nothing new
In further 'finding all sorts of old stuff that I hadn't realised I'd saved' news, and the resulting 'might as well publish it again because I'm not really up to writing much new at the moment' health, here's another tired old blog post dredged out of a secure storage facility, where it should have stayed, and thrust blinking upon the lights of a new stage.
I could probably write something if I forced myself to start writing somehow, but my brain is convinced it has no topics in it worth bothering you with, largely because I am doing sod all at the moment.
I've heard a good habit to try to develop is starting your day off with ten minutes or so of free writing and journaling, and I have tried developing that habit. It lasted three days last time, but I shall keep trying it as even adding these few paragraphs to this post has helped a bit.
Anyway, for some reason I thought a good substitute for not writing would be copying, pasting, and lightly editing an old Google docs draft I found of a post originally published on a blog in April 2018.
This comes from a time when I was blogging in the third person and was called Bryntin. I did consider a find and replace of all Bryntin's with scribblan's, and even going through it and perhaps changing it all to read in first person, but of course laziness won out.
I can't remember the reasons for doing either, but it seems that I was still concerned with the quality of driving vehicles I encountered in the UK, which has sadly been a theme I have revisited and cogitated on a lot.
Bryntin was sedate.
He knew this because, while he was driving them home from the cinema, Mrs Bryntin had said “You drive so sedately”.
Bryntin took some small pleasure in this as he was of the opinion that this was meant as a compliment, and briefly imagined himself to be driving smoothly at the helm of a Rolls Royce, formally-suited and with some high-powered executive calling him James sat comfortably in the back seats. As such, he thought the complimentary words coming from Mrs Bryntin about him should be savoured. Perhaps even recorded in his diary. Or printed and framed.
It turned out after further discussion that what she meant by 'sedately' was ‘slow’.
“I drive properly,” he said defending himself, and was immediately slapped, because this comment by definition apparently implies that Mrs Bryntin does not drive properly and Bryntin deserves a slap.
Sometimes Bryntin thinks that he might as well only ever say "Slap me," in response to anything Mrs Bryntin says, just to save the time and effort of saying the wrong thing first time.
However, Mrs Bryntin was correct in assuming he thought she didn’t drive properly, even though that’s not what he really meant this time.
Bryntin had spent some time this week travelling around by bicycle and walking. He had always thought there was a tremendous amount of pleasure to be gained by going a little bit slower. Noticing his surroundings and being immersed in them, rather than just travelling through them in a high speed container of some sort, were completely different things he thought.
An environment had time to seep in to your senses if you were actually engaged and a part of it, rather than it just being a lot of random places that weren't either where you started or where you wanted to be.
As always though, choosing to go a little bit slower -and under his own mainly chips-fuelled steam (sometimes quite a lot of steam) - had a distinct downside that was generally contributed to by the same subgroup of generalised and perhaps unfairly sorted-by-subgroup humanity.
Drivers.
Bryntin had noticed something about drivers - sometimes when he was driving himself, but mainly when being on foot or on a bicycle - which very much enhanced the pure adrenaline-filled and near-death experience of the whole thing. Particularly in rural parts like his own.
Drivers don’t seem to do driving properly any more.
Specifically, drivers seem to be under the impression that a ton and a half of metal is perfectly safe travelling at 40mph plus in a one carriageway lane, no matter how generally unsuitable for their vehicle, how unsighted due to high hedges, or how twisty it is. The modus operandi appears to be "I am travelling forwards as quickly as I want in a car, and I of course am not expecting the unexpected."
They seem to believe that they can now do making a turn into another road using any curved path that is convenient and quick for them, no matter if it means driving over the junction markings or causing danger to anyone else there - like them perhaps needing to suddenly learn the art of jumping into a hedge, or quickly coming to a shuddering emergency stop otherwise they'll lose a bumper, wing, or appendage.
Or have the impression that cyclists like being passed at one foot distance, because it gives them a chance to test their balance skills under pressure, or they deserve it as punishment for just being slow and in the way. (NB: People riding horses are not treated in the same way. Possibly something to do with the fear of how an animal so large could severely damage their car and spoil its paintwork if they spook it or something, while a cyclist should just bounce off.)
Or think that a mobile phone can easily be dropped into their lap when they see a policeman, so it’s perfectly fine to concentrate on sending a hilarious meme to the WhatsApp group while driving until then.
Or that 20 and 30 mph limits and the cameras are there only as a cash generating device, and not about safety, and it’s socially acceptable to have a moan about getting caught by one - putting aside the fact that they were basically breaking the law and that generally speed limits are designed to make people who are not driving safer. Or, if there’s not a camera, do whatever speed they like that ‘feels’ safe, even if there are signs to say go slower than that please because it's not safe for other people not driving.
Or that indicating their intentions, say for instance when intending to leave a roundabout, overtaking or coming to a junction, is too much brain-hand coordination and effort to bother with. They know where they’re going, so it’s all fine.
Bryntin understood that when people first started trying to drive, they were normally crap at it. A learner driver was normally a jerky, unpredictable weaving thing in a mechanically noisy and protesting car with a panicked-looking passenger. With perseverance, application to learning the skills required and some patience, they gradually improved and became a good enough driver to pass a test that proved it - and they were given a licence that said they were indeed a competent driver.
Immediately after getting that licence that proved they were a competent driver on the day of the test, they could relax, and they started to become a crap driver like everyone else.
After all, no one ever asks them to ever be as competent as that ever again. Well, not until they're old, well past physically capable and should only be the passenger really. Possibly in a hearse.
Bryntin was aware that this statement was a sweeping generalisation that would be protested - probably by everyone who read his blog post - along the lines of “Yes, there are some idiots out there, but not me because I’m actually a good driver. And a law-abiding one too.”
He decided that he was going to make the statement anyway though, because he was convinced that the overwhelming majority of drivers were not in fact as law-abiding as they thought or claimed they were in real life on the roads. Or as competent at following all the road safety for everyone on the road as they were on the day they passed their driving test.
He had a thought experiment for anyone thinking they were brilliant drivers with no bad habits at all.
Do you think you would pass another driving test?
Could you do it tomorrow?
Bryntin decided he probably wouldn't either. You might, possibly, but
only if you really concentrated hard, and you definitely didn’t drive
like you do the rest of the time.