My experience of driving in Malta for over 50 years has instilled in my mind the absolute necessity of being cautious and to anticipate the erratic moves of other motorists.

Last week, driving down from Rabat to Burmarrad along a one-lane road, I became conscious of a car hugging my tail, too close for comfort. I was driving at the maximum speed permitted, following the traffic regulations of slowing on approaching pedestrian crossings, speed cameras and other traffic signs although intermittently blinded by bright lights of approaching cars in the opposite lane.

My tormentor at the tail of my car kept flashing his lights and hooting the horn incessantly. I did not understand what he wanted me to do. Of course, he was not stupid enough to overtake me into the path of oncoming cars.

Nearing the roundabout forking three roads, he overtook me, turning left into Mġarr road, cutting me dangerously and risking a crash. As if that was not enough, his partner in the murder seat perched half his naked body out of the window and shook his fists at me so belligerently that I thought he was spoiling for a fight.

Instead, out of a carious mouth, he hurled at me Maltese expletives and other derogatory physical deformities. These insults hurt my pride. I did not realise that I had so many defects. Yet his body language explained to me that I was not driving at the frenetic speed he wanted me to go.

Having had a clean conduct with the police up to a “mature” age of 83, his insults certainly played havoc with my pride. Worse still, I realised how school education, family upbringing, prison deterrents and perhaps the religious threats of hell had not touched this impure scum of the earth that dishonours even the lowest echelons of society.