Nothing beats high of driving solo

AS you read this, I’m driving Northern Ireland’s beautiful Causeway Coast, one of the nicest routes in the country and now slightly overshadowed by the behemoth the Wild Atlantic Way has become.

Nothing beats a long drive, except a long drive totally on your own. My record solo trip came on a scoping mission to write about the host cities for the Euro 2012 football championship. I drove across Wales and England, took a ferry to the Hook of Holland, sped along the motorways of the Netherlands and Germany, and on through Poland to Poznan and Gdansk.

At almost 4,000km in eight days, the round trip was a bit of a marathon, but I loved it. Behind the wheel, I think of nothing beyond the road ahead, and it’s the most liberating braincleansing exercise I know.

But what happens when you have passengers? A survey by easytrip.ie, Ireland’s only electronic parking and tolling tag provider, asked passengers to rate in order their pet hates in drivers, and it seems they have strong opinions. The ingrates!

Their least favourite drivers are the ones who never shut up talking and pay insufficient attention to what’s going on around them. These were followed by those who go too fast, those with messy cars, and those who don’t use their indicators (that’ll be the people with the fancy German cars, obviously).

As for how they describe themselves, passengers said they either were reluctant co-pilots, snoozers, music lovers, backseat drivers or chatterboxes, though how the snoozers were able to identify bad traits in drivers beats me.

As for keeping the kids amused, an amazing 38% said they still played I Spy, which I found rather heartening. This was followed in popularity by games consoles and portable DVD players, singalongs, reading books (something I never could do – it made me feel ill) and playing with toys.

None of that matters to me. I’m happy to be on my own, with a Spotify playlist and sun beating down, driving as fast as the limit allows and revelling in the freedom solo driving offers.

If you, on the other hand, are away with family this weekend, hard luck!