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| Version 4 | Version 5 |
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| You give me road rage | You give me road rage |
| (5 days later) | |
| We're all going on a summer holiday... and for many a looooong car journey is on the cards. In his weekly column, Laurie Taylor explains why he, for one, will not be debating the relative merits of alternative routes. | We're all going on a summer holiday... and for many a looooong car journey is on the cards. In his weekly column, Laurie Taylor explains why he, for one, will not be debating the relative merits of alternative routes. |
| Sometimes you can become ideologically correct by simply standing still. | Sometimes you can become ideologically correct by simply standing still. |
| For years I've thoroughly disliked everything about cars. I don't want to drive or be driven in cars. I don't want to talk about the relative merits of different cars. | For years I've thoroughly disliked everything about cars. I don't want to drive or be driven in cars. I don't want to talk about the relative merits of different cars. |
| FIND OUT MORE Hear Laurie Taylor's Thinking Allowed on Radio 4 at 1600 on Wednesdays or 0030 on MondaysOr listen to it here on the iPlayer | FIND OUT MORE Hear Laurie Taylor's Thinking Allowed on Radio 4 at 1600 on Wednesdays or 0030 on MondaysOr listen to it here on the iPlayer |
| I don't want to hear about incidents which have occurred while people have been driving their cars. I don't want to talk about speed bumps, parking wardens, motorway madness, gridlock, or the impossibility of ever getting to Norwich on the A12. | I don't want to hear about incidents which have occurred while people have been driving their cars. I don't want to talk about speed bumps, parking wardens, motorway madness, gridlock, or the impossibility of ever getting to Norwich on the A12. |
| Not one of these attitudes has been prompted by the environmental movement. Nearly all stem from a throwaway remark in the 1984 film Repo Man. | Not one of these attitudes has been prompted by the environmental movement. Nearly all stem from a throwaway remark in the 1984 film Repo Man. |
| The heroes, or anti-heroes, of this film spend most of their time repossessing automobiles, but there is one moment when they wander across a stretch of derelict no-man's land lying between criss-crossing elevated motorways and encounter a strange hippie figure who has worked out a new theory of everything. | The heroes, or anti-heroes, of this film spend most of their time repossessing automobiles, but there is one moment when they wander across a stretch of derelict no-man's land lying between criss-crossing elevated motorways and encounter a strange hippie figure who has worked out a new theory of everything. |
| A Repo Man at work | A Repo Man at work |
| What is wrong with the world, he explains, is driving. Driving makes you mad. Only when people stop driving cars will universal sanity be restored. | What is wrong with the world, he explains, is driving. Driving makes you mad. Only when people stop driving cars will universal sanity be restored. |
| I sold my car shortly after seeing the film and began what has now been nearly 20 years systematic observation of what happens when people stop being people and start being drivers. | I sold my car shortly after seeing the film and began what has now been nearly 20 years systematic observation of what happens when people stop being people and start being drivers. |
| Frankly, the results are frightening. Most of us, of course, would recognise the manner in which getting behind the wheel of a car can transform a normally polite, even timorous individual, into a person who can be cast into a sadistic rage by the mere failure of the driver in front to give an indication that they intend to take the next turning left. | Frankly, the results are frightening. Most of us, of course, would recognise the manner in which getting behind the wheel of a car can transform a normally polite, even timorous individual, into a person who can be cast into a sadistic rage by the mere failure of the driver in front to give an indication that they intend to take the next turning left. |
| Around the bend | Around the bend |
| But this is only one variety of driving psychosis. I have also watched in alarm as close friends climb into the driving seat of their car and proceed to tell me, without any hint of irony, the merits of their three-speed windscreen wipers, the bass sound on their eight-speaker stereo system, and the ability of the backseat to fold down and transform itself into a five-seater picnic table. | But this is only one variety of driving psychosis. I have also watched in alarm as close friends climb into the driving seat of their car and proceed to tell me, without any hint of irony, the merits of their three-speed windscreen wipers, the bass sound on their eight-speaker stereo system, and the ability of the backseat to fold down and transform itself into a five-seater picnic table. |
| Tempers fraying | Tempers fraying |
| If any one of them had drawn attention to the features of their living room in such a crass, indulgent, materialist manner, they'd have long since been socially ostracised. | If any one of them had drawn attention to the features of their living room in such a crass, indulgent, materialist manner, they'd have long since been socially ostracised. |
| If not institutionally confined. | If not institutionally confined. |
| I've also travelled with life-long socialists who think nothing on a rainy day of turning up their car heating and stereo and crashing - without a moment's reflection - through the thick puddles lying alongside the inadequate bus shelters where the poor and neglected wait for their over-crowded public transport. | I've also travelled with life-long socialists who think nothing on a rainy day of turning up their car heating and stereo and crashing - without a moment's reflection - through the thick puddles lying alongside the inadequate bus shelters where the poor and neglected wait for their over-crowded public transport. |
| I've also sat in the backs of cars and listened while an otherwise happily married couple engaged in a discussion about whether or not it was best to take the first or second turning off the motorway to Leicester, which could hardly have been more heated if they'd been accusing each other of persistent infidelity. | I've also sat in the backs of cars and listened while an otherwise happily married couple engaged in a discussion about whether or not it was best to take the first or second turning off the motorway to Leicester, which could hardly have been more heated if they'd been accusing each other of persistent infidelity. |
