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| A manual transmission Ford Fusion - 2007. Also known as 'Caroline'... |
Hi.
I am a driver. I drive a car. A manual car. I use a hand and foot-operated
clutch to change gears to suit the speed at which the vehicle is moving.
I
do that. Me. While I watch the road, keeping alert to other road users and everything
else going on around me. I also use one of my hands to operate and adjust the
angle of the headlamps according to light conditions (and the weight of
whatever I may have in the boot), and another to regulate the cabin temperature.
I learned how to do all this in my early twenties with the AA Driving School. A
year after I qualified for my full driving license, I realised just how little
I had actually needed to know to pass my test, and just how much there is to
learn about being on the road, especially if you live in a rural area like the
New Forest. Now sliding into my mid-fifties, I consider I am still learning.
That
said, I clearly needn't have bothered. Cars now switch on their bluey LED
string 'driving' lights the minute you flop your bum down behind the steering
wheel, sun roofs open and close, doors flap, and in-flight voices smoothly
instruct you as to what checks the vehicle is making whilst you get comfy on
their soft, heated, Moroccan calfskin seats.
You
may as well just step onto a transporter pad. Beam me up, Scotty.
People
are getting very, very lazy, as car adverts for vehicles costing more and more get
sillier and sillier. I noticed the rot had set in some 12 years ago when I got
into a rich mate's babe-magnet low-slung sports thing, and it handed me my
seat-belt. A robotic arm crept out and headed towards my chest area as I
watched, flattened to the seat, cross-eyed and in mounting panic, before my
tweed-clad, laughing chum explained what it was doing and what it wanted. His
motor was state of the art at the time.
"Geordie,
you utter creep!" I yelled. "Get your car to grope your dates for you
now?"
We
both laughed, but turns out that was just the beginning. There literally is
almost no such thing as 'driving' anymore. Not if you're the owner of one of
the 'new generation' of motor vehicles. You just get in, switch it on (or with
some of the more advanced models, it seems you just have to fart in its general
direction for it to spring into action), and off you go.
The
day is rapidly approaching when all you need do is settle your sit-upon in the
front seat (that's either front seat depending on your mood), shout out a
post-code or OS coordinates, then just sit back listening to music or watching
television while the car transports you to your destination.
Every
year, with every new generation of motorised vehicle rolling off the assembly
line (and of course, built by robots), the gadgets get more 'sophisticated' as
the 'comfort' and 'convenience'' of the customer provide designers with ever
more 'challenges'. If I thought it was pathetic when cars started beeping at
you to aid your reverse-parking, they now even brake for you using 'sensors'.
As
if actual kinetics were not enough, we now have standard 'enhanced visibility'
in the form of automatically activated over bright headlamps. With no
legislation yet to bring them to heel, these sharply angled, angry-looking halogen
headlamps, activated by the ignition of the engine, blaze in your face on sunny
days, and blind you at night as they beam hundreds of yards ahead even
supposedly on 'dipped'. Apparently, it's become important for drivers to be
able to see several hundred miles ahead of them down the road. Other road users
coming in the opposite direction need to invest in orange, anti-glare Ski-glasses
to avoid going off the road, and yet car manufacturers actually dare
to boast about the 'reach' of these anti-personnel standard Glare Mout Dazzlers they mount on the mean
'faces' of their vehicle designs.
…and
that's another thing I've noticed: cars have got more aggressive looking. I
remember when Vauxhall decided to give their Corsa a round bum to 'appeal' to women (because everyone knows
human females get scared and panicky if household and other items don't somehow
ape their arses in design), but this 'soft' approach has given way to a trend
that sees domestic motor vehicles now all looking like Anton Furst's Batmobile
'eating up the tarmac' like Satan on wheels, and 'challenging' all in their
path …to Waitrose or B&Q on a Saturday afternoon.
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| "Grrrr...." The Lexus LX - 2016 |
Gone
are the round, friendly, chrome mounted headlamps of my youth with their happy
looking grills. Now, vicious predators
roar up your arse on country lanes. You look up into your rear view mirror to
see Abaddon the Despoiler
with its headlamps deliberately designed to look like eyes with what I am reliably informed is actually termed 'aggressive styling' burrowing up your bumper trying to force you to break the speed
limit to get away from them, or pull over to let them pass on their urgent way.
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| "Purrr...." An Austin Healey 3000 - 1962 |
No
wonder there are so many more accidents than I remember from my early driving days. Not only are these new disagreeable looking cars incredibly distracting if they pull up behind you, their drivers
just don't need to pay as much attention to the road - or to anyone else using it - as once they had to. Or at least they
don't think they do.
Every
time I leave my house, I wonder if I will come back in one piece, or if some overpaid
numpty in a Chelsea Tractor which probably takes their kids to school by
itself, does the laundry, and picks up the dry-cleaning by remote control, will
plough into me - while its owner is checking off their shopping list in the passenger
seat…
Because
that's all 'state of the art' modern cars will seemingly permit their owners to
be: passengers. They're not drivers. Not by my definition anyway.
Whenever
I see someone coming towards me in a bashed old Ford or a mud-spattered Land
Rover, I feel like high-fiving them.
Well
done, Ma'am.
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| HMQ in her beloved 1987 Land Rover |
© Emmeline Wyndham – November 2016
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