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| _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ |
The Average Speed Camera - a
taste of life in North Korea
Monday, December 10, 2007
I was driving to Shropshire last Monday, to visit
what my fellow editors insist on calling a “girlie spa”
[for the record it was a rugged, manly place with big steaks on the
menu, many pretty and attentive maids and not a massage table or
a lavender-scented high colonic in sight]. While musing on their
jealous insults, I entered the M1 contraflow, which is neither pretty
nor attentive, and at this point I stopped mouthing insults in the
mirror and realised I was on a tourist trip through hell.
One simple sign tipped me off: ‘narrow lanes for next ten miles:
average speed cameras in operation’. I flicked a glance in each wing
mirror; I scanned the road ahead and behind with care. Sure
enough, everyone was driving very oddly—they were all obeying the
speed limit. No one tried to overtake me on the inside; even the
Mini I’d gesticulated at while thinking of something else glided
alongside like an old friend. We beamed across at one another, our
teeth gritted. Then swung our eyes back on the road.
You are doomed once you are in an average speed camera zone.
Who knows what’s watching you when? Or how a slip on the pedal
over the brow of a hill might count against you? And what about
that following wind and the fast song on the radio two miles later?
You can be sure of only one thing: you are being watched.
And so we inched forward, hating the road, hating each other. We
behaved perfectly, and it went against every instinct we had.
Over my ten mile crawl I had plenty of time to realise what the
experience resembled: it is an exact replica of life in a totalitarian
state. Someone could set up a 1984 theme park and put in average
speed dodgems: they’d fit right in.
What could be a worse insult to human dignity and freedom,
especially for men with urgent beef wellingtons and log fires waiting
for them, than to be given a machine that they can control and
then told from on high
taste of life in North Korea
Monday, December 10, 2007
I was driving to Shropshire last Monday, to visit
what my fellow editors insist on calling a “girlie spa”
[for the record it was a rugged, manly place with big steaks on the
menu, many pretty and attentive maids and not a massage table or
a lavender-scented high colonic in sight]. While musing on their
jealous insults, I entered the M1 contraflow, which is neither pretty
nor attentive, and at this point I stopped mouthing insults in the
mirror and realised I was on a tourist trip through hell.
One simple sign tipped me off: ‘narrow lanes for next ten miles:
average speed cameras in operation’. I flicked a glance in each wing
mirror; I scanned the road ahead and behind with care. Sure
enough, everyone was driving very oddly—they were all obeying the
speed limit. No one tried to overtake me on the inside; even the
Mini I’d gesticulated at while thinking of something else glided
alongside like an old friend. We beamed across at one another, our
teeth gritted. Then swung our eyes back on the road.
You are doomed once you are in an average speed camera zone.
Who knows what’s watching you when? Or how a slip on the pedal
over the brow of a hill might count against you? And what about
that following wind and the fast song on the radio two miles later?
You can be sure of only one thing: you are being watched.
And so we inched forward, hating the road, hating each other. We
behaved perfectly, and it went against every instinct we had.
Over my ten mile crawl I had plenty of time to realise what the
experience resembled: it is an exact replica of life in a totalitarian
state. Someone could set up a 1984 theme park and put in average
speed dodgems: they’d fit right in.
What could be a worse insult to human dignity and freedom,
especially for men with urgent beef wellingtons and log fires waiting
for them, than to be given a machine that they can control and
then told from on high
| Marc Sidwell is not joking |
© lizardmagazine.com, 2007
ALSO SEE
ALSO SEE
| “DON’T TOUCH THE CONTROLS! KEEP YOUR FOOT OFF THAT PEDAL! AND BY THE WAY, HAVE YOU CONSIDERED A SALAD FOR LATER?” |
It’s probably a metaphor for something, or at least bloody
infuriating.
Our lives want to be free. That’s what our will and our imagination
and our private desires are for – to let us pick where to spend a few
days holiday and get up and go there, even if our colleagues think
we’re girly-girls.
Our cars want to be free too. That’s why they have brakes, and
accelerators and gears and all those buttons we don’t use much.
So we are in the driving seat.
This all leads me to think that there is a fatal flaw in progressive,
liberal thought in this country: it doesn’t see what’s wrong with
average speed cameras. After all, no doubt they make the
roadworks much safer for everyone. The benign planners of the lives
of others stop there. They can’t see beyond that benefit to
recognise what might be lost or abused in the process. And for that
reason they start with banning cigarettes in public and move on to
banning them in your own home in the name of “stewardship”. They
think they’re building a road to a better future, but we all end up
driving in North Korea.
Next time you’re raising a finger on the M1, raise it in spirit to all
those who think they should be driving your car for you. And make
your way to the Pen-y-Dyffryn hotel, where the welcome is warm
and you get to do what you like all day.
infuriating.
Our lives want to be free. That’s what our will and our imagination
and our private desires are for – to let us pick where to spend a few
days holiday and get up and go there, even if our colleagues think
we’re girly-girls.
Our cars want to be free too. That’s why they have brakes, and
accelerators and gears and all those buttons we don’t use much.
So we are in the driving seat.
This all leads me to think that there is a fatal flaw in progressive,
liberal thought in this country: it doesn’t see what’s wrong with
average speed cameras. After all, no doubt they make the
roadworks much safer for everyone. The benign planners of the lives
of others stop there. They can’t see beyond that benefit to
recognise what might be lost or abused in the process. And for that
reason they start with banning cigarettes in public and move on to
banning them in your own home in the name of “stewardship”. They
think they’re building a road to a better future, but we all end up
driving in North Korea.
Next time you’re raising a finger on the M1, raise it in spirit to all
those who think they should be driving your car for you. And make
your way to the Pen-y-Dyffryn hotel, where the welcome is warm
and you get to do what you like all day.