Wow: I'm not weird, I'm the future!

No, it's true. I've just read a news article which claims that the youth are rejecting driving licences: 

In Britain, the percentage of 17- to 20-year-olds with driving licences fell from 48% in the early 1990s to 35% last year.

"Car manufacturers are worried that younger people in particular don't aspire to own cars like we used to in the 70s, 80s, or even the 90s. Designers commonly say that teenagers today aspire to own the latest smartphone more than a car. 

Underpinning all these innovations and ideas is what Liske sees as a major behavioural shift among the generation of "digital natives". "They don't care about owning things. Possession is a burden, and a car is a big investment for most people – not just the vehicle, but the permits, the parking space." 

Admittedly, I don't fit that demographic, but I'm with them. The ownership thing is interesting too: I insist on owning physical books and music, but I don't own a house (i.e. can't get a mortgage), and understand the appeal of avoiding financial burdens if the payoff is limited, and there's a lot to be said for a simple life, though 'irresponsibility' could equally be applied to a youth spent avoiding ownership. 


I didn't learn to drive when I was 17 because I was immured (one of my favourite words) in a boarding school. In any case, despite living in the country, my parents had no interest in teaching us to drive, so I got used to walking a mile or two to the bus stop, and organised what passed as a social life by sleeping on friends' floors in town for days on end. Summer conversations with my family tended to follow this pattern: 'Where are you going?' 'Out'. 'When will you be back?' 'At some point'. Some days later, the conversation would be resumed: 'Where have you been?' 'Out'. 


My university in a small town was accessible by train and a car - let alone tax and insurance - was out of the question financially, so that took me into my twenties. Graduation saw me return home for a period of unemployment and then the 10 p.m. - 4 a.m. data entry shift (which is why I'm now an academic). I got there on my bike, riding 15 miles each way, and have never been fitter. Or sweatier. After that, it was off to The Dark Place, where I often had cash-flow issues and lived within a few minutes of the university - exactly fitting the general trend:

 "It's partly the cost of ownership, the cost of insurance," he says. "Other factors that are more speculative are that there are more people in higher education, which typically takes place in urban centres where the car isn't part of the mix. Then people stay on in these urban centres."

Along the way, I also developed an environmental sensibility, though whether it began sincerely or as an excuse to brandish in front of mocking drivers, I'm not sure. But it's real now, and it's shared by many of my friends: some have licences, some don't, but almost none of them own cars. If I had children I'd probably feel the need to drive, and I sometimes feel guilty when someone else has to drive me, but mostly I'm quietly pleased that I've arranged my life to avoid cars: feet, trains and buses get me virtually everywhere I need to go. Of course, this is partly reliant on living on a small island in a mature post-industrial phase, and it's unlikely to be sustainable as Tory governments attack mass transit from every angle. It's true, too, that many of the places I'd like to visit are beyond the reach of public transport, but I'll cope. 


There is a sense, which I share, that cars have been a massive dead end. Apart from the insane economics of borrowing money to buy a polluting chunk of metal which then needs massive taxes, fuel, maintenance and insurance, only to be used for a few minutes per day, I very rarely feel the emotional pull promised by car ads: freedom and individualism. Margaret Thatcher said that a man in his twenties riding the bus should feel himself a failure: it's never seemed that way to me, though my students have repeatedly mocked me for not having a licence because to them it seems to promise autonomy, personal expression and adulthood. To me, the car represents the destruction of quality of life: look at our cities, turned into stinking, noisy hellholes by privileging individualist movement and speed over humane scales and velocity. Some people appear to think that's a good thing, like the AA spokesman quoted:

"People driving less is good for the environment, but not good for the economy, and we've got to find a way to make the economy keep going."

I don't accept that: I think we'll find ways to spend money without giving it all to insurers and petrol refiners: perhaps slow, quiet, safe cities might tempt people to visit more galleries, shop more or go out more. I like buses and trains, despite the occasional screaming child or the time I had to avail myself of the emergency exit at a junction because I was about to vomit: a rather drunk chap who'd very recently soiled himself in every way possible decided to talk to me, right in my face. Despite being a fairly reserved rodent, I'm happy to talk to people, and don't feel the need to fart fumes in children's faces to prove that I've 'made it'. I worry about those who do: the men and women who choose 4x4's and sports cars to cocoon themselves from humanity, not those who require a vehicle to get by in a stupid economic and social structure which demands that we all rush from place to place. I realised long ago that car ownership isn't freedom, it's another way to become enmeshed. I like what I hear about Scandinavia, where wealth and status isn't announced by the vehicle in front of your house: functional cars are kept for their useful lives, rather than used in a fruitless and never-ending war with your neighbours.


But never mind all these nice trends. I'd reduce driving in far less subtle ways. I'd ban 4x4s and other ridiculous vehicles from common ownership: builders and farmers can have rugged 4x4s, nobody else. Then I'd start removing things from cars. Start with iPod connections and stereos. Then padded seats and seat belts. Then windows. Ban ABS and disc brakes. Before long, if you're desperate to drive, you'll be allowed to stand on a motorised plank. Your dedication will impress me. 


