By John Boothman
IT was always going to happen. It was just a matter of when. If you commission a self-confessed petrolhead to write occasional columns of topical interest – without specifying what exactly qualifies – sooner or later cars and motoring are going to bubble to the surface of his scribbles. And that moment has now arrived.
The motor car as we currently know it – a four-wheeled, self-propelled passenger vehicle generally powered by an internal combustion engine – dates from the mid-1880s. These very early contraptions, which were known as horseless carriages, were frail and unreliable; yet the pioneers who bought and drove them were conscious that they were the advance guard of what would one day become a powerful new trend in personal transportation, even if most of the general public dismissed them as cranks, and motoring as a transient craze.
By about 1900 it was becoming clear that the car was here to stay, so the mood changed from ridicule to hostility. When in 1899 Peter Falla, a Jersey solicitor, imported a primitive 3½hp Benz (the first car in the Island), it was christened La Machine du Diable and pelted with stones as it climbed Mont Mado. Around the same time Queen Victoria dismissed cars as ‘horrible machines… I am told that they smell exceedingly nasty and are very shaky and disagreeable conveyances altogether’.
Plenty of others agreed, both here and on the mainland, and the anti-motoring lobby gathered strength. In an outburst published in June 1903, Les Nouvelles Chroniques de Jersey didn’t mince its words: ‘These machines become absolute demons on the main roads… The new invention is an outrage.’ If this was intended to provoke a reaction, it did. One respondent described the claim of devilry as ‘an assertion ridiculous in the highest degree’, adding that: ‘The motor car is the means of locomotion of the future.’
The Chronique was having none of it. In May 1905, it returned to the attack, demanding public protection in the most intemperate terms.
During the Edwardian era motorists were mostly affluent: quite apart from the cost of the car itself, tyres, repairs, maintenance and fuel placed it well beyond the impecunious. But in America things were already changing, thanks to one man: Henry Ford. His eponymous Model T brought motoring within the reach of everyman and went on to sell 15 million examples.
The democratisation of motoring took longer in Europe, but mass mobilisation was a feature of the inter-war years. In 1915, when car registration was introduced here, just 543 vehicles were registered; thanks mainly to the proliferation of economy cars, by 1939 the number had swollen to 9,170. In 1961, it breached 25,000, in 1977 50,000 and in 1992 75,000. Today the tally is close to 130,000, equivalent to more than one vehicle for every inhabitant, children included.
In the circumstances, it might be supposed that no politician or pressure group in their senses would want to take on such a multitude. Yet nothing could be further from the truth. During the last 20 years, the anti-car lobby of 1900 has re-emerged with a vengeance, and this time it certainly means business.
Cars, we are told, clutter the Island’s roads causing congestion which impedes motorists as well as other road users. They are dangerous to cyclists and pedestrians. Their fumes are unpleasant and often hazardous to health. Car-driving, rather than walking or cycling, contributes to the obesity epidemic. CO2 emissions contribute to climate change. And so on.
So what is there to say for the motor car and its power plant, the infernal (sorry, internal) combustion engine? First and foremost, it has liberated people from the shackles of immobility and the tyranny of timetables. The late Victorians thought the car was an irrelevance. In 1900, Britain had the greatest railway network in the world, sufficient (if joined end to end) to encircle the globe. Yet in proportion to the population, travel was sparse. It has been calculated that in 1890 the average Briton travelled a total distance of just 13 miles a year. A century later, the same average distance was covered every day, most of it by car.
Bicycles are a lot cheaper than cars and in dry weather, for the reasonably fit, provide excellent personal transport over relatively short distances. Walking is good exercise too; a brisk walker can manage perhaps 4mph. Neither is well-suited to the carriage of heavy bags or boxes. Trains and buses are fine for longer-distance travel between towns and cities, so long as the passenger wants to go exactly when and where the conveyance is going. A car delivers its occupants at a reasonable pace and in comfort, the departure time and route being at the discretion of those on board. In most scenarios, it is immensely more convenient than its rivals.
Cars are criticised for being dangerous, for causing congestion, for their emissions. But the car of today is infinitely safer (both for those inside and those outside it) than its predecessors. In Jersey, fatal and serious accidents attributable to motorists are thankfully rare. The insistence on ever tighter regulation, including the proliferation of ultra-low speed limits, defies logic. We are told that a cyclist or pedestrian struck at 20mph will be far less seriously injured than one struck at 30. But in a 30mph zone it is highly improbable that they will be hit at that speed (unless they fall from the sky, which in itself is likely to be fatal) because on sighting them the car driver will apply the brakes.
When a collision does occur between, say, a private car and a bicycle, the growing presumption is that the car driver should be held responsible – even if the facts suggest otherwise. This flawed notion seems certain, sooner or later, to lead to a miscarriage of justice.
Petrol engines are much more efficient (and their CO2 emissions far lower) than in former times. But requiring cars to slow repeatedly for lower limits, speed bumps and chicanes, before resuming their former speeds, causes increased fuel consumption and emissions per mile covered and adds to wear and tear, while also incidentally increasing congestion (because the time taken to accomplish a given journey is increased). Longer journey times also mean lower personal productivity.
Meanwhile, a petition is launched to install a pedestrian crossing on Victoria Avenue fewer than 200 metres from an existing crossing. Cycle tracks expensively created to appease a vocal pressure group are little used. It’s surely time to put a stop to this festival of slowness.
Fuel duties of around £23 million a year exceed road maintenance costs threefold. If that revenue diminished or vanished altogether, it’s a fair bet that (on the principle of ‘user pays’) cyclists and public transport operators would have to stump up. I wonder how they would feel about that.
Most of us understand that our own ‘freedom of the road’ must be balanced by respect and consideration for its other users, but there are clear signs that this vital principle is fraying at the edges. My plea is for an end to anti-motoring rhetoric and unnecessary constraints. Politically, socially and environmentally, there is little to gain and much to lose from treating those who own and drive cars as pariahs.
