The Collar and the Cab

In an act of pure opportunist self-promotion and in the hope of selling some I am publishing some extracts from my new book The Collar and the Cab on this blog. There are 35 chapters so it will take a couple of months to offer a little from each. 

32
Bramhope – Bad Driving

 Some months into my foray into the world of taxi driving
I had learned the painful way that I was not nearly as good a
driver as I had thought, but I was hardly alone in assessing my
ability behind the wheel at anything between “above average”
and “exceptional”. In the UK it is estimated that about 80%
of drivers rate themselves at above average (the figure for the
US is anything up to 93%!) This kind of statistic makes sense
only in subjects like philosophy and theology where paradoxes
and dichotomies defy semantic exactitude – and professional
football where players apparently regularly give “110%”. In the
real and tangible world it is a statistical impossibility – only
something just under 50% can be above average.
The answers to the question why this should be so are
many and varied, and lie in the domain of the professional
psychologist, but I reckon it is because at least in part we rate
the faults of other drivers as being far more serious than our
own. Take, for instance, the scenario where you are occupying
the centre lane of a three lane motorway and, in a short while,
but not quite yet, you will need to overtake something in the
inside lane. You decide not to pull in but to save yourself the
hassle of having to do the whole “mirror-signal-manoeuvre”
thing and stay put because it’s pretty quiet and, in any case,
your speedometer is registering 72 mph and that’s about the
speed limit. Then some huge Tonka toy known fondly as a
4x4, driven in all probability by an overweight middle-aged
bloke whose declining libido finds compensation in aggressive
driving, appears from nowhere in your rear view mirror and
if he’s not doing a ton it isn’t far off. He (I’m using the male
personal pronoun because it usually, though not exclusively is
a he) comes right up to your rear end before flashing his lights
repeatedly and veering into the outside lane, tooting his horn
and pointedly pulling in front of you long before a safe distance
has been established. You are guilty, at the worst, of being a little
dilatory in your lane discipline, whereas not only has he broken
at least three laws in completing the manoeuvre (speeding,
sounding horn, driving without due care and attention) he is
also completely oblivious to these faults. His performance has,
in his own eyes, been superb. Should he have a passenger he
will sound off about “bloody tortoises who don’t have a clue
how to drive at speed on a motorway” without rating his own
performance at anything less than exemplary. If there is no
impressionable passenger he is likely soon to be busy on his
‘phone – probably without the required hands-free kit – telling
a friend about the appalling driving habits he is encountering
today. If challenged he will assert his right to drive at that speed
and in that fashion because both he and his vehicle are capable
of far greater than average performance and the speed limit “in
this day and age” of 70 mph is ridiculously low.
One day we will probably all get into cars that will, in effect,
drive themselves, always obeying the rules of the road and
travelling within the speed limit. At this point our friend will
need to find another outlet to compensate for his inadequacies
in other domains or else regularly take a cold shower.

 Some examples of bad driving were undoubtedly alcohol
related. Most nights after about 1.30 a.m. the vast majority of
vehicles on the road were taxis, private hire cars and emergency
vehicles. I always enjoyed driving at this time of night because
whilst there was still some aggressive driving – the police were
particularly conspicuous for driving at twice the speed limit and
passing through red lights whilst not answering an emergency
call – generally the drivers knew what they were doing and their
behaviour was predictable. Just occasionally I encountered a
drunk driver weaving from one side of the road to the other,
but more often I witnessed the aftermath of journeys cut short
by those who had had just enough to drink to loosen their
inhibitions and were convinced that they were perfectly fit to
drive at whatever speed they chose.
Rarely a night shift passed without witnessing at least
one scene of carnage where, in all probability, there had been
serious injury, if not a fatality. Cars lying on their roofs, spread
at grotesque angles somewhere off the road with doors, boot
and bonnet open or wrapped around the proverbial lamp-post
were common sights in the early hours. The most intriguing
spectacle I recall was a car that was propped up vertically with
its front bumper on the ground and rear end against the central
support of a railway bridge carrying trains across a busy section
of the ring road. It appeared to be unscathed by whatever turn
of events had led to this scenario, and I spent the next half hour
or more trying unsuccessfully to imagine a set of circumstances
that would have caused it to come to rest in this position.