The Absurdity of Driving Culture
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The Absurdity of Driving Culture

Byrichard

For a long time I thought that driving would give me freedom. I was impatient to be old enough to drive, and then I was impatient to pass my driving test. I failed the theory three times in Switzerland, zero in England, and the practical in England once, and once in Switzerland. Eventually I did pass my driving test in England, on Valentine’s day. I then drove to see the girlfriend of the time.

Driving has given me the freedom to go to and from work without waiting for trains. It has given me the freedom to live according to my schedule, and shifts, rather than other peoples’.

It has also cost me my freedom. The absurdity of driving is that you are responsible for getting drunk friends to their home, and you are responsible for driving people from A to B when you’re hiking, climbing and more. Having a car means that you have to drive to see people who don’t have a car. Driving a car means that you have to make the effort to see others, but they will not make the effort to see you.

The Necessity of Cars

Having a car is about remoteness from work, from play and from more. It’s about always having to get into the car, to do anything:

  • seeing friends
  • shopping for food
  • commuting to work
  • going for a walk
  • going for a bike ride
  • going to snowboard
  • going to a restaurant
  • going to the cinema.

Tonight I have to drive for at least an hour, if I’m not unlucky with traffic, to have a dinner, and then drive home. I have to drive at rush hour by Morges, one of the most awful places for traffic at rush hour. A few years ago I would arrive an early for rock climbing, slightly after Morges, because of how awful traffic was. I got told off by the cashier at the climbing place, for being to early for the special deal the group had. As if that wasn’t enough I eventually struggled to find parkings and got a fine. After that I stopped making the effort.

What sealed the deal was “let’s meet to climb in Gland” and a person answered “no way”. It was fine for me to face traffic but people weren’t ready to do the same for me. All of my friendships died when I decided that I was tired of driving.

When you drive, and when you have space for others it iss assumed that you are ready and willing to drive others,and sometimes you are volunteered, without being asked. This is especially annoying. Picking people up often adds half an hour to an hour to travel time. You become their chauffeur. In one case someone just went to sleep, as if I was a bus driver. It’s great to be so trusted. It’s unpleasant to be so used.

Building More Homes Without Adding More Buses

Recently Vaud has busy building new houses and apartments anywhere with a garden. They have destroyed old single family homes and replaced them with apartment buildings. The result is that there has been a surge of car traffic. This is bad for two reasons. The first reason is that villages that were once filled with green gardens have been turned into tarmac hells. The trees and the grass is gone, replaced by buildings with underground parkings.

The Daily Traffic Jam

Recently I have noticed that the A1 motorway that passes by Nyon is blocked in both directions consistently, as the number of cars and local population increases. They’re happy to “densify” people and villages, but they forgot that densification increases traffic. What were once quiet roads are now saturated with cars.

This morning, due to the motorway being blocked, local roads were blocked too. By increasing housing, without increasing public transport infrastructure there are more cars than ever, using a road network that is not suited to so many cars.

Buses and Bikes Make More Sense

That’s where frequent buses, and dedicated cycle routes would make a huge difference. If it was safe to cycle, rather than drive, then people commuting from villages to Nyon gare could take bikes. With an increased bus schedule people could leave their cars at home and ignore their cars until the weekend, and even then cars could remain parked.

Dormant Start/stop

For context, I have a car with stop/start technology. If I stop at a traffic light the engine stops. When I drive the car it never works, because I use the car twice a week. When other people used my car, this summer, I finally experienced that it starts and stops when it’s at a traffic light.

Before having two summers without a car, and before the pandemic, I didn’t think anything of people’s over-reliance on cars. During the honeymoon of lock downs, when the car was dormant, I got to see how fantastic the area where I live is, for hiking and walking, without getting into a car. I miss the freedom of living without the need to use the car.

Unwanted Journey

Tonight I need to use the car. I need to waste petrol with at least an hour of driving, if traffic is good, and two hours or more if traffic is bad. I don’t mind driving during the day, to do something. I do mind driving at night, to do something that brings me no pleasure.

