I hate cars!

I have enough pet peeves for a whole series of Room 101, but perennially close to the top of the list are cars!

Maybe it’s genetic, as neither of my parents were drivers.

My father was somewhat disabled, and so as far as I know, never learnt to drive.

My mother, on the other hand, did learn apparently, but on what became her final lesson, she stalled at the Gaumont traffic lights, caused “Doncaster’s longest traffic-jam”, got out and never sat in the driver’s seat again.

So we were a no car family – which even in my youth was fairly unusual.

Consequently, and thanks to a subsidised bus service, we (I) didn’t develop a reliance on the personal motor vehicle that maybe in others evolved “naturally”.

A weekly visit to my family on the other side on town would take two bus-rides each way, for the princely sum total of 36p – for me and me dad.

Then, as I took my first job, I could walk to work “the short way” and there was no benefit in taking the bus, unless it was raining… two buses, 30p.

Marriage was not far in the future, and even though, as a then husband, my new wife had learnt to drive at 17, we lived even closer to my work, and so I never felt the urge to acquire this skill, not least as the thought now terrified me.

I was cajoled and coerced in fairly equal measure – I think wifey was fed up of ferrying me everywhere! – to begin lessons at the age of 24 (ish), and for about a month (or two, or six) I took my weekly lesson, without ever actually showing any particular aptitude.

Then, a stroke of luck, I got an opportunity to change jobs at work, which meant we needed to relocate, but more importantly meant I could quit the lessons, and get back to using the buses.

And for about 18 months or so that was fine.

OK, what I mean is it took another 18 months of cajoling and coercing from my ever-determined missus before I took the plunge again.

I still hated it – I was still terrified! – but over the following year or so, an extremely patient instructor honed me from a gibbering wreck with no idea, to a gibbering wreck who should be able to pass a driving test.

Or maybe not!

My first test was an unmitigated disaster.

Maybe it was pre-test nerves, maybe it was the fact that my examiner was himself being examined, and I had a back-seat passenger in the guise of Flight Lieutenant Brigadier General Sir Torquil Farquhar-Smythe DSO retd. or maybe it was just the fact that I THOUGHT I WAS GONNA KILL SOMEBODY!!!!!!

I didn’t quite knock the cyclist over at the crossroads, but I did stall, blocking all four lanes of traffic and felt the steady drip, drip, drip of perspiration as it began its freefall from the end of my nose.

Oh mother dear, I think I know how you must have felt!

Well I didn’t get out, and I didn’t crash, but I seem to recall the examiner saying something along the lines of “Well better get back to the testing station”. Let’s just say I failed.

Test 2 was not such a complete catastrophe. I managed to keep the perspiration under control, although I evidently didn’t keep the car under control, as I once again… erm… deferred my success.

But test 3 was a different matter. I was much more accomplished, controlled and calm, and I don’t think I frightened any passers by with unpredictable steering.

So SUCCESS!!!

Er… well no actually.

You were allowed 2 minor incidents in those days, and I chalked up three. Something to do with the handbrake (wrong colour, I think), being too hesitant at a T-junction, and pulling out too quickly at a T-junction… er… hang on, we only went through one T-junction didn’t we?

My instructor said something about quotas, and it was the last week of the month. Harrumph, that means more lessons, and I’m still terrified!

So anyway, a fourth test was arranged, which duly fell on July 1^st 1991*.

We-e-e-ell, I didn’t think things went quite as well as in test 3.

I seem to recall a session of kangarooing, and I certainly recall getting stranded mid-crossroads again, this time though due to the fallibilities of another driver.

They’d even changed the test from “reversing round a corner and reverse parking” to “two reversing manoeuvres from any five” which I had basically spent the last six lessons practicing. You know… reversing up a tree, that kind of thing.

Anyway, we got all the way to the end, to the Highway Code bit.

I just KNEW the examiner was going to ask me stopping distances. I knew all the signs back-to-front and inside-out, even the trick ones like “Beware of low-flying cows or sudden cow noise”, but the stopping distances I was just a bit shaky on.

“So, Mr. Birdman, what’s the stopping distance at 70 miles per hour?”

“315 feet.” In those days we still used this arcane measuring system – God knows how we coped! But anyway, it sounded about right.

Then the killer…

“And how far’s that?”

I KNEW it! I just KNEW he’d say that the £*$&*%… calm down now… don’t, whatever you do, say anything too near.

With this gem of personal advice in mind, I pointed to a bright yellow vehicle parked just on the horizon, “There!”

OK, slight exaggeration, but the car was a good half a mile away – and after returning his telescope to its case, the examiner seemed to mark a tick.

Phew!

A couple more road signs… 30mph limit (tick), level crossing without gates (ooh clever knickers, tick), and then chevrons…

“Err…,” I know what chevrons mean, “err…,” but putting it into words, “err… YOUGETTHEMATROUNDABOUTSYOUHAVETOGOLEFT!” I blurted.

“Sharp Deviation to the Left,” says the examiner.

“That’s it!”

“I’m pleased to tell you, Mr. Birdman, you have passed your driving test.”

Worse performance than test 3, I’m sure, but 1^st of July, you see… quota not yet filled!

And that was it… suddenly, at the grand old age of 27, I’m allowed on the road unaccompanied, and suddenly… I LOVE IT!!!!

And that’s the thing.

I LOVE driving… but boy, do I HATE cars!!!

Er… which, if you’re still with me, is why we’re here.

