Don’t do anything - Just Drive!

That learners bible - the Highway Code - has just been revised, and guess what? It’s full of extra rules and ‘guidelines’ for drivers. Why? What’s the point? There are already ample laws to cover all eventualities of careless and dangerous driving, but this government seems hell-bent on issuing more and more dictats to cover every possible conceivable set of circumstances we meet in everyday life. Can’t we be allowed to think for ourselves anymore? Does this never ending Orwellian spiral have to continue?

I know the Government has got unemployment under control (!), because they now either employ everyone who used to be unemployed or give them another benefit to sit at home so they don’t show up on the unemployment stats. But can’t they find anything better for them to do than drumming up more mindless ‘elf ‘n’ safety rules? Perhaps they could get them to give our cities a good clean and polish so they don’t look like a third world ghetto. Or maybe they should go the whole hog and give them all a red flag and pay them to walk in front of every car on the road!

Driving, most of the time, is a boring pursuit. It’s about getting from A to B along pot-holed roads surrounded by equally bored drivers. What we need is a stimulant to keep us awake. Most of us with any experience drive on autopilot most of the time, but click back in when it’s needed. Telling us in the Highway Code that we shouldn’t smoke, shouldn’t talk, shouldn’t change the radio etc., etc., but should concentrate just on driving is a recipe for disaster! We need the distractions. We have to find something to do or we’d go mad.

Now I’m not advocating smoking as a sensible pastime, but throughout my adult life I have been known to indulge in the wicked weed from time to time. And as a sometime smoker I know how short-tempered I got if deprived of a cigarette for any length of time. Do we really want the roads full of nicotine-deprived drivers? And what about the radio? Most of the time I listen to Radio 2 (I know - old fogey!), which throughout the day, and up to when Chris Evans ends, is good company. But what happens at 7pm? It goes back to the ‘Light Programme’ which means, if I can’t play with the radio, I have to drive like a loony to get to where I’m going. And as for talking on the phone, don’t these rule makers have friends or business to do? Talking on the phone in the car (hands-free) has kept my concentration up since I first had a car phone 20 years ago (and that was when phones cost as much as a small house in Rochdale - instead of being given away with a box of cereal and doing everything well except making phone calls in my kitchen!). And I have to admit that beating the children up for mucking about in the back seat kept me awake for years (I know, two Labour hanging offences in one!).

Please, stop with all these petty rules and laws. Driving is a big enough pain in the arse without a never-ending stream of new ways to punish motorists.