FAREWELL TO THE JOY OF DRIVING
THE moment I set eyes on her I was smitten. And my response was primitive. I had to possess her and make her mine. Apologies if this sounds like the corny romanticism of some dribbling old fool. But before the bra burners start smouldering in protestation, relax: the object of my desire wasn’t a woman. (In these times I wouldn’t dare think, let alone talk, like that!)
No, what turned me to jelly was the very first time I saw my first car: a six-year-old, pillar-box red Triumph Herald convertible.
It was 1976. And even though I was an impecunious law student I didn’t hesitate to vaporise my savings in order to buy this wonderful motor. Even now, more than 40 years and many cars later – including, I have to admit, various Aston Martins, Ferraris, TVRs, a brace of Bentleys and of course the ultimate alpha male’s Dinky Toy, a Porsche, or rather several Porsches – I still hark back to my first motor and the joy of driving.
Of course you might think that my work as so-called Mr Loophole would ruin the driving experience since I spend so much of my career defending celebrities such as Sir Alex Ferguson, Jimmy Carr and Jeremy Clarkson after they have been accused of motoring offences.
But meticulous preparation for a case can also involve returning repeatedly to stretches of road where the client’s alleged misdemeanour has taken place. As I did when David Beckham was charged with speeding after being tailed by a photographer. I spent hours driving up and down the 10-mile stretch of the A34 near Stockport where the incident was said to have happened since familiarity with location can be essential for a successful outcome, as it was in this case.
But nothing could change the way I feel about driving. Which is why, when I think of my Triumph with its brown leather wheel cover – nattily accessorised with matching driving gloves – my head swarms with memories of that boiling summer of 1976. Of listening to my favourite album, Pink Floyd’s Dark Side Of The Moon. And the memory of cruising down country lanes with my first love (sorry Penny, I meant the car, not you).
When the car was stolen 18 months later I was heartbroken. You see it doesn’t matter whether you’re the owner of a clapped-out rust bucket, a super sleek saloon or just a nifty little second-hand runner. It’s the act of hands-on motoring that is such a pleasurable experience. The firing of the engine, the unspooling of the road ahead, the supreme control of man or woman over machine.
It’s why I’m astonished that the world is so ready to surrender potency and power to the rise of the driverless car.
Yet it certainly looks that way thanks to Philip Hammond’s budget pledge to ensure “genuine driverless vehicles” on Britain’s roads by 2021. As well as the fact that Nissan is looking into so-called mind-reading cars where “brain-to-vehicle” technology will anticipate a driver’s manoeuvre, allowing autonomous driving systems to kick in. Automated motoring is something I’m passionately opposed to, as I stressed in a speech to the Cambridge University Union a couple of week’s ago (the motion was This House Fears The Mass Adoption Of Driverless Cars). Though we reached what I would call an honourable draw, my arguments, I’m sure, made students think about the dour impact of an automated society.
The lawyer NICK FREEMAN, known as Mr Loophole who specialises in road traffic cases, on why he won’t be buying a driverless car
BUT let’s park – sorry – for a moment all the practical arguments against roboticised vehicles: the safety hazards, the vulnerability to hacking, the paucity of highway infrastructure and broadband to handle the new technology. Or the fact that the driverless car will be a licence to drink.
Meanwhile, as a lawyer, don’t even get me started on the challenges of establishing blame in the case of an accident. In my view the entire statute will have to be rewritten to establish whether the owner, driver, insurance company or technology’s inventors are culpable.
But above all, how bleak and dispiriting to destroy the driving experience itself. Not just for petrol heads like me who drive thousands of miles a year for both work and pleasure and who would rather spend their last farthing on a car magazine than a piece of bread.
As Mazda CEO Masamichi Kogai – whose company is keeping out of the driverless car revolution – has said of motoring: “It’s not just getting from point A to point B. Our mission is to provide the essence of driving pleasure.”
Being in complete control of a car is an expression of absolute freedom and of spontaneity. It’s why I even prefer gears to an automatic – engaging the gear through the gentle rhythmic balance of accelerator and clutch.
What’s more, the need to engage the brain as you sit behind the wheel, hermetically sealed from the outside world, can also provide solace – as it has for me on so many occasions. Take the time I left my home in Cheshire in order to drive to Hull for a trial the following day.
Two miles into the journey I decided on the spur of the moment to reroute via Nottingham and visit my 103-year-old grandpa in his nursing home. As I arrived matron greeted me and said, “How did you know to come?” He passed away 20 minutes later. How grateful I am that the stars aligned so that I made the choice to change my journey. And how glad I am still that I didn’t have to disentangle myself from a pre-controlled car or start explaining the emotional state of my brain to a mind-reading machine in order to make that spontaneous or fateful decision to go to see him.
HANDS on motoring is so soothing too – even in challenging conditions. I remember leaving court in Richmond, west London, one winter’s afternoon only to find there had been a heavy snowfall during the trial. Somehow despite the appalling state of the roads I had to get to Nottingham since my late father had just had a serious operation. Setting aside the fact that sensors on a driverless car may be affected by snow, the need to apply my mind to the rigours of the journey together with the leaden silence inside the car made the ride not only distracting but also cathartic.
Cars are especially important to me because I suffer with chronic motion sickness. I can’t bear travelling by trains, planes or even with other people driving.
And so I despair at the rise of the robot car, which emasculates us as men and dehumanises us as a species. The irony of driverless technology is that the driverless car may need a fully alert driver in situ – if only to override the system when the unexpected happens.
So why bother? Instead, let us embrace the driving experience which liberates us from the impotence of being controlled by a robot.
Because believe me, if I was ever reunited with my beloved Triumph the last thing I’d want is for that glorious piece of machinery to tell me what to do.
‘Being in complete control of a car is an expression of absolute freedom and spontaneity. I even prefer gears to an automatic’