The news of the A66 murders – that’s what I’m calling them – have once again highlighted the dangers of reckless driving. An extreme example of reckless driving, I know, and way in excess of what we see every day on our roads, but what I see every day on our roads can be grim. I certainly saw plenty of grim driving today as I travelled from one side of the city to the other.
None of it surprised me. From cyclists who don’t obey traffic signals (today that was all cyclists), people who don’t seem to know how to use their indicators and those angry people, almost exclusively young men, who are seemingly desperate to reach the next set of red lights before anyone else, they were all out there today. Mind you, I suspect that many drivers hate me, too.
Since I was nicked for speeding 25 years ago, I have been the sort of person the younger me might have detested. My partner calls me a ‘dawdler’, as I try to stay within the speed limit at all times, which occasionally sees me holding up long lines of traffic, particularly on motorways where most people seem to think 70 MPH is a minimum speed, not a maximum. This is partly because I have little to rush for these days, but if I have to be anywhere by a certain time I take the revolutionary option of – wait for it – leaving home a bit earlier. And, as I am closer to the end of life than the beginning, taking risks, like driving like an idiot, does not make any sense.
Today, I drove on the Avon Ring Road, which is obviously nothing like a ring or circle at all. It’s a long, dual carriageway, interrupted by numerous roundabouts and something called a throughabout (AKA a hamburger roundabout – no gherkins for me, ta) and it’s stop and start all the way, in between what appears to be F1 qualifying once the lights turn green. I was beeped at today for waiting for the light to go green, so angry was one man who promptly gave me the middle finger as he tore off to the next set of lights. I gave him a cheerful smile as I pulled up next to him. For some reason, he didn’t seem to see the funny side.
I do understand why people want to drive fast. We all have different reasons, although for some folk it’s just their version of human nature. If we are going to get somewhere, it has to be as quickly and as soon as possible. Speed, it seems, is a drug.
As I neared home, I was overtaken by a group of four men, riding incredibly fast electric bikes, their faces covered in black balaclavas, dodging between cars, never indicating, always gambling that car drivers would allow them to get past. Of course we all did – we don’t want to trash our cars, the only reason – but one day these idiots won’t get away with it. I just hope they don’t injure or even kill an innocent person when it all goes wrong.
There is a certain pleasure in not driving as fast as possible. It’s far less stressful and so much healthier. If I am hurrying up to the traffic lights, desperately trying to get through before they turn red, I am not calm. If I am carrying out a dangerous overtaking manoeuvre, I will know that it is not 100% certain that I will manage it safely, relying as I will be on another driver, perhaps, to give way or get out of the way.
When it comes to driving, we are all in it together. We’re giving way at the correct places, we’re not squeezing people off the road, we’re allowing them to get in our lane when theirs is closed. We do all that and life is so much easier. Why, as Todd Rundgren so astutely put it, can’t we be friends?
Lives can end very quickly in a car crash. All those hopes and dreams dashed and taken away in the blink of an eye. That happened near Middlesbrough last week and you’d like to imagine their fellow bad and reckless drivers would take time to think about their actions.
I was pleased to get home in one piece this afternoon, one of the slowest cars on the road. Well, not the car, the driver. I could have been home, oh as much as two minutes before I actually was. I wonder what I would have done with those two minutes? The honest answer is probably the square root of fuck all and they would have been absorbed into the rest of the day without me even noticing, such is the pointlessness of rushing anywhere by car.
I’m definitely starting to slow down but when it comes to driving, it’s absolutely intentional. Heaven, or Hell, can wait. (Not that either of them exist, obvs.)
