Earlier this week, respectable London commuters were anything but when a man got on the roof of an underground train and refused to get off.

I’m not going to write about the rights or wrongs of climate change demonstrations, other than to note that climbing on top of any vehicle that is about to move off is a very dangerous and potentially fatal act. I’m more interested in the passengers on the platform, ordinary people, who on their way to work decided to behave as they did.

Someone pulled the man off the roof of the train and he then disappeared under a crowd of suit-wearing commuters who appeared to be giving him a beating.I’m sure that for the rest of the day, and indeed the rest of the week, they behaved no differently to all the rest of us decent law-abiding sensible human beings.

It’s not the only example of people behaving appallingly when something gets in their way while they are on the move.

A few days earlier, a driving instructor told of how often apparently normal drivers behave totally irrationally when they find themselves behind a learner driver.

He had a video of a car suddenly overtaking and going through a red light to get out from behind the learner. It was not, said the instructor, an isolated incident, far from it. No wonder some people give up learning to drive altogether and find themselves disadvantaged in our car-driven society for the rest of their lives.

Any farmer will tell of being subjected to similar manoeuvres when he or she is out on the roads in a tractor or other slow-moving agricultural machine. They have to move machinery from field to field or to and from its home building somehow. That means using a road.

If it’s the busy A19 or the equally busy A59, well, they are just as entitled to use it as everyone else.

They are normal people who don’t want to get involved in a crash, so of course they go at what is a safe speed, for a tractor.

Likewise, every cyclist will tell of cars and other vehicles so desperate to get past them their drivers totally disregard the safety of the cyclist and any road user coming the other way.

To some drivers, a cyclist is like a red rag to a bull and they will go to considerable lengths to make life as unpleasant as possible for them.

Like farmers, cyclists are as entitled to use the road as anyone else and to go at a speed that is safe for them.

But unlike farmers who tend to be in big sturdy vehicles, cyclists are vulnerable and can be killed by someone else’s impatience.

Even cars can annoy other drivers.

How many times have you been overtaking in the outside lane of a dual carriageway at 70mph when another car storms up behind you honking and flashing its lights at you to get out of the way now, now, now.

You are doing the maximum speed possible legally, so the impatient driver behind you is asking you to aid and abet his or her law-breaking.

Sometimes they will swerve into the inside lane and undertake you before swerving back into your lane so close in front of you you have to brake sharply.

As you try and stop the car behind going into the back of you, they happily storm off over the horizon.

That same driver will no doubt be a model citizen when they get to their destination and probably regard themselves as a good driver.

What is it about travel that prompts so many people to behave so impatiently, irrationally or dangerously?

We live in a society where time is money.

Businesses are constantly looking for ways to squeeze more productivity into less time.

Haulage companies win contracts by being faster than their rivals, parents race from place to place as they juggle work and family commitments. Travel time is seen as wasted time, so the less of it there is the better.

If something delays us, whether it be a demonstrator on our train or a vehicle in front moving slower than we are, we feel frustrated. Sometimes, like the London commuters, we boil over.

There are 65 million people on this island all wanting to go somewhere. Sooner or later, one of them will get in our way.

So accept it.

Take a deep breath and enjoy the journey instead of wishing it was over.

As the saying goes, its better to arrive late in this world than early in the next.