Despite that, I'm still impressed by car designs. I'd have a Citroen DS and a Morris Minor convertible on my driveway - as industrial art. But I would say that: I'm Vole, not Toad:

Requiem for a city

I hate car culture: it's turned our cities into machines for crushing communities. But this kinetic sculpture makes all that movement beautiful. Though perhaps that's the secret: movement is pretty rare for urban drivers. Cars promise independence, individuality, escape and self-expression. What you get is isolation, selfishness and confinement. Mike Davies's wonderful history of LA, City of Quartz charts that metropolis's descent into vehicle hell, including the disgusting story of how a cartel of car and tyre maker successfully bought the local railway system solely to close it down - and were fined $1 for their crimes.

I don't drive, though if I had cash and space, I'd have a row of cars as sculpture: 1940s/50s Citröens, a Morris Minor convertible, big curvy American 1940s gangsters' cars.



The Mayor of Vilnius (Lithuania), one of the most beautiful places I've ever been, has a simple way to deal with selfish drivers:

Friday conundrum time!

It's Friday afternoon, so the staff here are obsessed with this Name Anagram Generator. If you're good at Scrabble, you can work out my actual name from Brainy Dean. The vice-chancellor, ironically enough, comes out as 'Principal Egos', and Zoot Horn is Calendar Girl. Poor Mark comes out as Jerk Moans.

Anyway, how about a conundrum. A practical one this time. Do I spend my spare money (e.g. what I don't spend on rent and books) on:

a) driving lessons. I'm 34 and haven't hitherto bothered.

b) more violin lessons. I wasn't much good. I'd practice now. Really.

c) smack. It's the only response to living in Wolverhampton.

What skill would you really like to acquire?

Environment saved

I was keeping this for Radio 4's Genius program, but the need is too urgent to wait for a new series.

I think that most of the drivers I know don't care about the damage they're doing to the environment and to the lungs of pedestrians because they're insulated from the immediate effects. Likewise, the exhaust fumes disperse and we don't really notice it any more.

So the way to shame people into driving less or driving cleaner cars is to increase the immediate effect of the pollution. I have the answer. Add harmless black dye to the exhaust so that each vehicle pumps out a foul black cloud proportionate to the pollution produced, so that everybody can see whose cars are poisoning them, and gains a visual index of the degree to which our air is polluted. Link it to another pump which exudes a revolting but harmless gas into the vehicle's cabin - I suggest the eggy deliciousness of human flatulence - in proportion to the engine output (for SUVs, I'd prefer to link the exhaust pipe to the air conditioning, but apparently that counts as murder).

Before long, the selfish bastards in urban SUVs will be rushing to buy Prius's as their clothes stink of bottom and passing pedestrians lob bricks at the filth factory speeding past. It won't cost drivers any more, it doesn't penalise people who have to drive for work, it simply emphasises the costs of how we run our society.

Don't mind me, sometimes I get a little cranky

I like people. Most people. Some people, anyway. What I'm trying to say is that I'm not an undiscriminating misanthrope. There are groups with a permanent place in my Top Ten for Summary Execution - Tories, hippies, SUV-drivers. I'd like a t-shirt to flash reading 'you are an arrogant, selfish, polluting, greedy, egotistical, inadequate, shortsighted bastard (unless you're a farmer or builder)' but fear that they wouldn't be able to read the whole thing as they flash past en route between suburban home and suburban prep school. 

So anyway, apart from them, I like most people. Except for the three teenage girls who casually dropped their fast food wrappings on the floor in front of me as though there's no more natural place for rubbish - inconceivable to them that bins even exist, let alone should be used by the likes of them. 

No, the only person who really got to me today is a complete stranger I see every Monday. I queue up to get into the pool, so I'm already feeling slightly cranky. Waiting my turn, I idly gaze out over the car park where he sits in his highly-polluting car, warming up for his swim by having a cigarette. So he's driven to the pool and smokes as a preliminary. I want to smash his headlights in and then calmly explain that a walk and no cigarette would help him no end, and would leave the congested lanes for people who don't intend to poison themselves (and others), before dying expensively on the NHS. OK, so he's finished his cancer-twig. Then, EVERY WEEK, he strolls to the front of the queue and pushes in so aggressively that nobody says a thing. After that, he races to get changed first, grabs the widest lane and swims down the middle so that nobody else can share it. 

The final straw was after I left the pool today. Trying to cross the ring-road, who should shoot straight through the red light while I was on the road but this utter, utter wanker. At least I'm compensated by the knowledge that a fat smoker, dangerous driver and non-seatbelt wearer is probably going to die younger than me. Does that make me a bad person?

Urge to kill… rising. 

Health Solutions

I'm still gutted by Stoke's 94th-minute defeat by Chelsea the other day - I doubt we'd ever get those extra minutes from a referee should we need them. But it's put me in a sporting frame of mind. Neal thinks that Monkey Tennis should be an Olympic Sport. Perhaps. But my money's on the Obesity Olympics. I'd make participation compulsory for anyone seeking medical help for weight-related health problems, unless it's genuinely a genetic disease. I'd televise it, and the medals would carry with them enough medication for a fixed period. 

I'd also ban the obese from car ownership and short trips on public transport. I'd repeal all laws covering abusive behaviour so that you could hurl epithets at plus-sized citizens (of which I am, shamefully, one, though in remission). I will also gradually ban luxury accessories on private vehicles. I'd start with stereos, DVD players, air-conditioning, tinted windows, then move on to heaters, cushioned seats, seatbelts, ABS, lights and windows, doors and key-ignition. Eventually, if you own a car, you'll be sitting on a board and pedalling it along.