| I've also been driven by eminent philosophers who've talked truisms for hours; by sensitive nature observers who've failed to observe a single natural feature in a 200 mile drive; by advanced students of sociology who've regularly informed me of the genetic basis for other drivers' incompetence. | I've also been driven by eminent philosophers who've talked truisms for hours; by sensitive nature observers who've failed to observe a single natural feature in a 200 mile drive; by advanced students of sociology who've regularly informed me of the genetic basis for other drivers' incompetence. |
| Yes, driving makes you mad. Stop it now. After all, just think. One day you might have me as a passenger. | Yes, driving makes you mad. Stop it now. After all, just think. One day you might have me as a passenger. |
| Below is a selection of your comments. | Below is a selection of your comments. |
| For someone who doesn't drive you seem to spend a hell of a lot of time in cars. How well would you get on if everyone really did give up driving and you couldn't cadge rides?Pete, Liverpool, UK | For someone who doesn't drive you seem to spend a hell of a lot of time in cars. How well would you get on if everyone really did give up driving and you couldn't cadge rides?Pete, Liverpool, UK |
| As one of the have-nots dependent on the bus service, I can appreciate the urge to get behind a car wheel and independent of timetables and tortuous set routes - but I have experienced drivers soaking shoes and clothing ploughing through the results of heavy rain, pop blasted raucously from cars, crazy behaviour with a suicidal disregard for the rules and a bus held up/diverted on the A6 by a severe crash when going out to a relative in A&E. Not only did this smash-up involving three cars occupy precious beds due to some fool swerving from a side road, but another A & E patient had suffered a cycle accident on the Snake Pass (Peak District) due to similar behaviour! If these people cannot maintain their sanity and sense behind a wheel, they should opt for the buses - and free up beds for eg the elderly. K WATSON, UK | As one of the have-nots dependent on the bus service, I can appreciate the urge to get behind a car wheel and independent of timetables and tortuous set routes - but I have experienced drivers soaking shoes and clothing ploughing through the results of heavy rain, pop blasted raucously from cars, crazy behaviour with a suicidal disregard for the rules and a bus held up/diverted on the A6 by a severe crash when going out to a relative in A&E. Not only did this smash-up involving three cars occupy precious beds due to some fool swerving from a side road, but another A & E patient had suffered a cycle accident on the Snake Pass (Peak District) due to similar behaviour! If these people cannot maintain their sanity and sense behind a wheel, they should opt for the buses - and free up beds for eg the elderly. K WATSON, UK |
| This article made me smile and I there's definitely some truth in it. Not just for drivers but also passengers! I consider myself a reasonably competent driver who - touch wood! - hasn't had an accident in 13 years of driving. However, my husband, a normally cheerful and good-natured man, when travelling as a passenger with me will lose his rag over the smallest of mistakes, usually involving slowing down too much or too soon. It drives me round the bend, if you'll pardon the pun.Catherine, Leicester | |
| I got rid of my car in 1997. Listening to my colleagues I can only agree with Laurie about how miserable they make people. The daily grind of finding a parking space at the office puts them in a bad mood before they've even started work, while I've just strolled in from the bus stop. | |
| I'm also amazed at how my brightest and best colleagues waste so much of their day in banal conversations about which motorways they used to get to the office. What a waste of intellect!Noam, Oxford | |
| The pressures put on everyone to learn to drive at a ridiculously early age must be a factor in explaining why people behave so differently when they are behind the wheel. Some people are temperamentally unsuited to this sort of activity; I myself am one such, and having never learned to drive do not consider myself to be impoverished in any way by lacking this particular skill. I initially failed to learn due to not being able to afford lessons as a teenager when all my friends were learning. Now in my 30s I know myself well enough to realise that the stress of constant pressure from other road-users, coupled with an overactive imagination constantly supplying the next death-scenario would make me a danger to myself and everyone else on the road. Kate, Oxford, UK | The pressures put on everyone to learn to drive at a ridiculously early age must be a factor in explaining why people behave so differently when they are behind the wheel. Some people are temperamentally unsuited to this sort of activity; I myself am one such, and having never learned to drive do not consider myself to be impoverished in any way by lacking this particular skill. I initially failed to learn due to not being able to afford lessons as a teenager when all my friends were learning. Now in my 30s I know myself well enough to realise that the stress of constant pressure from other road-users, coupled with an overactive imagination constantly supplying the next death-scenario would make me a danger to myself and everyone else on the road. Kate, Oxford, UK |
| I don't recognise what being angry has to do with driving. I get equally angry just trying to walk through crowds. I've been living the life of a pseudosardine and the last 15 years have become a joke. I can't take the crowds, with their cars, their baby buggies, their elbows sticking out to make sure that you know they are on the phone, their amazing ability to make sure that the very long queue we're in is made as long as possible by deciding to complain about the wait in the most obstructive way possible.Nic, Nottingham, England | |
| Driving behaviour is undoubtedly a form of psychosis. Another interesting aspect is how different regional or national variation can alter the mood of this psychosis. In Stockholm, drivers actually stop unprompted to allow pedestrians to cross, they can see the the human on the outside of the metal box.D Barron, London | Driving behaviour is undoubtedly a form of psychosis. Another interesting aspect is how different regional or national variation can alter the mood of this psychosis. In Stockholm, drivers actually stop unprompted to allow pedestrians to cross, they can see the the human on the outside of the metal box.D Barron, London |
| I gave up my car in 1988. Now that I walk everywhere I find my old driving skills are needed on the pavement. Before a sudden change in direction I glance behind me in case I am being silently over/undertaken by a cyclist or mobility scooter. When pedestrians are approaching in line abreast then I anticipate they will probably inadvertantly force me into the road. At the same time I try to avoid adding to an obvious bottle-neck that will happen a few seconds hence. My conclusion is that most people have lost the ability to think ahead in any situation.ChrisJk, UK |