General Common Sense

This morning heading down High Street I attempted to stay as much as possible to the left, I normally want the right-hand lane (when it's clear) but I was dropping off a passenger in town. Now occasionally there are free parking bays further down the road, trouble is due to the angles and the odd wider vehicles you can't see them until you're next to them by which time it's too late to alter your course if none are present. As a result I try to stop next to the Wheatsheaf pub, perfectly legal and I'm their for less than 15 seconds; this proved to be the case today. Sure I'm blocking the left-hand lane slightly, but barely anyone uses it anyway and besides the bus half out of the stop behind me is accomplishing that task by itself much better than I.

(To clarify I could stop on the right, but a) that's the lane most traffic uses and b) means my passenger having to exit into the road)

So I stop, bid my passenger farewell and am about to indicate to pull back out when a car stops opposite me.

Opposite me! For once there's nothing parked along the right-hand side for the majority of the road and the one place this driver decides to stop is a point which will make the road even narrower. The bus pulls out of the stop, but would have to squeeze through, but obviously I'm moving out so I free up that space.

Then further up at the end we get one of the small rubbish collection vans parked on the right opposite a square backed roll-up delivery van. Seriously is this some sort of bizarre herd instinct?