causing growing concern but it seems to us that part of the problem is the grumpy and inconsiderate attitudes of some drivers. More and more drivers are becoming intolerant and irascible when dealing with other drivers.

It is bad enough that people, especially young people, are being killed unnecessarily on our roads without drivers having to cope with outright abuse over what are often very minor things. It seems that the chaotic roads would be a good deal more useable if people could be convinced to be more patient and more civil.

We should give some examples of the problems.

These days very little consideration is given to older drivers who may be a bit uncertain or who may drive at something close to the speed limit. Far too often they are honked at, shouted at and verbally abused by people who speed past them with no regard to the fact that they are not driving badly and do have just as much right on the roads as anyone else.

Very little consideration is given anymore to people trying to enter main roads from side roads. The nature of Bermuda is that there are a great many side road entrances and some of them are virtually blind entries. That's not the entering driver's fault because it is simply the way a highly urbanised Bermuda was created. Often there is plenty of sight line to enter a main road if the people on that road are not speeding but given high speeds there is not time to pull out no matter how careful the entering driver. Then too there are people who pull out of side roads with little or no regard for what might be coming.

The use of turn signals seems to be disappearing. If drivers do not know which way a car is going to turn, then traffic is delayed and there is greater confusion and frustration. Confusing signals or no signals can lead to serious crashes. Cyclists pay little attention even if there is a signal simply zooming past people who are turning or speeding through on the inside.

There are many more examples of lack of consideration for others which we think are leading to driver frustration and will eventually lead to road rage.

None of that is helped by those people who shout abuse and four letter words or who demand the right to break the law.

There was a time when these poor attitudes seemed to be confined to a small number of people. Today the array of people behaving badly is very wide and seems to be growing. Some of the behaviour is encouraged by the crowding on the roads but much of it is simply a lack of consideration and plain bad manners.

Bermudians could start the clean-up of their own roads by cleaning up their attitude.