Car Chaos

Having a car brings you bad luck. A friend of the Chris Dixon house was beaten up by her neighbour for parking in her ‘spot’- ‘spot’ in this case denoting an area on the road in front of crazy lady’s house. The woman tried to break into her car before punching her in the face and then getting her mates to lie to the police. All because of a 6ft patch of cement. Has the world gone mad? Other evidence of cars bringing you bad luck includes me nearly getting run over today while riding my bike. Some dick in a fancy car turned right at the lights by the business school at the same time I was going straight across. Anyone over the age of five knows that if you’re turning against the traffic you have to wait until the oncoming traffic has stopped before you turn. Not this arsehole. She turned without even looking because cyclists don’t count, don’t you know? Then she starts hammering on the horn because she blatantly feels guilty about being such a shocking driver. I gave her the finger and rode on. What does this have to do with bad luck relating to the owning of cars, I hear you ask? I just know there was some kind of divine retribution happening when the idiot motorist tried to end my life today.

In this country we love cars. The average Briton travels 6815 miles each year, four fifths of which is by car. By contrast to this our walking distances have fallen by 20% since the 1980s. Link to obesity, anyone? I have met people who live within walking distance to a gym yet drive there. This is the cultural norm. If the whole point is getting fit, surely jogging or power walking there would be getting more value for money? Those of you wanting to shrink your waistlines should be aware that people who live in the suburbs, where car ownership is highest, weigh 2.7kg more than those living in city centres, where people tend to use public transport, feet and bikes a lot more.

It is rare that I agree with anything Ken Livingstone says (come on, the guy likened a journalist to a concentration camp guard. This was highly offensive, particularly as the journo had already said he was Jewish) but the Mayor of London did something good with his life when he famously called SUV drivers ‘complete idiots’. Only 5% of SUVs are ever driven off road, not to mention that the occupants of a vehicle hit by an SUV are 27 times more likely to be killed than the occupants of a normal car. I’m glad they are getting taxed more and they have to pay more to park if they are fortunate enough to live in the borough of Richmond. Setting aside the fact they are expensive, petrol-guzzling killing machines for a second, does a school mum who collects her little darlings from the suburbs in a giant Cherokee realise she looks like a complete prat?

Going back to the car and the attempted cyclist assassination this morning, I realised that people are just afraid. Sitting behind screens makes people feel protected because they don’t have to mix with the great unwashed. This is even truer for someone who climbs into a giant machine to drive to the supermarket. They know they will do pretty well in an accident, so sod the people they squash on the way. Engaging with your local environment is the only way to cure this fear. You can’t beat cycling on a sunny day, wind in your hair, leaving the pedestrians, and often the cars, in the dust. It will do wonders for your attitude…and maybe inspire a bit of cyclist rage.

*All the statistics used in the column were from a book called ‘A Good Life’ by Leo Hickman.