Day # 41 - GREED!!!!

During the past week I have been driving again. My old van was laid up for a while after it failed it's last roadworthiness test, that turned into a long period of time as I didn't really need it back then owing to the fact that I was trying to study for my degree. I wasn't doing any tools stuff or much work driving so it just sort of went by the wayside. I had always intended to get it back on the road and after spending some money and time on it last month I brought it in to be tested once again. Sadly it failed. The underside had become rusted during the past couple of years and it was just too expensive to get sorted out. I would have been able to get it done on my own  - I'm a pretty good welder - but I cannot just swan off to do the work as I am looking after my Mother. During the past few years the regulations governing the roadworthiness of vehicles has become very strict in Ireland and many vehicles that did not make the grade were ultimately scrapped. I have often wondered are test centres encouraged to go a bit tougher on older vehicles in order to "stimulate" sales in some roundabout fashion. It does not seem logical in times of recession to drive people off the road, especially with commercial vehicles but then I expect that someone knows what they are doing and it might all be for the best. I am skeptical though.

It was in the wake of this situation that I found myself looking around for a new van. When I say "new" I mean new to me. I could not afford a NEW van in a month of Sundays. I am also of the mind that spending €20,000 on a vehicle is complete madness. I don't think I could ever own a new car unless I had so much money it made no difference. I like getting the most out of a machine and if it is clean and in good working order, runs and meets legal requirements then I have absolutely no reservations about owning it. I found something in the classifieds for a reasonable amount and went for it. It is the same model as my old van and hopefully I can harvest as many good parts as I can from my old one and between the two have something that I will be able to get a few years out of. So far so good - although it is a bit smelly on the inside having been used as a farm vehicle for over ten years without so much as a cleaning..

As usual I am late writing this. It was a busy day but most of it seemed to be spent doing stuff that lies outside of the plan. I did spruce up a bit today to keep the relative "up" feeling that I usually get after a few days of depression. I had a good dinner but I am worried that I may be eating a bit too much and not realising it. I will have to start weighing myself in order to control any leaps in mass.

I am going to say a few words about greed this evening. It is not meant to be an exhaustive essay on greed but how it might manifest itself on the roads. People are greedy with their "me" time and "me" space. It is perfectly reasonable to want a little time and space to oneself but hoarding it without any consideration towards others is something I find repugnant. I have often referred to Ireland as the country where nobody lets anyone out. By that I mean that the courtesy of giving someone a break at a junction or even a car park seems to be beyond the capacity of most motorists. Some do offer a way through for the poor unfortunate stuck stopped at some spur road but it has grown increasingly rare. Such behaviour may have it's roots in the "famine" mindset where one's own survival depended on how much food one could get AND hang on to. As Bob Marley said; " A hungry man is an angry man!" Anger and other negative emotions will always come to the fore when food is in short supply. Desperate behaviour can manifest itself even when people believe that something is in short supply and in a crowd situation people can get really desperate. When Tsar Nicholas II was being crowned monarch and autocrat of Russia in 1896 a massive celebration was held in his honour at Khodynka near Moscow. Many thousands of people were attending the celebrations. Word got around seemingly that the free beer and food that was on offer were about to run out, it was then that people began to panic and in the resulting stampede hundreds of people were killed, some estimates put the number of deaths at over 2,000 with many more injured. The whole "grab it while you can" thing has not been lost on sales and marketing people for many years.

Motorists can get quite selfish on the roads because they are afraid that they are going to "lose their place", that they will have to suffer needlessly by letting somebody go before them. How many times have you been in a car and trying to get out of a side road when the next motorist that comes along just stares into the middle distance ahead of them whilst gripping the steering wheel pretends that they cannot see you? The simple fact of the matter is that the person that holds the "power" to let someone out does not, owing to the fact that they feel compromised by having to make this "needless concession" to another road user. Are these folks experiencing a bout of "Doublethink"? Maybe. One of the other things that I have noticed is the - usually male - driver that overtly offers right-of-way to another road user. It is more than just a coincidence that the other road user is a woman and usually quite attractive. 

There are other forms of greed on the road too - jumping lights and blocking up clear zones. The offending motorist convinces themselves that they will be 5 years late if they have to stop for the lights and sure "Ari, I can just squeeze through here, no-one will mind, sure doesn't everyone do it!" etc. By far the worst kind of driver is the one that speeds up towards a closing gap - just in case they get "held up" unnecessarily. The simple fact of the matter is that if folks spent a little less time getting anxious about their space and gave a little more time to other road users, traffic would flow with far greater ease and delays would lessen considerably. The worst of it is that nobody is willing to take the "risk" of trying it out - they think that they have far too much to lose.

And so dear reader, with that rant over I will bid thee good night and drift into the arms of morpheus as is my wont. G'nite.