|
 I don’t own a car. I’ve never learned how to drive. Some might consider this an impediment to life but, living in the inner city, I see no need.
Motorlessness is not uncommaon among urban dwellers, but my own situation is borne of an increasing nervousness in and around vehicles. This perhaps has something to do with the appalling drivers swarming Sydney’s streets, cutting off, honking at and generally terrorising their fellow travellers. Seriously, I find being the passenger in a vehicle trapped in CBD traffic to be a singularly stressful experience.
Alas, the invisible brake is overrated as a safety device, as is closing your eyes and humming a few bars of ‘My Favourite Things’. I’ve found that pouring scorn on other motorists, while satisfying, does little to alleviate the situation either. Nevertheless, in lieu of providing readers with handy car-maintenance tips or shiny new model updates, here’s a list of reasons not to own a car.
Four-wheel drives, sports utility vehicles, call them what you will, are the scourge of cities around the world. In my own neighbourhood, they are usually driven by middle-aged women with dry-clean-only hair picking up their daughter from SCEGGS. Imbued with a sense of entitlement only a $75,000 pile of steel, leather and “free air” can provide, they are the Alpha cars and behave without thought for anyone else. They also have a pesky habit of mowing down toddlers in driveways.
Not that the 4WD is the sole perpetrator of vehicular horror; the spoilers of Sydney are an evil force that must be overthrown. You know spoilers, those ridiculous wings tacked onto the backs of cars, ostensibly to improve aerodynamics. Almost without exception, these vehicles are painted in a screaming shade of ‘look at me’, polished to a blinding sheen and driven by a total dickhead.
After years of research, I have come to the conclusion that the size of one’s spoiler is proportionate to the likelihood of one yelling “Ya farken poofta” at passers-by. If the car also has one of those roaring turbo buttons that makes it sound like lift-off is imminent, the driver is to be avoided at all costs.
Then there are the massive, rumbling trucks courtesy of Sydney’s interminable construction boom, cabdrivers with apparently no sense of direction or lanes, people who simply cannot reverse-park yet persist in trying… The reasons to avoid getting in a vehicle at all are manifold. Of course, there’s always the price of petrol – that’s perfectly good beer money!
My apologies to the lovely people at Mini.
 |
Show/Hide comments
Show/Hide comment form
