On Being Able to Drive

I’ve just gotten back home from a trip. The drive varies, taking anywhere between an hour and a half to two hours. It’s certainly not a long drive, but it’s a long and rather boring journey. I’ve talked about the journey in the past and it’s not even that big a trip. For anyone from not-a-tiny-island, the journey is pretty damn insignificant.

And it also says a lot about my attitude to driving. Which, admittedly, isn’t the best.

I genuinely hate driving

You’d think that the freedom of having a car would make me feel happy. But I don’t enjoy driving in the slightest. Simply put, vehicles are dangerous and potentially deadly. And we’re driving them around, reaching speeds of over 100km/h. Cars are death machines, and I treat them as such. Maybe I drive a bit too cautiously, but the way I see it, the safer, the better. Always netter safe than sorry.

But really, the main problem is, well, everyone else on the road.

No faith in other people

Thing is, I’m not actually scared of getting into a car and driving. I can drive through town with no issues. Heck, I can do the aforementioned long trip and back, across the country. Most of the time, I have the confidence to drive, but it’s not my own driving that bothers me. The problem is everyone else. I can’t be certain what everyone else is doing, what they are thinking. While I might be driving safely, someone else may be on their phone, smoking or eating, or simply just not paying attention.

I’m not saying that everyone around me is shit at driving. The majority of people drive okay. But there’s always a few people who really, really should not be driving. People who can’t park, don’t know how roundabouts work and are incredibly confused by traffic lights. Some of the worst offenders though are people who don’t use their indicators.

I wonder how some people don’t get into more accidents.

It really doesn’t help that proper driving tests have only been a thing for about 20 years. While my exams had me driving all around town, older people’s driving tests were bare bones, to say the least. An aunt of mine once described her driving test as “going forward, then reversing and that’s it”. She basically did nothing and was allowed to drive. Which suggests that her whole generation of driving adults probably had similar experiences.

On the flip side, we also get boy racers here. They’re no fun either. Luckily, speed bumps slow racers down quite dramatically.

No other real options

Unfortunately, there isn’t much else I can do. Bus services are limited, taxis are stupidly expensive and we have no other types of shared locomotion. In fact, we don’t even really have apps like Uber around here either. The only genuine options are your own vehicles, riding  a bike or walking. And you can’t do the last two for much of the year, since the sun is incredibly hot.

At least Cyprus is a very small country. So nothing is ever too far away. However, the local driving community is not… the safest of things. While, slowly, public transport is improving here, having a car and the ability to drive, as much as I hate it, makes everything a lot easier.