‘Drivers stuck in traffic: stop moaning’

Idiots. Sitting in their cars in the unending queues, staring forward at the bumper ahead while listening to BBC Radio 5 Live phone ins. I have no sympathy for any of them.

“Ooo, Feeder Road was so chocka I had to turn around and go the other way for a bit,” comes one typically self-harm-inducing comment from a commuter after they finally arrive, late of course.

“You just couldn’t move up the M32 at all,” comes another in the endless slurry of moaning that every office in this city is filled with on weeks like this.

Give me a f*cking break. If you don’t want to sit in traffic half your life, get out of your car and figure out a different way of moving your lazy body to and from your desk at your boring jobs.

Every dimwit in this slow-moving city knows that if you have the audacity to dare to drive your own vehicle anywhere you have got to be prepared to sit in a line on your own in the dark until the apocalypse comes.

This city has been creaking under its 70s transport system since, well, the 1970s. The ludicrous growth of our population matched by bugger-all in terms of new infrastructure has led to predictable daily carmageddon.

It doesn’t take a scientist to work out that this preciously balanced failure can be tipped into complete tear-you-hair-out-leave-your-car-and-run-down-the-M32 chaos by the slightest disruption anywhere in this city.

On Tuesday night and Wednesday morning it was traffic lights failure. But it could have just as easily been an accident at the Bearpit, a road closure in Stapleton or a butterfly flapping its tiny wings in St Werburgh’s.

If you want to drive your car, then by all means, go ahead – I don’t disagree with the right to move around the city in whichever way you want. But don’t moan about it when you finally reach your destination after sitting in the same traffic which has been gridlocking our city for decades now.

How about leave your keys at home for once and get on one of the big long white things which run along the red lanes with the taxis and bikes. Or get on a bike. It’s easy to learn. And you never forget, apparently.

Some people blame other people for making their comfy little drive into work so long. It’s the fault of the planners and politicians. With their anti-car agenda they’re squeezing people off dual carriageways into single lanes, smaller and smaller until we’re all funneled into a vortex.

Yes. Yes they are. And it’s not a conspiracy either. They’ve been doing it for years, ever since enlightened bright sparks realised you can’t keep encouraging traffic of growing metropolises into medieval town centres just because people don’t like getting cold on the way to the bus stop or they want to hear Orna Merchant telling them how bad their journey is going to be all the way until they get to their destination.

They’ve been closing rat runs, reducing lanes, charging people for parking and building bus lanes and cycle paths for years – spending millions trying to reverse the tragic mess we’ve got ourselves into.

The only problem is that some people just don’t get the hint. Some people think their right to clog the road up is being taken away by do-gooders out of spite just so they can ride past in their red trousers laughing at the queuing idiots.

And before you start to cry: “But some people need to drive to work. What about the carers, delivery vehicles, the disabled, emergency crews or people who live in the countryside?” Well, their moaning is justified. If everyone else got out of their way, the people most in need could breeze through, scarfs flapping in the wind.

Now, I don’t think for a minute getting out of our cars one by one is going to solve Bristol’s broken transport system forever. But it’s a start.

Neither do I think it’s going to make the slightest bit of difference to our planet. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if half of Bristol is underwater in 30 years time whether we ban traffic or not.

This is not a plea for the environment. This is a rant about sanity. I leave my car outside my house every day as I take my 20-minute trip to work. For the sake of common sense and to put a stop to the inevitable, spirit-crushing moaning we all endure far too often, I implore you to do the same.

Dennis Wright is a quantity surveyor from Bedminster Down who has lived in Bristol all his life.

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