Escape

If the cleaning Gremlin comes tomorrow afternoon for example, I would be happy to have somewhere to flee to. The point is that today I’m destroying the environment, for nothing.I wouldn’t mind driving for a walk, but I really mind driving for a dinner.

And Finally

At the moment they’re increasing carrying capacity for the motorway entries and exits, and they’re speaking of increasing the motorway to three lanes in each direction. I think this is absurd. I think that rather than encourage more car use they should diminish reliance on cars. More buses, more trains, more safe walking routes. All of these would help reduce traffic, rather than encourage it to grow.

This evening I face the absurdity of driving culture, yet again.

Avoiding Rush Hour Recycling

Avoiding Rush Hour Recycling

Byrichard

On Monday, Wednesday and Friday the recycling centre is open from 1600-2000 or so, which is great if you’re working and want to go after work. The drawback to going at this time is that the one for local villages is down a narrow road where cars can barely pass each other. If you go at rush hour traffic you have commuters, and you have people heading to recycle.


When I had the scooter I would often go with that, because with a scooter it’s easy to go down a narrow road despite cars coming towards you. In a car you need to be careful that the mirrors on your car don’t hit the car coming the opposite way. There are two issues. The first is that the road was narrowed to slow down traffic. The second is that a road that should have no commuter traffic does have commuter traffic. Ideally this would be a one way road system.


If I go at 8 in the morning on a Saturday I miss the rush hour commuters, and I also miss all the people who can’t find the motivation to head to a recycling centre at 8 on a saturday morning. I used to be one of those people. I changed because I found that traffic is more fluid and because it’s quieter.


I find it hard to motivate myself to go and recycle. If it’s raining I use that as an excuse. If it’s sunny I use that as an excuse. If I have just finished my walk as it opens I use that as an excuse not to go.


I have been recycling for two or three decades or more, so the process of sorting recycling is normal. I’ve been recycling glass, aluminium, electronics, grass, paper and other things for a long time. It’s an ordinary part of life. It’s taking things to recycle that I find annoying. That’s why I wait until the car is full to go. I feel that it makes more sense to go when the journey is justified, rather than weekly.


I have started to keep recycling by the car. In so doing the excuse of having to run up and down stairs 3-6 times to take things from home to the car is taken care of. I just need to load the car and go. It’s important to remove key excuses.


I could take my walking loop by the recycling centre but people tend to mount the pavement where I’d be walking. I prefer not to go there by foot. The other option is to recycle things on the mornings when I shop. I could easily turn up five to ten minutes early, recycle some things, and shop.


I have a modular system. If you order things from online shops or other online stores you get boxes. I use these boxes to store PET bottles, glass and more. I wait until they’re full, and then I place them by the car. It’s my way of recycling cardboard boxes, before recycling them. If I use plastic containers, or paper shopping bags I need to bring them back up, after I’ve been to the recycling centre. By using boxes that need to be recycled anyway I have a convenient, modular system, for trips to recycle.


Although it could be seen as lazy not to go every single week I am one person, not two to four people. I generate half to a quarter of what others produce in recycling so it makes sense to go half, or a quarter as often as others. I also save petrol and wear and tear on the car. By going once every few weeks I help reduce congestion around the recycling centre, especially by going at 8am on a Saturday, when others prefer to sleep.

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Three Lanes Are Better Than Two

Byrichard

Three lanes are always better than two but environmentalists are against expanding from two lanes to three lanes because they say that having three lanes will promote the use of the car. I believe that this is a flawed argument.


https://youtu.be/8UpVDaugZW0


The A1 motorway between Geneva and Lausanne is often congested because when a slow vehicle wants to overtake a slower moving vehicle it blocks the motorway as can be seen in the video included within this post.


On a three-lane motorway you have the slow lane for slow vehicles, insecure drivers and stoned people with no rush to get anywhere. In the middle lane you have those who want to drive at the speed limit without having to slow down and accelerate all the time. In the left lane, you have all the cars that want to overtake everyone else.


