115. Speeding?

March 17^th 1964 was an important day in my life.  In fact, that day was possibly the most important day in my life up to that point.  

There have been more important and certainly two or three more memorable days since then, but March 17^th 1964 was of vital importance to me because that was the day I passed my driving test – first time and at the relatively early age of 17 years and 38 days.

A recent study has concluded that the safest drivers on the road are those who failed their test twice but passed at the third attempt.  It is thought that these drivers don’t have the cocky self-assurance of first-time passers; they realise that they are liable to make mistakes and consequently drive more safely than people like me who passed the first time.

However, I have never had an accident, although I did have a slight bump a few years ago, but that didn’t involve another vehicle.  
I reversed in a pub car park and hit a small wooden post hidden from sight in a clump of long grass.  The fact that there was a car body repair workshop right next door to the pub was not something that I thought much about at the time but as I have become older, more cynical and much less trusting, I have come to think that the apposition of a hidden post and a body repair shop was more than just coincidence.

How do you feel about speed cameras?  I think they are essential.  Speed limits in certain places are vital.  There is little point in having a speed limit if it is never enforced.  Imagine what the outcome could be if vehicles were allowed to travel at 70 along Oxford Street in London. But speeding in central London does happen.

One day in 1968, I was a passenger in a car (no seat belts in those days) that reached 100 mph on Park Lane in London.  In those days, Park Lane - from Hyde Park Corner to Marble Arch - was an almost straight, two-lane road, just over three quarters of a mile long and with no impediments such as traffic lights.  One morning, a friend of mine who drove a Lotus, picked me up after midnight (he’d been at a party) to give me a lift to Lowestoft where we had been at school together.

“I want to make a small detour first,” he said, as he set off into central London.  As we approached Hyde Park Corner at about 2 a.m. he told me that the thing to try was a “ton down Park Lane."  I helped him by shouting out the speed as he accelerated and we reached 105 before he applied the brakes.  Madness!

For nearly 50 years my driving licence was unblemished by penalty points - but then I moved out of London!  In December 2011 it all changed.  As I drove into the village of Lilley in Hertfordshire on a Saturday morning, a concealed speed camera hidden in an unmarked van caught me.  I was doing 35 miles an hour.  Twenty minutes later, as Caroline and I left the village, I was caught on the same camera and again I was doing 35 miles an hour.  After 46 years and 9 months, six points in 20 minutes!

Six months later I was driving on Avebury Boulevard in Milton Keynes and I was speeding once more.  Here is the official police photograph:

 

I thought about doing a “Chris Huhne” and say that Caroline had been driving until I saw the photo.  It’s definitely me and it looks as though I am concentrating really hard. 

The Notice of Intended Prosecution said that I was doing 36 mph.  That number doesn’t show on the photo but that photograph was the evidence that would have been produced by the police had I contested the case.  I don’t know what the “35” on the image signifies.  If the actual speed doesn’t appear on the photo, I can’t see what’s to stop them photographing every car and issuing notices to the owners because hidden cameras are nothing to do with road safety.  They are to make money.

I was speeding.  Points and a fine is the penalty for that offence and so you probably have no sympathy for me but Milton Keynes has been meticulously planned in order to keep vehicles and pedestrians apart.  There are pedestrian tunnels and crossing lights everywhere.  

Milton Keynes, in my experience, is unique in that the speed limit changes abruptly as you approach the town centre from 70 to 30 in some places.  There is no intermediary 40 miles an hour zone in those areas. 

Avebury Boulevard is a dual carriageway and it is never particularly busy.  In three years of regularly driving along that wide, straight road, I have never seen a pedestrian crossing it. 

There are no fixed cameras in their distinctive yellow boxes on Avebury Boulevard.  On the day I was “caught”, the weather was sunny; the road was dry and I think I was the only car on that section of road at that time.  Again, it was a hidden camera in an unmarked van that caught me. 

I had accumulated nine penalty points in just six months.  Three more and I would lose my licence.  Speeding offences are not like parking offences.  

Speeding offences are comparable with drink/driving in that you cannot argue.  You are either speeding or you are not; you are either over the limit or not.  There seem to be no grey areas.  

I was interested last year in the case of the Minister of Education in the Cayman Islands who was “done” for driving over the limit.  He hit a concrete post but despite the high breathalyser reading, he insisted on his day in court.  I was intrigued to see what his defence would be but I never found out because on the morning of the court case, he changed his mind and admitted his guilt.

In June last year, I was driving to Yorkshire to collect my grandchildren.  I told them I would collect them from school at 3.15.  The journey was going well until I became stuck behind a lorry with a trailer bearing a huge metal cylindrical tank.  It was so wide that it stretched right across both the two lanes of the A1.  For half an hour I crawled along at 20 mph immediately following this behemoth and its escorting police vehicles.

