The landscape is changing for us car owners with Ed Milliband’s unworkable net zero obsession, as the reds attempt to phase out petrol and diesel vehicles for impractical, and ultimately unenvironmentally friendly electric vehicles.
Now rebadged as ‘EV’s as Ed tries to get down with the kids, they take hours to charge, are expensive to purchase and the batteries are as kind to the environment as your local water company is to rivers.
So, as I, and many others, hold off in the hope that Ed will see sense (he won't) or that Labour will soon be out of power (more likely) I instead tootle about in my one litre ‘EcoBoost’ Ford Fiesta, where I spend more time weekly than I do with members of my own family.
The inside of our cars have their own microclimates, and rules, and it is the driver’s domain to call the shots: end of. My wife uses her car as a dumping ground where, if you can see the floor, it’s a good day, as matted in Haribo sweets and leftover chicken bones make an unwelcome appearance when I begrudgingly give it a deep clean annually.
Mine is cleaner as I clear the rubbish on a daily basis, although, as I prepared the cockpit for the drive home after work the other day, I wondered what the small white grub items were littering the passenger floor mat. On closer inspection it was bits of finger nail which I subconsciously bite off and throw onto the floor and I wonder why I have stumps in lieu of fingertip coverings.
Some of us talk to ourselves in the car. I quite often have two-way conversations before snapping too and realising Cheryl, stuck in traffic in her Qashqai opposite is looking at me perturbed as I badly pretend I am singling along to Abba or the Bee Gees.
It's when faced by a ‘medical’ episode that the safe space of the jam jar comes into its own: Want to have a pick of the nasal orifice? Crack on and, if the seats are leather lined, there is even a porous surface to get rid of the offending item, if you choose not to chew on it.
The car is good for a doze too, especially when being Dad taxi as you wait outside some nondescript warehouse for your kids to finish trampolining or skating or some other activity with ‘ing’ on the end. I always choose to lock myself in, not that anyone has ever tried to enter the confines, but this leaves me being rudely awaken by one of my kids, sweaty and incandescent with rage that I dared to take five seconds to answer their window knocks.
And within the microclimate, there are sub-microclimates, namely the glove box and boot. There are items in the rear of my car that have been in situ for years and have never been used, but there they will remain ‘just in case’.
I have a spare pair of shoes in case the pair I am wearing at work spontaneously combust (I’m still waiting), two pool cues, some de-icer and one of those run flat tins that don’t work and do little but bang around the boot as I take a corner too hastily and leave me wondering what that pesky noise is.
Having visitors in the car is never a joy as you are unsure as to the rules. Can you control the window? Do they allow drinks, and food? and do we have to listen to Classic FM for the next three hours on the way to the coast?
But our relationship with our cars is personal, apart from when they affect others. My current bugbear is the huge numbers of folk who continue to use their phones whilst driving.
Around Haberdashers School, when the traffic is queuing, I look over every day and I estimate 80 per cent of those in charge of a motor vehicle are texting. I have started to beep and shout at them to get off which meets with a level of entitlement and fury I rarely witness as I forget about net zero and instead embrace the tenet of zero tolerance…
- Brett Ellis is a teacher
Share