In a system with three lanes, there are three options, and these three options usually ensure that all cars are going at the speed that they are restricted to, or feel comfortable with.


In a two-lane system, these three groups of drivers are stuck in two lanes, but in reality, you only have one lane, the fast lane. The problem with having just two lanes is that if you’re in the right lane you will need to move out and back in constantly as you are expected to do.


Frequently when you do this you find that you are constantly having to go from 100-120km/h burning a lot of fuel constantly accelerating and decelerating. The reason for this constant change of speed is that you’re constantly getting blocked by cars in the right lane either driving too fast or too close to each other. This is another behaviour you see in the two-minute clip.


This results in large stretches of the motorway being empty. As two slow vehicles overtake faster vehicles are unable to overtake and the density of traffic behind the slow vehicles increases. As soon as the slow vehicle has finished overtaking vehicles able to go at the speed limit accelerate and the accordion of traffic expands again.


In a three-lane system, the accordion has less chance to occur resulting in greater fuel economy as cars stick to a steady speed.


I filmed the motorway as a distraction during a walk, not expecting to get such a clear illustration of how easily congestion occurs on a two-lane motorway.

Looking out of a window at traffic

Byrichard

I’m on the second floor of a home which looks out onto a busy road which means there’s a lot of traffic passing by but wait there’s more. Road works are taking place. Traffic must stop. Stopped traffic means hours of entertainment from the comfort of your room.


So far I saw one van back into the car that was sticking to the back. The guy got out and started to yell whilst another was less annoyed. In a second case I saw one-car crash into the back of the second and this was amusing. The guy who crashed was relaxed, almost joking whilst the over was really angry, as most people would be. Two cars were behind this crash and they grew impatient, started beeping, and more. The guy who was crashed into started yelling abuse at them as they drove away.


In other cases you see the large trucks trying to negotiate the bend and that’s impressive. You see some people struggling to park a fiat 500. They find it easy to move their truck although it takes wide turns and some back and forth.


Today I watched out of the window as one of these large trucks was waiting for the road to be clear so that it could negotiate this bend yet no one was courteous enough to wait. They could have and the road would be easier to negotiate for all to use.


There is one thing that annoys me more than anything else with traffic outside a window. People beeping. If you’ve ever lived roadside you know the sound. One person forgets to pay attention to the light and someone behind decides to beep. As a result everyone in the area hears this. It’s annoying because simply flashing your headlights at the person in front is enough to get them to continue on their absent-minded way. This is not a value judgment. They weren’t paying attention to the light therefore my remark is justified ;).


Now the last element, loud music s sometimes nice and other times not quite. I’ve never heard someone drive through a city with the BBC world service blaring out of their speakers. I’d find that interesting and intriguing at the same time. Most of the time its hip hop, R&B, and such. That’s just part of life.


Skidding tires are another amusing feature. You know how it goes. You’re in your car and you’ve been driving it so much your clutch control is fast, almost perfect. Sometimes though your foot presses on the accelerator just a little too hard and your tires lose traction causing a nice little screech and the sound of slipping tires as you attempt to move off. I watched as someone in a delivery truck did that. What surprised me is that he just let the tires screech until they got traction rather than let go of the throttle and move off normally.


All this to say that aside from wanting to throw water balloons through the car window at the idiot beeping traffic doesn’t bother me.

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Embouteillage pour cause de sapin sur l’autoroute a1 en direction de Lausanne Blecherette

Byrichard

I went snowboarding at it was great fun. At some moments the snow was great fun so it felt really good. I love the feeling of snowboarding at a fast rate down ski slopes and keeping up with skiers who don’t mind waiting too much.

All the snow canons were active because there’s a lack of natural precipitation. Some resorts are worried about what to do but as long as it’s cool then fake snow can be created to make a base on which for skiers to have fun. It’s tomorrow the resorts open properly, when all the tourists arrive.

On the way home on the radio I heard there was a traffic jam on the way to lausanne due to a christmas tree being on the road and I burst out laughing. only in Switzerland would you hear such a traffic jam warning.