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My mother once poured a cup of tea over herself attempting to drink it - and it wasn't a disability issue, just clumsiness - we're human after all.
Myself, I have done similar things, forgetting what I'm in a room for, failing to check something simple, doing insane things in the kitchen because of a failure in the automated process.And yes, I have stalled my car.
Anyone who stalls their car can potentially kill.You were sufficiently out of control when sober to perform an automated process badly.
Add to this the fact that at any time another driver could be out of his head on stress or booze, or could fall critically ill with a heart attack or fit, or a spider could drop onto his face.
Add to this the fact that at a mere 40mph the human eye is working over four times harder to see things quickly than at full running speed.Consider that for a moment.Whenever a driver claims someone 'ran out in front' 'without warning', this should be taken in context - the eye was running at about 25% efficiency, maximum.The object approaching the pedestrian was faster than any object naturally occurring in that environment.(If in the UK, at least.)
These situations are to be wholly expected - no-one was negligent, simply physically incapable of avoiding with 100% certainty the situation, on account of being human.
Add to this the green issue - I believe the figure was 22,000 people every year in the UK die of cancer caused primarily by exhaust emissions.That's on top of the fifty every day worldwide who die from being run over by cars.And that's just the direct human cost - when the fossil fuels run out in fifty years, the hospitals and schools will stop, industry will stop, efficient transport such as the train will stop.And for what?
The average speed in London is now lower than a hundred years ago when the method was horse and carriage.Since quitting driving I have found that to reach my local restaurant one mile away from my house it is faster to walk, pushing my mother's wheelchair than to negotiate the crowded roads and traffic-lights in my car and then find a parking-space.
If the fumes don't kill you, and the accidents don't choose you, and the 'handful' of bad drivers don't murder you, the stress will shorten your life for sure.
Now to the legal issue - my street is an A-road - that's a main road with houses on it - not a dual carriageway nor a motorway or bypass.
Most of the motor vehicles travelling down this street are speeding.That is to say they are travelling in excess of the 40mph considered to be safe for the largely juvenile or elderly population to cross the road.
Now if a public house were to serve mostly underage customers,
mostly outside legal hours, mostly without paying tax, mostly watering down the beer, it would be closed down within the month.
And if a hotel was populated mostly by prostitutes and drug-dealers, it too would close.
If a foodstuff was mostly found to be toxic, it would be banned - in fact just look at the beef crisis - banned without any proven risk, let alone fifty people's deaths per day to suggest a danger!
So why is it that a road where most of the users are breaking the law - let's make no bones about it, it's a law written to protect lives, not property, and it's being openly broken - continues to function, year after year, without even any public or political outcry?
Then there's the ozone-layer; the spray-cans have been changed, the summits have been held, but what's actually happened to stop drivers? Petrol costs have gone up.
What an utterly pointless exercise! Since when has cost stopped people driving cars?!!!
The average driver spends in excess of ten thousand pounds on a car, then hundreds of pounds to insure it, hundreds to maintain it, and a weekly bill of around twenty pounds to fill it with petrol.
A twenty-pence rise in the price of petrol per litre would probably put off the mini metro owner with a £700 car, driving under a hundred miles a week, but the company executive sitting in traffic-queues in cities, driving three hundred miles in a twenty-thousand pound three-litre engined car will simply bill it to the company, and thus in turn to the consumer.Utterly pointless.
The only real way to stop cars is direct action.If a road is impassable it can't be used - if a car is broken, it can't be used.
Now I'm not suggesting anyone vandalises anyone else's property.There are other ways.
1) Keep sheep.
Drive your sheep across the road, very slowly.When the police move you on, play dumb, let them patronise you, and go somewhere else.
2) Exploit them sexually ( - the drivers, not the sheep!)
I saw a report on the TV about a newsagent displaying sexually provocative pictures of big-breasted beach-babes outside her or his shop.This will slow the sexist morons down immediately.
3) Hold street-parties
Congregate on the road.Again, co-operate with the police, go away when you're told to - just keep coming back, preferably in such great numbers nothing can be done.Offer incentives for people to join you - free beer or food usually helps.
4) Chat to road-workers
Keep them talking - girls, show a bit of leg - they're often male and often can be tricked into watching you rather than working.Drag the job out as long as possible.The road will not be at maximum efficiency, and hopefully the drivers will get sick of it eventually.
5) Mail your MP or local councillor
Write two sorts of letters - firstly legitimate complaints about the abuse of the speed limits, deaths of local people (call for an end to the road rather than signs or lower limits), the poisoning of your children (your children will grow up slower and less capable of articulate thought if they breathe in carbon monoxide and lead at an early age) - secondly legitimate extreme complaints - claim to be unduly harassed by the sound and sight of large chunks of metal full of petrol, electricity, glass and fire hurtling down your street, claim that you were nearly hit by a car even if you weren't.Make the councillor sit up and take note.
If none of this works, just have a go at people who admit to being drivers.Make it socially unacceptable, like smoking is gradually becoming; don't pay lip-service to the talk of how wonderful a particular car is - tell it how it is - the faster it goes the more biased it is towards breaking the law as opposed to complying with it - the more it costs the more powerful the multinationals get and with that the weaker the workers get and the worse our conditions get.Make people see the car as unglamorous, filthy, expensive and dangerous.
My car was an old metro.Like many other people I formed the kind of attachment to it that you would with a dog.It died of old age and had to be destroyed.I was saddened.
However, the relief I felt at not being in danger of murder, or at least not so much danger of it, was incredible.Now my mother and I breathe fresh air when we walk away from roads, we're fitter, tangibly so, and richer - the car was costing about forty pounds a week.Some of course cost far far more.
Never again will I drive, and I urge anyone reading this to stop driving also.
The danger, the cost, the environmental cost (which can never be worth paying), the danger to others (with no wrong-doing on your part), the inefficiency, the danger of law-breaking (who honestly has never accidentally or otherwise exceeded the speed-limit?) - all these surely must be evidence that this pursuit is total folly and should be banned.
If you think this article is extreme, bear in mind that I am simply a law-abiding citizen who wants nothing more than safety, clean air, and an end to the battlefield that is the road.
