BEFORE I begin I have to confess that I am not the world's most patient driver.

Don't get me wrong, I don't go around swearing at other folk on the road if they get in my way, or commit some sort of slight against me.

But I DO get cross when crass bad driving holds me up, or forces me to do an emergency stop because someone has cut me up, or almost causes an accident because the motorist in question is clearly an idiot and shouldn't be on the road.

And I've admitted before that one of the things that irritates me the most about bad drivers is those people who use the wrong lane on the motorway.

We've all encountered them. You know, those types who plant themselves firmly in the middle overtaking (I have to write this as I got angry letters last time for failing to make it clear that the middle and outside lane are ONLY for overtaking and should NEVER be referred to as the “middle” or “fast” lane because this is WRONG — it apparently doesn't matter that this is what everyone knows them as, oh no, it is WRONG) lane, even if they're travelling at 50mph, causing all traffic to travel at a ludicrously slow speed.

But there is one thing about driving that annoys me more than any other. And that is.......ROADWORKS.

Whether it be the kind that goes on for miles on the motorways, with a seemingly endless line of traffic cones, stretching out as far as the eye can see.

Or roads being blocked off while potholes/water pipes/sewage pops/electrical cables/gas pipes/phone cables/whatever else could possibly need repairing is made to work properly again.

Or roads being resurfaced/repair/painted, or trees being cut back or down, or any infinite number of things that lead to chaps (or chapesses) working on our roads.

Now, it isn't so much the roadworks themselves that bother me. I accept that they are necessary and without them we would be left with disastrous roads (although many would say this is indeed what we HAVE got), no electricity, or gas, or water, or sewage pouring forth across the land.

But what REALLY does annoy me is the fact most of the time NO-ONE seems to be working on them.

I drive at all sorts of times of the day and night and I can only deduce that work on the roads must take place between 10am and 10.15am, every third Tuesday of every fourth month.

This theory makes more sense when you think about just how long some roadworks seem to take.

I'm currently living amidst a roadwork hell at the moment. My journey to work takes twice as long as it should and simply getting out of the roads surrounding my home is a huge chore.

And our pathetic attempts at roadworks are made even worse when you travel to many other countries and witness just how fast they get the job done, working day and night until it's completed.

So, yes, we have to have roadworks — no matter how much I might loathe them — and they might spring up in endlessly irritating places, but please could the UK get with the programme and get them done faster.