At last, the road widened to three lanes and I was the first to pass it.  Ahead of me was ten miles of an empty, three-lane highway.  A week later I received notification that I had been photographed doing 80 when the limit was 70.

I didn’t lose my licence though, because I paid £90 on top of my fine to attend a “speed awareness” course.  This turned out to be a three-hour exercise in listening to the bleedin' obvious: the faster you go, the more likely you are to have an accident.  The only thing I learnt was that there are 212 fixed cameras in the Thames Valley region but only three of them are working at any one time.

It seemed to me that every person on that course resented being there.  Everyone who expressed an opinion said that they had been driving perfectly safely and the speed limit at the point where they had been caught was arbitrary, completely unnecessary and ridiculously low.  That is certainly how I felt.

To be fined for doing 80 miles an hour on an empty, wide, three-lane highway in a modern and well-maintained, high-spec, executive saloon is ridiculous and so, by the way, is the motorway speed limit of 70.

Points stay on your licence for four years and so the six points I was awarded in December 2011 have been removed now.  That is just as well because a week ago on Boxing Day at 8:20 in the morning as I drove down a steep hill into Huddersfield on a clear empty road, I was conscious of a 30 mph sign.  No sooner had I passed it, than I saw a flash in my rear-view mirror.  They got me again.

When we arrived home after spending Christmas in Yorkshire, there was a letter on the doormat.  It was from Thames Valley Police informing me that they had photographic evidence that I had been doing 35 mph on Watling Street, Fenny Stratford on December 17^th.  Twice in nine days!

So, I’m back to nine points now and it’s seven months until the three points from the Avebury Boulevard incident in June 2012 are removed. 
With Caroline at work, I am alone at home for ten hours every day.  I live three miles from the nearest shop and the nearest bus stop is more than a mile and a half away from my house.  If I lose my licence, as looks increasingly possible, things will become difficult.

Despite the apparent drawback of passing my test first time and despite having driven well over half a million miles in my lifetime and NEVER having had an accident, I am deemed to be a potential danger.

Bloody ridiculous!

103. Big Yellow Taxi

We’ve been in New York for the past few days visiting Caroline’s sister, Joanna, Matthias her husband, and their two boys, Oscar and Timo.  It has been an interesting time, especially as we were here for Halloween, an occasion that is celebrated with much more energy, enthusiasm and fervour than it is in Britain.

The most interesting, memorable and exciting part of our short visit was right at the start: the journey from Newark Liberty International Airport to Sullivan Street, New York City.  This is a trip of 14 miles that we had been told would cost $55 by cab.  We got into a yellow taxi at the airport and told, the driver, Shane our destination.

“Sixty-seven bucks,” he said, “and eighteen for the tolls.” 

It had been an eight-hour flight, I was tired and I was hungry and I didn’t argue.

We set off on a six-lane highway.  The speed limit in New Jersey and in New York State is 65 mph and unlike in the UK, most people abide by it.  Another difference from the UK is that overtaking on both sides is permitted and is usual.

Even though at three thirty on a Wednesday afternoon the traffic was by no means light, our driver quickly reached 85 mph.  He switched lanes like a downhill slalom skier, occasionally breaking sharply and then accelerating away in the vein of a Formula One driver.  Caroline and I were shaken about and bumped into each other in the back for more than five minutes. 

We reached the first toll and I handed Shane a $20 bill.  He received a wad of notes in change and off we went again but not at breakneck speed because now we were in heavy traffic.  Then came the Holland tunnel and another toll was paid.  Our driver handed me two dollars.

“This is yours,” he said.

I noticed that he still had a bundle of notes in his hand.

“What about that?” I asked, pointing to the bills.

“That’s for my journey back.”

“You won’t go back empty,” I said.  “Don’t people in New York City use yellow cabs?  They do in all the films I’ve seen.  Surely you’ll get a fare in the city.”

He ignored me.

Throughout the tunnel, lane changing was forbidden but immediately we were through, Shane started lane switching started again even though we were in heavy traffic.  After a few minutes we pulled up in the middle lane behind a stationary truck.  Shane hooted loudly and constantly for 20 seconds but nothing changed.

As the traffic to our right passed serenely by, he lost patience and with a screech of tyres, he yanked at the wheel and changed lane, but clipping the rear wing of a passing Lincoln as he did so.

The Lincoln driver stopped immediately, got out and advanced towards us, red faced with anger.  Shane also got out and the two of them stood in the middle of The Avenue of the Americas screaming and abusing each other, both accusing the other of causing the collision.  After five minutes a traffic cop arrived and tried to play the role of peacemaker but neither of them wanted peace.

Two of the three lanes were blocked.  It was four o’clock and the rush hour was starting.  Crowds of people gathered on both sidewalks, many of them taking photographs.  

Shane came back and said nothing but started the engine and turned the wheel to the left.  The other driver realised that he was about to leave and stood in front of the taxi to stop it with both arms outstretched, as if he were prepared to sacrifice himself.  Shane went right but so did the other man – stalemate.  Those in the crowd who were videoing things were getting good shots.

