根据下面资料，回答题。
Late last year, I needed to transport some furniture from our house in Sussex to my son´ s fiat in central London. I should have paid a man to do it for me, but foolishly confident in my driving ability, I decided to hire a van and drive it myself. It was a Ford Transit 280, long and wide; you couldn´ t see out of the back. You never really knew how close you were to anything else on the road.
Reversing in my home yard, I crashed into a small shed, causing permanent damage. At least I owned the shed.
I loaded up the furniture and set out. By now it was rush hour. My nerves broke down, as I steered the huge van through ever-shifting lanes, across oncoming vehicles, between distances of buses, at last to Charlotte Street.
Here, I found an available parking space. As I reversed into it, I noticed three people at a pavement café waving to me. I got out, trembling violently, like one who has just endured a storm-y Atlantic crossing. "You´ ve shifted the car parked behind you three feet," they said, and it be-longed to a disabled person. I examined the car. There were white scratches along its front bumper.
It bore a disabled sign. So, now I was a bad driver and a bad man. Under the stern gaze of the three, I left an apologetic note on the damaged car´ s windscreen, giving my phone number.
I unloaded the furniture, dripping with sweat. Wanting only to escape the monster, I drove the van back to its base on the Edgware Road. On arrival, the hire man told me I must fill it up with petrol before returning it. "Just charge me," I cried, still shaking with fear. He gazed at me with understanding. No doubt he´d witnessed others in this state before. "How about I drive you to a petrol station, you fill up, and I drive her back?" he asked.
He danced the great van through the traffic so casually that it would have shamed me if I had not been so grateful.
The writer felt regretful that he had__________．