25 November 2005

Respecting the speed limit

During my drive to work this morning, no differently from any of the mornings this week, this month, this ..., I watched the tail lights fading from view of almost every previously following vehicle. I drive at the speed limit.

A rational part of me tries hard to tell me that, provided that I am not affected by the behaviour of other car drivers, then their business is none of my own. However, this morning I was affected: a big waggon bore down on my car, tailgated with blazing headlights, overtook within a hair's breadth of my driver's door mirror, pulling back into the inside lane just as the road incline steepened, and the waggon slowed to a crawl up the hill.

A less rational part of me feels cheated: obeying the speed limit costs me time - time that I should prefer to spend at home, or at work, or shopping for Christmas presents. Whilst I resent paying in the currency of time, I should resent it less if most people also paid. ("Why pay the full amount when you can receive a discount?")

A moody part of me grumbled about drivers not observing the legal requirements - which is retrospectively hypocritical considering the speeds at which I have travelled on the motorways of continental Europe and North America. A slight rationalisation creeps in at this point: I admired the road signs along the Florida Keys warning that fines for speeding through roadworks would double during periods while operatives were at work - the cars and waggons on the motorway this morning were speeding through roadworks at which operatives were busy working. However, I did start fantasising about the retrofitting of tachographs in all private vehicles (electronic, with a transponder that downloaded driver and driving details to roadside receivers).

A highly rational part of me cautioned that it is generally safest to travel at the same speed as the rest of the traffic. I guess that I believe that driving in a manner significantly out of conformity with the expectations of other drivers is more dangerous than travelling at speed. When in doubt, I would prefer to 'go with the flow'. However, this part of me is easily intimidated by the law. This morning I felt resentful both towards most of the other drivers on the motorway, and also towards the speed restrictions, for placing me in a quandry about how best to drive: safely or legally?

However, the greater part of me knows that, whilst byways might be fine for milk floats and moggie thousands (Morris 1000), highways, particularly motorways, are for drivers with confidence. To drive in a manner that suggests a lack of confidence reduces the validity of my presence. Being overtaken by every car and waggon on the road was flaunting my unfitness for motorway driving. This attitude is strengthened by my awareness of the celebration in western culture of moving forward, of getting ahead, of striving. Lack of commitment demonstrates insufficiency.

I believe that vehicles travelling along roads represent a significant danger to life, limb and property. Had I the authority to do so, I would summarily reduce the blood-alcohol limit from 80 mg/litre to 0 mg/litre. Suggesting and imposing speed limits plays a key role in reducing the danger of roads. However, there is little evidence of public recognition regarding the plethora of emotional reverberations associated with attempting to drive to the speed limit.

23 November 2005

Bridges

I have just read an article about bridges on the BBC News website: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4450264.stm
I have for ever given importance to bridges. My first bridge was that in the tale: Three Billy Goats Gruff, in which a troll or an ogre hid under the bridge and menaced each of the goats as they attempted to cross the bridge. Bridges harboured hidden dangers. My second bridge was more friendly: that from which Pooh, Piglet and friends threw sticks into the stream, thus creating the game of 'pooh sticks'. As a young adult, I painted a picture of this scene, and felt proud of my portrayal of the wooden construction of the bridge. For a number of years, I used the poem by William Wordsworth, On Westminster Bridge, as the de facto home page for my website.

Many people contemplate taking their life by leaping from a bridge. In this respect, the Clifton Suspension Bridge (Bristol, UK) has a gruesome reputation. The Tyne Bridge (Newcastle, UK) and the Wearmouth Bridge (Sunderland, UK) also have something of a bad reputation regarding suicidal people, not least because of the resulting substantial traffic hold-ups. Recently, I was driving over the Redheugh Bridge (Newcastle, UK) when I was held up for an hour by police officers who were trying to 'talk down' a "jumper" (their term).

Walking across, or at least onto, bridges is an activity that I have always found disproportionately meaningful. Crossing from one place to another, from Buda to Pest, from Newcastle to Gateshead, from Manhattan to Queens or to Brooklyn, from Westminster to Southwark, from Denmark to Sweden, feels like a change of state, of manner, or expectations. Driving over the bridge is second best, but preferable to not engaging with the bridge at all. I love naughtiness of the scene in the otherwise lacklustre movie Anger Management in which Dr. Buddy Rydell, the character played by Jack Nicholson, demands that Dave Buznik, the character played by Adam Sandler, stops the car he is driving during the rush hour over the Williamsburg Bridge.

When I, eventually, visit Sydney (Australia), I intend to take the guided tour of the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

In Manhattan (New York, USA) it was a reverential moment when I set foot for the first time on Brooklyn Bridge. I have many photographs of the occasion. Walking across the Queensboro Bridge from Manhattan to Queens was demanding, but I am glad to have done it. I shall not feel as though I have visited San Franciso until I have walk across the Golden Gate Bridge.

