Australian_Motorcyclist_2016_08_

CLASSICMORRIS

I

t was a letter to the Editor in a

copy of the British magazine ‘New

Scientist’ which caught my eye, for I

suggest it was much more revealing

than the writer had intended it to

be. It was a short missive following

up a story in a previous issue about

driverless cars.

Part of the letter stated: “Some

years ago research was carried out

in Switzerland on maximizing the

number of cars passing through

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was found to involve a two-car

space between all cars with ‘the

whole line moving off

simultaneously’ (my italic, LM).

“In practice this is never going to

happen (He’s so right about that

• LM again) but we can each stop
  further back, so we can see where the
  rear wheels of the vehicle in front
  touch the ground, and move off as
  soon as the vehicle in front does.”
  Seems like a great idea, doesn’t it,

LESTER AND THE

SLOW SAFARI

WORDSLESTER MORRIS

but it is never going to work either

because of what I call the ‘Slow

Reactors’; those drivers who take

several seconds for the penny to drop

after the lights have changed to green

before they decide to slot the car into

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from the brake pedal and apply some

pressure to the accelerator pedal with

the same foot as they ease the clutch

in and drift slowly away. It would be

much more preferable if, like Grand

Prix race car drivers, everyone took

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lights allow us to do so, but this is

real life so that is (truly) never going

to happen. For some odd reason,

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gearboxes appear to be just as

slow to react as drivers of cars with

manual ones.

We’ve seen this sort of thing at

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just gone red in our faces, for the

driver at the head of the queue who

has just pulled up is by then either

picking his nose and scratching

his behind – or is it the other way

around? – and has drifted off into

Never-Never Land or is mentally

sucking his thumb, only to come

back to Earth again several seconds

after the lights have changed before

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Often the polite beeping of a car

immediately behind is required

as an awakening device to wake

these Slow Reactors.

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head of the queue is usually followed

several seconds later by another

trickling driver, and then another one,

all of whom appear to have been in a

type of suspended animation or have

gently wafted off into Dreamland

during that short hiatus between the

time the red light rudely interrupts

our journey, and the green one at last

lets it go on again.

Slow Reactors each and every one

Stick em in this reactor, Lester!