Shane got out and the shouting started again.  There must have been more than a hundred spectators when there was a tap on my window and I saw a young woman smiling at me.  I wound down the window.  

“Are you in a movie?”

Shane returned and sat there, fuming in angry silence.  I asked what was going on and he told us that we were waiting for the police.

“Look,” I said to him, a little apprehensively, “it was your fault, you know.  You pulled out and hit him.  He was driving straight and he did nothing wrong.  You hit the rear of his car and so he’d almost gone past and he couldn’t possibly have seen you coming across.”

That may have had an effect on him because a minute later Shane got out again and the two of them began to talk for the first time.  The other driver began to write things down and after another ten minutes, Shane came back and we set off at last. 

He had to steer to the right to avoid the truck that was still in front of us.  I suspect that he hadn’t checked his wing mirror because I was immediately startled by the noise of hammering on the roof of the taxi.  Shane had driven into a cyclist’s path and caused him to stop abruptly.

“Well?” I asked him a couple of minutes later when all was quiet at last.  “How did you leave it?”

“Three hundred dollars,” he said.

“I reckon you got a good deal,” I said, and then he seemed to cheer up.  But it soon became horribly obvious that he didn’t have a clue where Sullivan Street was.

“Haven’t you got sat nav?” Caroline asked him.

“No.”

“A map then?” she said.

“No.”

Caroline rummaged in her rucksack and got out The Lonely Planet guide to New York.  She opened it at the street map.

“Next left…….Straight on…….Straight on…….Left…….It should be the next road on the right.”

“She knows what she knows,” Shane shouted, getting excited, all his past troubles seemingly forgotten.

When we saw the green road sign saying, ‘Sullivan Street’, Shane let out a whoop of triumph and he banged on the steering wheel with both fists. 

“She knows!  She knows!  The girl knows.  The girl knows,” he yelled at the top of his voice, with the look of a man who has scored the winning goal in the last minute of a cup final.  I have never before seen a licensed taxi driver so excited at reaching the destination.

We pulled up outside Joanna’s house, the thirty-minute journey having taken more than two hours.  I handed Shane seventy dollars.

“Twenty per cent is usual,” he said.

And would you believe it?  He was serious. 

80. Get a move on!

Caroline doesn’t seem to be very aware of the speed she is driving when she is behind the wheel of my car.  Maybe she is more conscious of her rate of progress when she drives her own car but twice now I have found her to be completely oblivious to the speed we are travelling when she drives mine.

The first time I knew of this problem was in September 2010.  I mentioned it in "Not Funny".  We were on an empty, dry, straight section of the M6 toll road very early on a bright Saturday morning.  Caroline was driving and I saw that the speedometer was showing just less than 110 mph.

“The manual says that this car will do a hundred and fifty five,” I said.  “Do you want to give it a try?”

“Don’t be silly,” said Caroline, “Even though it’s a toll road, there’s still a seventy miles an hour speed limit.”

We’ve just spent a week with Matthias and Joanna and their two boys in the Medoc region of France, northwest of Bordeaux.  Joanna is Caroline’s sister and yesterday we drove home from there to Wavendon. 

As it is 690 miles by road the journey took us nearly 15 hours and we took turns driving.  Although it was tiring, it was straightforward and there were no problems on the clear French autoroutes.

All was straightforward, that is, until the last 13 miles.  The last section of the M1 before our turnoff has been undergoing upgrades for the last decade or so and for no discernable reason there is still a 50mph speed limit.

We were crawling along on cruise control in the inside lane and vehicle after vehicle was going past us.  I was feeling weary and uncomfortable and wanted to get home.  I looked over at the speedometer and saw that it was set at about 35. 

“For God’s sake, speed it up!” I shouted.  “Why are you going so slow?”

“I’m doing 54,” Caroline said, icily.  She was obviously beginning to feel very tired too.

“No you’re not and how can you be so precise?”

“Because it says so there,” she snapped, jabbing her index finger at the dashboard.

“That’s the outside temperature,” I sighed, wearily.

“Oh, so it is.”

65. Twelve and a half!

Caroline and I have been in Virginia for the last few days.  We fly back to the UK tomorrow.  

I became engaged in a conversation with an American yesterday who tried to convince me that America’s refusal to adopt the metric system of measurement had absolutely no detrimental effect on life here.  

In fact, he told me, an American scientist’s ability to distinguish (by eye) the difference between say, a screw 3/4 of an inch from one 50/64 of an inch long, gave him or her a distinct advantage over the technicians of the rest of the world.  That may or may not be true.

What is true, however, is that Americans are able to judge speed to a degree of amazing accuracy.  When we came across this sign on the drive leading to a hotel in Irvington VA, I was profoundly grateful that Caroline was driving the SUV and not me:  

You will find my last regular posting on March 27th here: At the End of The day