appointments and visits to the crematorium (not usually in their own car though). So by the time most Sunday drivers realise they need to do their Christmas shopping they’ve forgotten how to drive, where they live and sometimes even who they are. Thank God the police force can tap up the DVLA for car ownership details and remind Sunday drivers who they are and where they live otherwise there would a perpetual circle of lost OAPS driving round the M25 in December.

Anyway, the last time I encountered a Xmas Sunday driver he was driving down the centre of the road in what appeared to be an uncontrolled zig-zag manoeuvre. After I’d careered into the kerb and resuscitated my kids, it duly dawned on me that the festive season must be approaching and I needed to pose myself some urgent questions such as whether I'd still got the Christmas cards I didn’t send from the previous year or whether I could get into the loft to retrieve the Xmas decorations without being buried alive.

Unfortunately, I was unable to ponder those important questions for very long as not long after getting back on the road I was distracted by the need to safely overtake another Sunday driver so I could get home before the New Year. Now I don’t normally have a problem with overtaking Sunday drivers but occasionally there’s the one who thinks he is being carjacked and puts his foot on the pedal in panic. This usually results in me racing them side by side yelling “Out of the way mother fucker!” whilst praying to God that no one is driving in the opposite direction and that the police will believe me when I say I’m a responsible driver. (Ho hum.)

I should also like it noted that it's my belief  that Sunday drivers are also guilty of causing all the congestion in town centres on Christmas Eve. This is because they have an innate desire to pick up their turkeys from the butchers at precisely 9.05 am thereby conflicting with all the workers who only have Christmas Eve to do their shopping. This selfish behaviour leads to frayed tempers, massive bottlenecks and tailbacks (particularly in the vicinity of Marks and Spencer) and some workers not returning home until after the Queen’s speech. The congestion is also exacerbated by the fact that after 11am Sunday drivers tend to fall asleep at the wheel and it is not uncommon to see one of them veering off onto the pavement only waking up in time to narrowly avoid the other Sunday driver who has parked there because he left his glasses at home and can’t tell the difference between “To Let” and “Toilet”.

Now I know some of you will be moaning about how unfair I am being to Xmas Sunday drivers and that one day I too will be one. However, I have it on very good authority (mine) that by 2030, when I’m a pensioner, teleporters will be the common mode of transport and I’ll be able to beam myself to the butchers on Christmas Eve. In the meantime, I count myself lucky to be alive. However, I still have to negotiate another fifteen Christmases on the roads so I ask you all to pray for me - I am too young to be driven insane, or worse, meet my death on the bonnet of a 1974 Ford Cortina.