In France, I have visited the Pont du Gard at Nimes, and the Pont Vieux in Avignon. It was wonderful to stand on the medieval bridge over the River Agout in Brassac (Tarn, France). However, of greater familiarity and significance are the various bridges across the River Seine in Paris. Their variety echo the vartiety of bridges across the River Thames in London (UK).

In Italy, it was important for me to walk cross the River Tiber, although I did not consider the bridges in Rome to be as inspirational as I had hoped. It goes without saying that I ache to walk on the Ponte Vecchio when I visit Firenze (Florence) for the first time. Of greatest Italian significance, however, are the bridges of Venezia (Venice). The vaporetto tannoy announcement "Rialto!" still rings in my ears. Despite their wheelchair unfriendliness, I love the bridges that cross the Canal Grande, as well as many of the smaller, less ostentatious bridges over obscure backwater Venetian canals.

In Germany I have walked across bridges in most of the cities I have visited, starting in the early 1970s with the Rein (River Rhine) in Koln (Cologne), and most recently the Spree in Berlin. I regret to holding a prejudice that German bridges are less singular and less romantic than they could be.

In Belgium, the canals of Brugge and Gent provide the opportunities for bridges, although it is the canals, rather than the bridges that I find attractive. In Amsterdam (Nederlands), though, the balance between canals and bridges feels a little more even. However, it is not easy to loiter on bridges in Amsterdam, for fear of being squashed by cyclists.

In Scotland in the late 1960s I crossed the River Tay, walking from Dundee and back again across the Tay Road Bridge. I had been driven in a coach across the Forth Road Bridge. It was only many years later that I drove my car across the Forth Road Bridge on my way from Edinburgh to Dunfirmline. However, on this latter occasion we stopped, parked the car, and walked onto the bridge, taking photographs of it, and its sibling bridge, the Forth Rail Bridge. I may, in fact, never have crossed the Forth Rail Bridge, other than in my imagination watching the movie The Thirty Nine Steps.

Driving south from Durham to Dover necessitates the uplifting experience of the Dartford Crossing (driving back north involves the Dartford Tunnel instead). Driving between Gloucestershire and South Wales is made special by crossing one or other of the now two Severn Bridges. When ploughing the Lancashire/Cheshire stretch of the M6, driving over the famous Thelwell Viaduct is a marvellous experience. I have never had occasion to cross the Humber, although I was excited to spy the Humber Bridge while overflying it en route from Newcastle to Amsterdam.

It gives me great satisfaction to walk from the Palace of Westminster across the River Thames. To me, Westminster Bridge is one (of several) centre of the world (Times Square in New York City is another). I ache to walk across the Millennium Bridge from Tate Modern to St Paul's Cathedral. It thrills me every time drive over Tower Bridge.

In Chester (Cheshire, UK) the Grosvenor Bridge is impressive-looking, but not very exciting to walk over. On the other hand, Handbridge, the medieval bridge, gives a sense of involvement with the River Dee. The suspension footbridge that spans the river from Grosvenor Park and the Groves to Queens Park and the Meadows is a holiday to walk across. Also in Chester are gates in the Roman and medieval city walls. As in York, these gates to the city are also bridges for pedestrians circumnavigating the city walls. Eastgate, with its world-famous clock, is a most pleasureable to stand and watch life pass beneath, up and down Eastgate Street and Foregate Street.

In York (Yorkshire, UK), my favourite bridges across the River Ouse are Lendal Bridge and the Ouse Bridge. In Sunderland (Tyne and Wear, UK) I have stood many a time on the Wearmouth Bridge looking downriver to the sea. In Newcastle I have sat eating my lunchtime sandwich on the Gateshead Millennium Bridge, driven many hundreds of times across the Tyne Bridge, made myself late by choosing to drive over the Swing Bridge, spontaneously ducked when driving over the High Level Bridge (with the East Coast Main (railway) Line on the upper deck), sped (in my car) across the Redheugh Bridge, and crawled (in trains) across the other rail bridge.

In Durham (Co. Durham, UK) I cross each of the bridges on foot, and some by car, with some frequency. Elvet Bridge and Framwellgate Bridge are medieval, both largely pedestrianised. Prebends Bridge is a formal, stylish, eighteenth century bridge in a wonderful woodland setting. Kingsgate Bridge (designed and built by Ove Arup) and the new Pennyfeather Bridge are both footbridges that are lovely to cross. Baths Bridge is the least interesting of the three footbridges. There are two road bridges: New Elvet Bridge and Milburngate Bridge. Of these two, the latter has the more interesting views being sited between two weirs.

A mile south of Durham are the outskirts of Shincliffe, the extended village in which I live. Built in seventeenth century, Shincliffe Bridge elegantly crosses the River Wear on the site of a former medieval bridge. Some hundred metres upstream is the site of a Roman bridge.

(More ...)

01 November 2005