I started back at university today which means I started driving again.
I own a nine year old car. When it was seven years old, it had done 49,000km - a neat 7000km per year. That's not very much, compared to the average car, I believe (I wouldn't really know). Two years later, it's done 69,000km - so my annual average has gone up by 3000km per year - and that's mostly due to my 'commute' to university. I feel bad about driving and I admit that I haven't actually investigated the public transport option, as without even looking up a schedule I know that it would take me double if not triple the time to get there by train (plus a bus at each end or a cycle ride at each end). Which would add 1-2 hours to my travelling time each day - time I just can't afford. Here's what my weekly schedule looks like anyway, relying on driving for 30-40 minutes to get there: Monday: take O to school, university 12-4pm, collect O from after-school music lesson 4.30pm. Tuesday, take O to school, university 10.30am-3.30pm, collect O 4pm from school playground, where the kind parent of one of his friends has volunteered to stay until I arrive; Wednesday, work (by cycle); Thursday, university 8am-1pm, collect O 3.15pm, Friday, work (by cycle). Of course, all the school drop-offs and pick-ups that I can't make have to be covered by co-parent.
I don't know, maybe that schedule doesn't look particularly punishing unless you're me and you know how stressful it is to race along a freeway at 110kmh in order to get to the school in time. Meanwhile, speeding Jeeps and sundry other 4WDs overtake me willy nilly. It's scary out there on Sydney roads. I'd much rather be on a train - but then I'd only get to take my son to school one instead of two days a week and I'd only have one afternoon a week at home with him after school - and more importantly, he'd get only only afternoon at home after school - because I drive, he gets three. It's worth it.
But sometimes I get very angry, thinking about how if this was London, I could get on a Tube and cross the city by underground in probably the same time it now takes me to drive. I'd much much rather travel that way. Until I started at university a year ago, I'd managed to keep myself largely away from the Sydney roads system (I last had a job that required driving in the mid-90s, though not as far and not on a heavily trafficked freeway), though I knew it was out there. It's so ugly. It's so pervasive. It's so unnecessary. If only all the millions of dollars which have been poured into road tunnels had gone into improving the railway system.
Being back on the roads means listening to the radio again. I never listen to the radio except in the car - and even then my listening pleasure is hampered by the fact that someone broke my aerial two years ago and so reception can be bad - especially to the ABC in the inner city - which is of course what I want to listen to and where I spend most of my time ... on that score, at least I can get the ABC on the way out to the campus, which is not, I repeat not, in the inner city.
Having just had a five week break from driving, it was slightly startling to get back to them all today - Virginia Triolo, Richard Glover... (Oh, you again!) I came in on different segments of their programs, because of course my schedule is different this semester. I haven't quite got the hang of the new program slots yet, but I'm sure I will, all too quickly.
One more thing about driving - I can't tell you how much I hate the cross-dangling from-rear-view-mirror motif. It's shockingly common. Seeing a dangling cross charging up behind me really doesn't do much for my confidence in that driver's attachment to life. I wish they could be banned.
I hate driving. I was facing the prospect of driving to work every day next year (which was filling me with dread) until my employer changed their mind about it.
You have my sympathy, and I totally agree about the warped priorities of a government that spends so much on roads!
Posted by: Jennifer | Wednesday, August 01, 2007 at 09:46 PM
What about Tiny Plaid Ninjas?
(Found by Tas, 10)
Posted by: Helen | Monday, August 06, 2007 at 01:16 PM
Suz, sorry, that comment belonged to the previous post!
Posted by: Helen | Monday, August 06, 2007 at 01:18 PM