Well, strictly speaking, it’s not the cars themselves I hate, but the incessant draining expense that they impose upon us all.

The financial cost of actually keeping the on the road is bad enough… but then things go wrong!!!

Arrghh! Give me strength!!!

Last year I was driving a P-reg Fiat Brava. Nice little (ish) car, providing you don’t want to listen to MW radio, decent looker, nice colour… all the important things are right.

Well, you see, that’s the point. I know absolutely zippedidoodah about cars. I can put the fuel in (providing it’s not got anything tricksy like a locking petrol cap) and I can point it the right way most of the time. I know where the people and the luggage go. And that’s it.

Unless there is a big sign with an arrow on it pointing to, say, the hydroponic argonator, containing the legend “THIS IS ABOUT TO BREAK, DUMMY!!!”, I’ve got no chance.

And in my experience, car-dealers don’t use as many of those signs as they could.

Anyhew, after 3 years of iffy motoring, things start going wrong with the Fiat on a seemingly weekly basis.

Now I’ve got a pretty decent garage-man, and he could probably keep a piece of string roadworthy, which is a good thing all in all. Not least when I’m travelling along the A18 past Althorpe, and in my rear-view mirror I see my exhaust failing to take the bend I’m currently negotiating.

Ouch… that’s gonna hurt in the wallet. That much I do know.

So get the exhaust replaced, and within a couple of months the engine starts doing really strange things… like not actually going.

Or going… and then stopping.

Now this car has cost me an arm and a leg already this year, and I’m starting to get a bit sniffy with it. Plus it’s now ten years old, and needs “a new engine”.

I’m tearing my hair out (still got plenty to go at!) and grinding my teeth to the gums. I HATE CARS! But I can see nothing else for it.

Then, guess what, instead of replacing the engine on a clapped-out jalopy with an exhaust worth twice the rest of the car, my girlfriend has a plan.

Bless her complete heart, my lovelight performs some sort of financial jiggery-pokery, and with the help of the Alliance and Leicester, she gets me a car for Christmas!!!!!!!!! (I mean really loads of !!!s)

And I’m really happy… I LOVE my little car… it does everything I want it to, it’s actually smaller than the bag of spanners it dethroned, slightly miffed that it hasn’t got a sunroof (which I discover I previously used as a nifty bird-watching accessory at 60mph… now I have to keep my eyes on the road, I guess!), but we ain’t got all the dough in the world, so forgo the sunroof. And besides, it’s a great colour, and a funky little thing to be sure.

I give it the once over. OK, it hasn’t got one of those “DUMMY!” signs but I can check the number of wheels… 4… oh yes, and that one inside, I can just about tell that the front half is not a Ford Fiesta and the back half not a caravan, and I can count the number of keys. “IT’S GOT A CD PLAYER??? LOOK, PETAL A CD PLAYER!!!”

Petal looks resignedly as she pushed my eyes-on-stalks back into their sockets, whilst I throw wads of cash that I don’t have at the car “sales” person, and leave with a big grin. Actually, we do all the necessary just in time for me to pick it up on the 23^rd of December.

Then it snows, and it’s cold, and it barely gets above 30mph for a three weeks.

No problem, gotta get used to the new car.

Winter starts to thaw, the roads get clearer, and I can go at 60… hang on, what’s that rattle?

No worries, it’s just the parcel shelf… you ain’t go a Roller, so it’s gonna rattle a bit.

Right, used to that.

Now, what’s that squeak?

It’s under the gear lever somewhere. What’s under there? I dunno, but it’s squeaking.

Hang on, what’s that creak? Ooh… that doesn’t sound right.

What’s that funny sound when I turn the engine on?

OK… back to the garage.

Turns out the last funny sound is a problem with the starter motor.

The garage needs to order the part, so a fortnight later, it’s changed. £233!!!

“Ahhh!”, says I, “under warranty, so there!”, or something like that.

So I get that for free… except the creaks and squeaks haven’t gone away.

Another visit.

Dry bushes apparently!?!?!?

Fixed just in time to leave my new wheels behind as we take the other vehicle on holiday… where the exhaust goes.

Fortunately, it doesn’t spoil our break, but garage-man reckons it’s the catalytic converter playing up.

Oh God.

If there’s one thing I have learnt about cars, it’s that when they’re being fixed you pay by the syllable!

Garage-man is absolutely stacked up so we book in to get fixed a month hence, using the car as little and as gingerly as possible in the meantime, now relying on my Xmas box.

Anyway, catalytic converter day came round this week… Wednesday just gone.

I had to get a cash advance off my credit card to cover it, and we picked the newly healed steed with trepidation.

Turns out it wasn’t the cat… but a wheel bearing.

Cost us £180 less than expected.

HOORAY!!!! One of life’s little victories!

So next day (Thursday) on my way to work… what’s that rattle????

Oh no… not the exhaust, ple-e-e-e-e-ease!!!!

It sounds like I’m driving around in a 30-year-old tractor!

Ring garage-man… sounds liked a cracked manifold (cracked manifold… four syllables… expensive!!!)

Bless him, he squeezes me in today, and by tea-time he’s fixed it…

Not a cracked manifold. It took him some while to figure it out.

Apparently this fell out… and needed replacing.

Seventy-five Quid.

Oh I HATE cars…!!!

(But I do still love my new little ‘un)

*might’ve got the year wrong… doesn’t quite seem to add up, but what the hey!