Driving Miss Sadie

Will measures to fine incompetent drivers put more of us on public transport?

"Proceed to the next roundabout, take the third exit and then the next available exit" – long repressed memories of learning to drive wafted into my subconscious as I slipped into the driver’s seat.

My parents gave me driving lessons for my seventeenth birthday, I focused diligently, failed the test thrice, passed and spent the next summer in a joyful haze of road trips, parties and motor-inspired freedom. Then I went to university and forgot all about it. So, it was in great trepidation that I turned the ignition on – for the first time in over half a decade – to take to the traffic-tormented streets of London.

All I wanted to do was go and buy some bits and bobs at a certain Scandinavian homeware store! Last time I’d gone, my taxi failed to materialise and I ended up stuck in a set of heels by the side of a busy roundabout near Wembley with only a light pine dining table, a snazzy lamp and plastic storage unit for company.

But anyway, as I mentioned, I haven’t been driving in a while and it all seemed very different to back in the old days. I’d forgotten everything. I was lucky to have done it last weekend though – as of the end of the month London councils are clamping down on ‘bad’ driving. That means drivers caught on camera ignoring road signs (ah), blocking box junctions (it definitely rang a bell) or misusing bus lanes (it was only for 100 metres) will be fined.

I am all for making the rules on the road as strict as possible to avoid accidents and speed up public transport, but how am I supposed to remember everything years later? No, I don’t want to have to retake my test – I feel eternally blessed that I got it out of the way when I hear about my friends’ current driving struggles.

I got quite a few beeps and dirty looks as I drove about (par for the cause on the capital’s roads?) but you can’t expect me to be a genius, to know exactly where I am headed. I may just have to change lane if the road splits in two unannounced. I don’t have a car. Cripes, it’s the first time I’ve driven in half a decade! Please don’t beep and make me more self conscious. You can’t expect a part timer to know all the rules! Can’t I put some ‘O’ plates on? That’s ‘O’ for occasional driver. How can we be expected to keep up the same standards as habitual road users? Don’t worry though, I won’t be getting behind the wheel again in a hurry.

Learning to drive seemed like a good idea at the time – and maybe it’s lucky I did, emergency situations and all that – but living in London, unless your rich and patient, you’ve really got to come to terms with the world of public transport. I saw a lovely old bike the other day on the Portobello Road with a big wicker basket – perhaps that’s the way to go – no one seems to obey the rules on two wheels.

Caught between the devil (me at the wheel), a push bike and a big red bus.

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