THE MIDDLE LANE
TGTV script editor Sam Philip celebrates the wonder of you
You. You, in your Nissan Qashqai, trundling down the middle lane of the M4 in rush-hour traffic, absently brushing Ginsters crumbs off your knees, one ear on the Five Live phone-in, the other on your partner’s analysis of supermarket own-brand sandwiches. Yes, you. You are extraordinary. You are a miracle.
Because driving, even the most mundane driving (in fact, especially the most mundane driving), is one of the most mindbogglingly complex activities known to man. As your Qashqai bumbles past Reading, your Ginsters-fuelled brain is busy all-butunconsciously mapping the real-time positions of – what? – a couple of dozen cars around you, assessing their position, relative speeds, the likely mood of their drivers. And all at the same time as wondering if you turned the thermostat down this morning.
We get giddy at the car control of Formula One’s finest, their ability to go wheel-to-wheel at great speed, to judge ever-changing gaps with millimetric precision. And sure, Lewis and Max, they’re good and all that, but, really, they’ve got it easy. They’re driving on a closed track, with a bunch of eagle-eyed marshals enforcing a very clearly defined set of rules. No such luxury for you when you finally pluck up the courage to tackle Swindon’s magic roundabout. (And you don’t have a race engineer in your ear, basically telling you exactly what to do. If anything, it’s you who should be giving Lewis the tips.)
Imagine taking one of those Amazonian tribes never to have had contact with the outside world (if indeed Amazonian tribes never to have had contact with the outside world still exist, and aren’t nowadays all furiously liveblogging the latest tapir hunt and establishing vibrant e-commerce start-ups), airdropping them beside pretty much any British multi-lane road in morning rush hour, then trying to explain a) what the hell is going on and b) how it doesn’t immediately become one enormous accident. Of course you could lend them a copy of the Highway Code (Peba-Yaguan translation, obvs), but the actual rules of the road only tell half the story. Atop that, we all adhere to a whole raft of conventions and judgment calls and unspoken codes that allow the whole procession to unfold (largely) uncrashily.
And once our tribespeople had absorbed all that, you’d then have to throw in that, while piloting their 1,500-kilo machines in a 70mph, three-dimensional ballet, pretty much every driver on the road will also be busy calling the office to say they’re going to be late, or furiously remonstrating with their child on the back seat, or mining their left auditory canal for that final hunk of earwax. Driving – even quite bad driving – is truly extraordinary.
So, next time you’re stop-starting in nose-to-tail traffic on the schlep home, just remember that, though you might be missing the start of Eastenders, what you’re doing is far more astonishing. You, the most sophisticated lifeform in the known universe, are a central performer in probably the most sophisticated collective activity of the lot. Well done you. Have yourself a cream bun.
“YOU DON’T HAVE A RACE ENGINEER IN YOUR EAR, TELLING YOU WHAT TO DO”