The Day of the Triffids
The Grim Reaper
No. 22 in a never-ending series. Autumn 1998
The Grim Reaper has an unwarranted reputation for having a cynical attitude towards cars and their drivers. For reasons beyond my comprehension some readers have suggested that my column suffers from a lack of objectivity, and that it is anti-car and overly gloomy. Nothing could be further from the truth.
To prove my point, I will completely ignore a recent report by Brunel University for the Transport Research Laboratory that interviewed driving and law enforcement professionals and found that 89% of traffic police, 91% of magistrates, and 92% of driving instructors said they routinely ignore 30 mph speed limits. I will pass over the predictable news from the Red Cross that road accidents are set to become the world's biggest killer within twenty years taking more lives than war, TB and HIV combined.
I will not dwell on the latest statistics that show this year to be the warmest ever, and far be it for me to suggest that car emmissions play any part in this. Moreover I will not exploit the misfortunes of tourists to fill this column by highlighting the irony of their flying halfway around the world, pouring greenhouse gases into the upper atmosphere only to find the locals and fellow pleasure seekers dying from unimaginable heat throughout the Mediterranean and North America. And I certainly will not pass judgement on the Government White Paper on transport except to say that until public transport is provided from my front door to Tescos the Showcase multiplex cinema and mv Great Aunt Mavis in Widecombe on the Moor, I cannot reasonably be expected to give up my car. However, I will willingly pay the proposed road toll to enter Bristol providing it is spent on reducing congestion for essential road users such as mvself.
Instead let me draw your attention to some very positive action from the guilt stricken motor manufacturers. Mazda have teamed up with the Forest of Avon to plant five trees in local woodland for every new Demio car they sell this year only. They have paid a scientist in Edinburgh university to estimate that planting this number of trees can offset the annual output of CO2 from one of their cars. Both manufacturer and drivers can sleep with a clear conscience as the earth self destructs clear in the knowledge that even though their nocturnal emmissions may have caused asthma cancer and heart disease, they cannot stand accused of causing global warming as the Forest of Avon continues to spread down the verges of the M32 motorway. We must surely be grateful that Mazda has saved us from the greenhouse effect and provided us with more woodland in which to picnic and go mushrooming.
Toyota however has gone one better and devised the ultimate solution. To you or me, dear cyclists and environmentally minded car owners, the ultimate solution might be to genetically modify drivers by injecting them with DNA from the three-toed sloth on passing their driving test, thus rendering them by and large incapable of driving at all. Toyota have approached the problem from another tangent and their mad, bad and thoroughly dangerous scientists (sue me if you dare) have produced genetically modified trees by manipulating plant chromosomes, gene splicing and plant tissue culture to produce plants which will grow quickly and absorb much more carbon dioxide. Like the Forest of Mazda, they are involving environmental organisations, have already planted an experimental forest in Japan and hope to plant others next to their factories around the world.
Life's too short to worry, eh? Fill her up.
The Grim Reaper
