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It was a somewhat cold, and wintry day in late March, and it was a long weekend, in which Monday was a public holiday. I was driving my wife's small hatchback to fill it up with petrol, at our local service station. It was Sunday afternoon. Everything was going fine, and being a careful driver, I saw that there was an empty bowser available, and so I edged slowly, and gingerly into position, right alongside of the petrol bowser.

I was just then getting out from my car, when I heard a loud screech of brakes, directly behind me. A large four wheel drive people mover had just arrived, and arrived in a hurry. The driver had also spied this vacant bowser, from his position, still out on the main highway. He had then speeded right up, and was travelling at a mile a second, or so it all seemed, as he now came to an abrupt, and angry stop, fractions of a centimetre behind me, just scraping my rear bumper.

I had nearly been hit by a drunken driver. What did I say, nearly hit?

Well, there was more. This drunken man, who had rushed away from an afternoon's drinking session, to get some more ice for the beer, was not contented, or happy about what his drunken bloodshot eyes had thought they had seen, or his addled brain, had thought it had registered.

He came up to me now, still filling up my small car at the bowser, and he started to abuse, and rant, and carry on. He said, he being a larger car had right of way. No thought to the fact, that I was already inside the station, and he still out on the road. He said, the next time he sees me, he will shove my car with his large bull bar, right out of the way.

I continued to fill my car quietly, murmuring something about I thought I was there first, and I didn't even see him coming.

And then I was hit, I didn't see it coming. I was hit by a drunken driver, as he shoved me out of the way, and angrily went off to the counter for his ice. He wasn't even getting petrol, and had only wanted to go through the petrol filling area to the shop. All the other avenues were blocked. I finished filling my car, and went in to pay for my petrol.

On the way out, this drunken character, got his two large bags of heavy ice, and crushed them down on the bonnet of my small car, hitting "me" again, and damaging, and dinting my car.

A drunken driver can cause damage in more ways than one, and my wife too, had been traumatised in the passenger seat of our car, as the man bashed, and smashed at our small car, drunkenly, in his stupor of blind, really blind, rage.

Learn more about this author, Steve Marshall.
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