The German transport minister, Peter Ramsauer, has recorded a CD of himself playing Mozart on the piano, hoping that it will calm drivers suffering from road rage. The CD entitled ‘Adagio in the Car’ features the minister playing Mozart’s Piano Concerto Nr. 21 accompanied by the orchestra of Berlin’s Deutsche Oper. Ramsauer is hoping to reduce the number of road accidents caused by aggressive drivers. In 2010 more than 2.4 million road accidents were reported on German roads.

At the launch of the CD in Berlin he told reporters “There are more secrets in one slow movement by Mozart than in the entirety of federal transportation policy.” Ramsauer originally wanted to be a concert pianist, but instead chose to enter politics. He hopes that the music will have a calming effect on people and reduce road rage accidents.

Residents in a small corner of Benfleet, Essex have been told they will no longer be able to receive deliveries because they live on roads with uneven surfaces making it too perilous for the postal workers to venture down. Many residents such as Doreen and Meredith Chatterton, both in their late 80s, now face a round trip of up to hour in order to collect their mail from their nearest sorting office after receiving a letter informing them of the decision. The letter stated there had been ‘on several occasions a number of near miss accidents’ which prompted a health and safety review that found an ‘unacceptable risk’ for delivery to homes on unmade roads. Spokeswoman Sally Hopkins said: “We are keen to resume deliveries. We will review doing so when road repairs are made.”

But it is not the first time the Royal Mail has provided a bizarre reason for disrupting deliveries. In November last year a postman refused to deliver to one address in Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk after complaining that the resident’s garden was too overgrown. In another case in Portsmouth, a resident was warned he would his service suspended unless he took steps to keep his “aggressive cat” under control.