Plea for motorists to show more courtesy

I refer to an incident on Friday past (3 August), as my heavily pregnant wife, along with our two children aged five and two, queued along with other motorists for a parking space in a car park in Lisburn.

As she awaited direction from the parking attendant she became aware of an older male driver, who was struggling to manoeuvre his car from its parking space due to the proximity of her silver Volvo saloon.

Noting his difficulty, my wife began to slowly reposition her car, only to be met with a tirade of animated verbal abuse from the male driver, which appeared to visibly shock and upset the his older female front seat passenger.

Indeed at one point the upset gentleman made to alight from his vehicle, but thankfully, after my wife calmly requested that he should calm down, he managed to extract his vehicle from the parking space and leave the car park.

Now while I fully appreciate that sometimes it can be easy to lose one’s patience when driving, I would ask all road users to bear in mind that while many of us may see ourselves as courteous, competent and highly skilled drivers, there are others who are less so and even fewer blessed with mindreading skills.

So to the gentleman who was having difficulty manoeuvring his car in Lisburn last week, on behalf of my heavily pregnant wife and two young children, my apologies for the moment of inconvenience, my thanks for your display of courtesy and restraint and I wish you a very long and safe motoring career.

Christopher Carson