with so many of us (or at least strewth, cor blimey, quite a few) returning to the roads, it is important for us to remind ourselves of some basics of driving. being away from the controls of a motor vehicle, or if you like car, can make one a little rusty, forgetting to remember rules and things what keep us safe. this is, for historians, as a net or direct result of the invisible war on the plague, a formidable battle which many of us were instructed to fight by remaining at home.
one thing i can tell you is that the world out there is not really the post apocalyptic wasteland we were all promised it was. no, it has not gone all Mad Max. there is still, for instance, an expectation for us to get fuel from petrol stations, rather than siphoned out of trucks what has had the driver crossbowed badly to death. also, the constabulary still exist, and frown on one driving around in trousers what have the arse cut out of them.
so as to help you get prepared and ready to be back cruising the streets, alas i can offer no practical assistance in any practical sense. what i can do for you, however, is share an advert for the AA (the car one, and not the drinking one) from 1986.
yes, no, don't you worry, below are some enlarged versions of the above so you may read them a bit more better. and, of course, also have a go at answering the questions, if you are so inclined.
i wasn't driving in 1986, as legally it was frowned upon for someone of the age i would have been then to do so. generally, though, my understanding of the time is that not a great deal else was frowned upon. over the years i have heard it spoken that drink driving wasn't really a thing anyone thought of, and a wide range of traffic violations or incidents could be resolved by making a charitable donation to something called the policeman's secret ball.
but, we are here for the now, not the past. and so here's the first segment of the above, hopefully somewhat clearer in a way that is (much) easier to read. not sure how all this internet stuff works, but if you click on the image (assuming you are on a computer and not a phone thing) it may very well go even bigger. clever, these machines are.
what really strikes me is just how irrelevant a significant number of these questions are. for those interested, or impatient, the answer to all of them (mindful of this being an advert) was to buy the shiny new 1986 AA motorist handbook.
one example of the redundancy of these questions is the second one down on the left. it is the one asking about what junction you need to take off of the M4 to get to a place called Bridgend. in this day and age, the answer to that, or any such similar question, is "whatever the satnav says to take". where once we used maps and that, now we just use them computer things. a tragic incidental consequence of this, if you were to ask anyone but Spiros, is that London cabbies with their skills of what they call "the knowledge" is no longer all that impressive.
moving, or if you like driving, on and here's the second batch of them questions. it seems that a few of these ones are of a more "technical" or car maintenance nature. and also about the possibility of breathtaking views in Leicestershire. someone mean spirited would probably answer that with something like "the most breathtaking view of Leicestershire is when you see it fading away in your rearview mirror", but that is not what i would say.
quite like the direction or map related questions, things like jammed starters are just not really an issue with modern driving. if a car breaks, normally the computer in the car says what is wrong. failing that, you can call the car menders, who come out, plug another computer into it, get the computer to work it out and mend it. unless the issue, of course, is something like the car is upside down, or even on fire.
it is remarkable, really, just how much of what was essential knowledge for using a car has become somewhat totes redundant within 34 years. one can only imagine what we take as a given now shall, too, be obsolete 34 years from now. then it shall probably be all flying space cars, what fly or drive themselves, except maybe no one will still go anywhere due to another invisible war on a different sort of plague.
the chances of this being of any practical use to anyone are, i grant you, limited. but, that said, if some of it has been interesting or entertaining, well jolly good.
be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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