So first the good news! I got B to the party with no drama and with very little driving practice since before Christmas. A couple of times I thought too much about what I was doing and the fear started to rise up but I counted backwards from thirty, which is surprisingly hard for my brain, and I was fine before I’d got down to 20! I was glad to have done it and it feels like an achievement even though in terms of distance it was very small. On Monday I drove to and from the Severn Valley Country Park which is a thirty minute cross-country journey I enjoy. I feel more comfortable on quiet country roads than on busier main roads even though the speed limit is similar. And yesterday I drove from Stourbridge to a site in the south of Birmingham for a meeting, again using a quiet cross-country route through Clent and Romsley. So I’ve clocked up a few miles this week and although it was mostly in my comfort zone, all longer distance driving is good practice. I don’t have any other children’s parties to aim for yet but I will go out again this weekend to try and keep the momentum going. Still got to get to Kidderminster and back alone which is a bit of a ‘thing’ in my head …
But here’s the dilemma: The draft Birmingham Transport Plan was published this week for public consultation, a revised planning policy on parking is already out and a Clean Air Zone will take effect in the city centre later this year. Other cities are also finding ways to reduce the reliance on the private car and we await a final decision on HS2. While I am consciously choosing to drive more, local and national government is, rightly I think, trying to limit the use of cars in the interests of air quality and lowering carbon emissions, and to improve public transport. There will be differing views on how best to address these issues, and I’m not commenting here on the merits of these particular strategies, but I do think it is only by all of us making changes to the way we live now that any significant progress will be made.
So, as a conscientious citizen, where does that leave me just now? I think I have a fairly balanced approach to my work travel arrangements, commuting to and from work by train three days a week and driving one day so I can drop E off at Granny’s house. When I need to go on site I try and do several visits at a time to keep the miles to a minimum. However, I do use the car for the majority of local trips, mostly for speed and convenience, and because I nearly always have at least one child with me. Just getting everyone ready to go out can be a challenge on its own without having to cope with people not wanting to walk i.e. physically refusing to move, not being willing to carry anything, deciding they don’t want to ride the bike anymore, etc., etc. What you can do in five minutes in the car takes twenty five minutes on foot and that five minutes might well be a lot less stressful.
Looking ahead, things will change in a couple of years when both girls are at school; I won’t need the car to go to nursery first and will just walk them to school and then carry on to the train station. In the meantime, and especially while I am going out just to practice driving, I thought I could try swapping some of my short driving trips for walking, especially with a little more forward planning. Maybe I can, in an entirely unscientific and unmeasured manner, try to keep my net gain in vehicle emissions to a minimum. So, feel free to encourage me to both drive and walk if you see me over the next few weeks!
The Anxious Driver 