"I shouldn't have said it but I was angry. I don't usually use language like that," she said. Mrs Newell chairs the council's corporate governance committee and represents Slade Lode ward in Chatteris. She is also a member and former chairman of Chatteris Town Council. The incident happened as Mrs Newell's Renault came head-to-head with a Ford car in March, on Wednesday.
Mrs Newell was driving and her husband Keith, 83, was in the passenger seat. In the video, shot from the driver's seat of the Ford, neither car moves for a few seconds and then Mrs Newell pulls slowly past. As she passed she called the other driver an arsehole through her open car window, adding: "I'll tell you straight - drop dead, mate."
YouTube link.
Mrs Newell said: "I did use a rather rude word. I've got grandchildren and I don't think they would want to hear it. It just came out." She said she was angry because the other driver refused to wait at an obstruction on his side of the road. "In my opinion, I was not in the wrong," she added. A Fenland District Council spokesman said it had received no complaints about Mrs Newell's behaviour and had no comment.
3 comments:
Looked to me like she was driving on the wrong side of the road. She had plenty of room to go around him, which was proven when she actually did it. She shouldn't be driving anymore.
Anonymous, you don't understand the law do you? If you meet an obstruction on your side of the carriageway you *must* give way to oncoming traffic. It's not up to the oncoming traffic to get out of your way.
Unfortunately an increasing number of drivers do not seem to understand these priorities. In our village there is a narrow section of road where the traffic heading west has clearly signed priority, traffic heading east meets a clear "Give Way To Oncoming Traffic" sign. However several times every day east bound drivers try to push their way through. The road thereabouts is littered with pieces of wing mirror as a result and on several occasions the road has been blocked for hours by collisions.
Likewise many drivers expect to be let out of minor roads at junctions and if they are not let out start pushing their way out.
This is all symptomatic of the declining standards of driving in this country brought on by the reduction in roads policing and the concentration on speed cameras for enforcement.
Theres quite obviously room for two cars to pass, and room for her to move to her left, so yes she is in the wrong
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