Driving Everybody Crazy

THE HOME OF THE SPEED CAMERA

Until we moved to Northamptonshire a couple of years ago, I had never had a speeding ticket.  This, of course, did not mean that I’d never broken the speed limit.  It was just that I’d never been caught before.  Down south, the councils were too tight/skint/lazy to ever buy any film for their cameras.  Or maybe they just couldn’t be arsed to nip in to Jessops to get them developed.  Anyway, apparently this county’s roads hosted the pilot project for the first generation of speed (or safety) cameras.  Lancashire and Yorkshire had their own war.  Cornwall was infested with pirates.  Kent and Sussex were regular targets for invading armies.  Northamptonshire?  It invented the speed camera.  Hey, no-one can say we don’t live it up around here.

Having paid one hundred and eighty quid in fines and accumulated nine penalty points on my licence since making the move out of London, I decided to take another look at my behaviour on the road.  I’d already been driving quite a bit slower for a couple of years since reading about taking life in the chill lane.  In fact, all three of my transgressions had been for driving at less than forty miles per hour in a thirty zone.  By the way, that’s just a fact – not a justification.  I got caught red-eyed (they’re rubbish those cameras) and paid the price without too much whining.  Despite the rabid frothing coming from the likes of Jeremy Clarkson and his army of drooling petrol heads, the reality is that cars are one of the biggest killers in the UK and that driving slower saves lives.  There’s no logical way around that statistic unless we want to put our need for speed above someone else’s right to life.

LIFE IN THE SLOW LANE

Despite dreaming of a life without a car (something which we enjoyed during our three months in Venezuela last year*), my current place of employment means that I have to drive to and from work.  I’ve chosen to go across country, sacrificing the speed (but also regular heavy traffic) of the motorway for a slower journey through some very attractive English countryside.  It’s been on this journey that I’ve found out a lot about other drivers and, more importantly, an awful lot about my own character.

that driver is going too slow and needs to be introduced to Mr. Accelerator

It was a few years ago that I learned the principle of “I’m always going at exactly the right speed”.  The principle works like this.  If you’re stuck really close behind the car in front and it’s slowing you down, that driver is going too slow and needs to be introduced to Mr. Accelerator.  If, however, another car is up really close behind you when you’re driving at a perfectly reasonable speed (given the prevailing weather conditions and the particular track playing on your in-car entertainment system**), it’s quite obvious that he or she is a dangerous lunatic who needs to be introduced to Mr. Magistrate and Mrs. Life Ban.  I think you know what I’m saying – the other driver is always wrong.

When someone tail-gates me, I lean out of my window and shoot their tyres with a semi-automatic weapon I’ve concealed in the glove compartmentSince driving slower, I’ve only rarely got stuck behind a slower moving vehicle.  Usually these are delivering milk to sleepy village homes or transferring hay from one field to another.  More often, I’ve found myself in a situation where the car behind is wanting to go faster than me.  The speed limit alternates between 60mph out in the country and 20mph or 30mph in the villages dotted along the route.  I’ve lost count of the number of times that I’ve been tail-gated, usually by red-faced, middle-aged men in high-powered saloon cars and, only once, by a small green spaceship from the planet Thrarg (I’ve stopped using that particular brand of herbal tea now).

For the first few days, the slower I drove, the higher my levels of arrogance, self-righteousness and, occasionally, outright anger soared into the stratosphere (I’m not sure if excessive self-righteousness contributes towards global warming, but it sucks anyway).  Can you believe how fast he’s driving through that village?  Did you see him overtake on that blind bend?  Do you think he buys the Daily Telegraph or the Daily Mail?  Ooh ooh, is it an Audi or a BMW***?  Blah blah vroom vroom blah blah.

PAINFUL DRIVING LESSONS

What the whole exercise was doing – beyond most of the things set out in my first paragraph – was bringing to the surface a lot of my unresolved character flaws.  I don’t want people to think I’m driving slowly because I’m getting old.  I’m still too competitive to enjoy other cars overtaking me.  It makes me angry when people take risks with their own lives and the lives of others.  I enjoy judging people and feeling superior.  So what started out as a really positive exercise has turned into something else as well.  I’m still sticking to the speed limits but I’m working even harder on my character.  If someone is speeding, I try to think the best.  Maybe their speed really is necessary.  When someone overtakes, I try not to hope to find them stuck behind a long convoy of tractors just around the next corner.  When someone tail-gates me, I lean out of my window and shoot their tyres with a semi-automatic weapon I’ve concealed in the glove compartment.  Ok, ok, I made that last one up.  I just fantasise about doing that.  But I am trying to get better........

*for more about our adventures in Venezuela, check out Take the Red Pill’s travelog section.

**if the sun’s out and it’s Bob Marley playing – hey, what’s the hurry?

***for more TTRP thoughts on such matters, check out Radical Changes to the Highway Code.