My near miss on a Mayo road

Our youngest daughter was home from college over the weekend and our eldest spent Saturday on the beach in Vancouver. Thanks to the miracle of modern technology the four of us chatted across the vast expanse of oceans and continents. We laughed and talked about the ups and downs of life. We even got time to have a quick few words about the football exploits of Mayo here and Eire Og over there. However, we mostly just gloried in the craic and fun we have among ourselves whenever we get the chance to talk.
Once again it copper-fastened how much we love one another and how we rely on one another even if we're thousands of miles apart.
Therefore, I cannot imagine our four ever becoming a three. However, I’ve already nearly been killed this week! Well, that’s a bit of an exaggeration but I found a few chapters of my life flashing in front of my eyes as an idiotic driver in a van careered towards me. I’m sitting here now, watching yet another Gogglebox repeat trying to put my thoughts and fears into some type of discernible type and there’s still a fair bit of anger running through the veins.
Let me explain! On the occasion of my near-death experience I was parked at a T-junction in Castlebar waiting to turn right onto the main road. I was completely naive about what might occur and never expected to be writing these words.
I had left home enroute to some meeting, interview, match or training session and didn't have a care in the world. Some American rocker was booming out of the speakers and my mind was already projecting towards the characters and opportunities awaiting me at the destination. I drove out our road, turned right and two minutes later arrived at the T-junction as I had thousands of times before. There was nothing special occurring and no reason to expect anything untoward.
I looked left. There was nothing to see. I looked right and there was a white van approaching. Once again, there was nothing unusual about that. I knew I couldn’t turn right until the van had passed but then saw the indicator come on, telling me the vehicle was going to turn into the road I was exiting.
The indicator coming on meant I was free to advance onto the main road as there was nothing coming from my left and there was no other vehicle behind the van. I moved onto the road as I had done thousands of times before but out of the corner of my eye I realised the van was still coming towards me.
Peripheral vision has a way of sending the brain information before the inner computer realises what’s actually happening and I felt my right foot pressing the accelerator to power my car out of the path of the van.
Thankfully, I made it across the road before the idiotic driver ploughed into me and I was submerged in a wave of relief and anger all at the same time. I looked in the mirror and saw the van continuing on its merry way with the indicator still clicking away.
There were two questions racing through my mind. Why did the driver flick on the indicator if he wasn’t going to turn into the road I was exiting? Why didn’t he slow down when he saw me driving across his path?
I’m sorry now that I didn’t turn the car around, chase down the van driver and give him a piece of my mind, but at the time I was too shocked to do that. Instead, I continued my journey and thought little of the incident until later that evening. At that stage, the anger pot was still bubbling away and there was also a serious amount of shock building up in the brain.
It made me realise how tenuous life is and how the stupidity of someone else could end my life in a split second. The van driver probably had a nice little chuckle to himself and I’m now beginning to wonder if he was actually looking for a collision. All indications suggest he wouldn’t have been upset if his vehicle hit me side-on and that’s frightening.
However, his actions have made me an even safer driver than I was previously and as I said before, I hope it’s a long time before our little family of four becomes three.
Stay safe and realise there are some cowboys on the road.