Car-less and carefree. That’s me. After 35 years of driving in London, and more than 20 different vehicles, the four wheels have finally come off my relationship with city motoring.
It’s been a long and slow break up. But a few weeks back I moved away from the sleek, silver German estate, said my final goodbyes to the extended family of Fiats, Citroëns, Alfa Romeos, Land Rovers and Saabs that came before it.
The collaborative coercion and shame-clouding of an increasingly poisoned urban environment, my own dwindling finances, rising fuel costs and Sadiq Khan’s on-going war on pretty much anything that moves within the M25 has beaten me and my gas pedal foot into pedestrian submission.
Personally, I just can’t afford the clean air charge of around £2, on top of Ulez (£12.50 a day) and the Congestion Charge (£15), although I know it will pay dividends for the environment, which is a great thing.
I will be driving myself mad at the new “Vision Zero” city centre speed limit of 20 mph no more. From Jan 2022 on, I have auto-immunity.
It’s now more than a fortnight since the silver BMW Touring was eBayed, its tax and insurance cancelled and beloved K&C parking permit agreement terminated (surely this is the decree absolute of the London driver’s divorce) and the feeling is…well, not very much really. My self-engineered write-off has produced zero lachrymose emissions and no abdominal congestion. Instead, my internal battery is just flat, running on empty emotions. Bland Bereft Auto.
And this from a man who really loves cars. Each set of wheels on the 22 cars I owned since the Eighties has a special place in my scrap metal heart, having provided its owner with, variously, riotous West end escapades, wild suburban spills during rave-seeking cavortings, daft ‘o clock in the morning school runs as well as roadside arrests, clamps, tow-aways, tickets and flash fines.
There have been illicit stolen kisses across dashboards and vomit-stained child seats in the back. Hip-hop pumping from the bass bins one year, then soothing Radio 4 wiling away the country miles in latter decades.
There have been illicit stolen kisses across dashboards and vomit-stained child seats in the back
My flimsy, yellow Citroën 2CV, all 150 quids worth of it, for instance, was totalled in a brutal, T-bone prang near the Seven Sisters squat I lived in at the time, the point of contact being right outside a disused fire station occupied by the Grammy-winning singer Sade, who kindly invited me in and made me a cup of tea while I phoned the insurance company.
The Alfa Romeo — red, boy racer-ish, very Nineties — was purchased on the sole basis of it having once belonged to a member of Black Sabbath. The brand new Pininfarina-designed Peugeot 406 coupe was won (yep, actually won) in a raffle at a party in Terence Conran’s Mezzo restaurant on Wardour Street.
My magnificent Land Rover Series IIA, meanwhile, was admired vocally on London’s streets by everyone from Public Enemy’s Flavor Flav, to Tilda Swinton and streetwear maverick Shawn Stussy. Driving in London was fabulous back then. Fast and fun. Nippy and naughty. Parking? No problem. Once upon a time, dear reader, a Londoner could park pretty much anywhere.
I vividly remember a glorious time, during the second “summer of love” of 1988, when I would drive to Soho on a Saturday night, dump my little car — two wheels on, two wheels off the pavement — on a single yellow line on Old Compton Street. Go to a few bars, then a club, then get on a coach to a banging acid house rave, out in the sticks. Wake up, God knows how, at home. Emerge from duvet at around 2pm… get on the Tube to retrieve the car, and discover that it was EXACTLY where I’d left it. Lonely, yes, but also ticket and clamp free. What a time to be alive and drive.
Despite all this misty-eyed reminiscence, somewhat surprisingly, I don’t miss the car much at all. There is a soothing dose of spiritual, communal, environmental smugness, and (oh joy!) a huge financial relief. What with repairs, maintenance, parking permits, fuel costs — owning a car was sending me easily in the thousands of pounds a year. And what do you get for all this? To waste an average of 227 hours a year stuck in funereally paced traffic. To drag around town at an average (central London) speed of 7mph. A decent walking pace is three to four miles per hour. Move up to a jog and you can enjoy six or seven. A fairly fit cyclist will easily manage 15-20 mph, which is actually quite fast enough for me.
Like many Londoners living in a post-pandemic capital, the great reset has narrowed my socio-geographical parameters. In my west London village I can pedal or walk to get wherever I want to be. So, on a whim rather than on a mission, I decided to join the e-volution with a scooter. Flush with the money I got from selling the BMW, I went online and purchased a Kugoo G2 Pro All Terrain and zoomed into the 21st century with all the cool kids. “You look like a drug dealer,” said one of my younger friends. Really? Stealthy, ninja dealers whizzing around silently on two wheels. Apparently so.
Then I read the small print. My new wheels are illegal on both highways and pavements. In fact, if I did get caught riding it on the roads, they will fine me £300 and whack six points on my driving licence. Those ones that you can hire, are legal but these only work in certain areas — indeed, will come to a dead stop if you try to stray — and are programmed to automatically drop their cruising speed to 8mph in certain parts of town.
But here’s the real kicker. If I wanted to pilot my privately owned scooter around town, properly, legally, I’d have to treat it exactly like the car I’ve just got rid of — be in possession of a driving licence, register the scooter with the DVLA, make sure it complies, MOT-style, to certain regulations concerning headlights, indicators etc, and get a number plate. And full insurance. Which will be very difficult because, according to my research, almost all insurance companies will be loath to take me on. Probably because they will assume that I am a drug dealer. So much for the e-volution. Anyone want to buy a brand new e-scooter?
