Having worked through the coronavirus pandemic, I’ve found myself regularly driving these past months at a time when most people have been at home. This has led to quieter roads, and a halving of my usual commuting time. Paradoxically, it’s also been a time when I have never been more afraid of taking to the road. Speeding, cutting in, pulling out without looking, overtaking on blind corners – all of these things I witness regularly on my commute now. The situation is such that when I am not required to go to work, I leave the car at home as much as possible for fear of accidents. This is not normal and I have a theory about it.
Psychologically we can be divided up into various personality types. There are a number of profiling methods, but the main one used in psychological research is called the Big Five. This lists five main personality traits: extroversion, openness, neuroticism, conscientiousness, and agreeableness. Insights into our nature are revealed by how we score against each of these traits.
Those who have stayed at home during the pandemic, those who obey the rules about necessary journeys and social distancing will measure high in conscientiousness, neuroticism and agreeableness. This basically means you worry about doing the right thing, you’re thorough in following the guidelines and you’re thinking about keeping others safe as much as yourself.
The idiots who score low on these same measures don’t care about the rules, they believe the rules don’t actually apply to them, and they don’t worry about others at all, indeed they don’t think about others, and couldn’t give a fig if others found them disagreeable. Indeed, they might wear the latter as a badge of honour. So, these quieter roads are an invitation for such types to floor the accelerator and really see what the old girl will do. In other words, if you’re sensible, agreeable and conscientious in the current climate you’re more likely to be at home doing the right thing. If you’re on the roads, you’re more likely to be an idiot, and a danger to others.
Speaking of which:
To the driver of the corporate-looking BMW who joined the M61 at around six forty-five this morning, from the on-slip of Junction 5, doing about seventy, and who missed me by inches, then careened blithely out into the fast lane before disappearing in a cloud of dust as he ramped it up to warp speed, I say this: that was some manoeuvre. I’d also say no human being could possibly have reacted as fast as you did, threading that obnoxious beast of a car into tight traffic, unless they were coked up to the eyeballs, which I suspect you were.
You didn’t see all the tail lights stabbing in alarm to make way for your safe passage, and even if you had you would not have cared. Nor did you feel the jolt of shock I felt, deep in my stomach, and which lingered well into the day. You would have considered it amusing perhaps, merely the price others must pay for you to exercise your divine right to do as you want.
And then to the stone-faced cop in the scowly-faced SUV, who followed me halfway home this evening, waiting, I presume, for me to forget to indicate (yes, I score high in neuroticism), I say to him:
Where the hell were you this morning?
The Rivendale Review 
Boris gave the green light to your mate in the BMW when he relaxed the distances we can travel to do whatever a few weeks ago It is still 5 miles in Wales.
He has now gone one step further and opened the pubs [before the schools] relying on your BMW mate to keep to the rules of safe-distancing.
Where the Hell were you last night.
Yes, to take the example of Wales and Scotland, you’d be forgiven for thinking they thought we were incompetant. Needless to say I won’t be following the advice to go to the pub on the 4th. Plenty will of course, but that might mean the hills are quieter of an evening for the rest of us.
Glad you’re safe, Michael.
Thank you. I’ll leave the car alone for a few days now. It could just be that I’m too slow for a fast moving world, that speed and risk are the new normal.
Keep well.
Regards
Michael
I am a risk taker, and as such I avoid driving motorcars and I don’t carry a gun.
But it is odious when society steps in to restrict my behaviour when I am no threat to others
Further, my judgement of poor driving is softer where the likely victims are all in steel boxes and harsher where the victims are unarmed and unprotected.
This world of the motorways and fast roads is a little other to me, and I’m afraid I cannot sympathise.
Another thought re pubs;
We have wondered into a world bereft of public toilets. For a large number, access to wild open places is meaningless without the support of pubs. Perhaps a rethink is in order on the purpose of the pub. I like them, although I mostly don’t drink, but they are a crucial part of the country’s infrastructure, and shouldn’t be left for the farageites and the heavy drinkers.
I hope thinking people like yourself will find your way back into pubs soon, as otherwise would be to accelerate the polarisation that has already taken hold.
Stephen
Ah, certainly I’d not like to be braving the roads on a bike. Sadly, the motorways and fast roads are the only option to us rural northern types now – public transport being barely even a shadow of its former self, and a good way to catch covid now, also long commutes the name of the game for so many chasing what work there is.
I must admit, I’d never thought of myself as a pub person before – too much the introvert – but then I realise after a long walk, there’s nothing finer than a pub meal, so perhaps I misjudge myself on that one. Those were the days. Personally I’m still sticking to the two meter rule, so it may be a while.
For me your beautiful lakes and dales, the highlands of scotlands, Norfolk broads, even my native Kentish Medway mud, are all places to escape the crowds. I can walk for a week in the highlands without seeing a sole, but the longer I’m there, the more I yearn for civilisation. What civilisation, is another matter though.
“No man is an island” I should read that!