Recession rage is hitting the streets

An angry traffic cop, it soon transpired. My mild-mannered driver, shocked as I was, slammed on the brakes. Doubly alarming, because we were in the middle lane of Euston Road.

He rolled down the window to a policeman, helmet still on, yelling a foul-mouthed tirade. Apparently we'd been over the effing limit (perhaps by 10mph - the empty streets are irresistible at 6am) and what's more, why wasn't he wearing a bloody seatbelt?

Fair points, yet surely a firm chat would have sufficed. Then the fuzz leaned right into the car, purple with aggression, and roared: "So put your effing seatbelt on now, you effing twat!" At 6.30am, it was the rudest awakening imaginable. I know the Met are under more pressure than ever but he might as well have axed in our window shouting: "Heeeeeeere's Johnny!"

My driver - an immigrant, like most minicab workers - was too mortified to speak, so I found myself apologising for our boorish police. I'm a stickler for law abidance, especially on the road, but this hate-filled reaction was off the scale.

For years I've thought road rage went out with the Nineties. But now I'm starting to think it's not just the economy that's in meltdown but our tattered tempers too.

It seemed that way two weeks ago when I cycled straight into a punch- up. Drawing up to a Kentish Town junction, I made my way to the box supposedly reserved for bikes - though in reality often jammed with vehicles. This time, a white van was edging onto the green tarmac.

At first I put it down to absent-minded driving. Then I noticed the builder's van jerking forward with aggressive little jumps. Each time it nudged a bike in what was clearly an aggressive act, threatening to flatten us. Maybe he'd lost yet another contract or the bank had just stopped his overdraft, but it took a brave fellow rider to rap on his window to ask him to stop.

It was a polite request, but Mr Builder leapt from seat to street and lunged at the unsuspecting cyclist, screaming and spitting. Some fancy footwork ensued, and the cyclist pedalled through the lights to get away, with angry white van man in hot pursuit. He shook him off, but the rest of us were left quaking in our toeclips.

This isn't any road rage. This is recession road rage.

Charlotte Loved: The Suspicions of Mr Whicher, by Kate Summerscale.

This polished jewel of a book won the Samuel Johnson prize for non-fiction last year; now it's out in paperback. A real-life murder mystery sans pareil.