He touched my car

[400bhp]

The fact is that driving betrays an inability to engage with the world. It's not a grown-up thing to do. As the waffle two posts up amply demonstrates. There are people who find themselves in positions that make it the least worst alternative, but driving as a choice, or, heaven help us, an expression of individual liberty is a poor thing indeed.

I'll tell you this. If I pass you on the road, you in your car, me on my bike, I know I am the better person. There's nothing you can do by way of leather-backed driving gloves, tweed caps, shinier hubcaps or car stereos that can convince me otherwise.

I'm struggling with the second paragraph.

 

[dellzeqq]

I'm struggling with the second paragraph.

fair enough - it's not meant to be easy on the eye

 

[theclaud]

This is unusual stuff. One might get the impression that you (and perhaps others) are bent on proving how utterly dull, frustrating and vexing it is to use a mode of transport you do not favour, do not enjoy and appear to disapprove of... continued page 94

The elaborate beating-about-the-bush-and-using-up-the-internet thing is wasted on me, BB. The private car is a social menace, and my hostility to it is entirely open. Cricket, on the other hand, is really rather nice. And even if I hated it, it wouldn't threaten to run me over. See DZ's thing about analogies. The thing you have decided not to understand is that for most purposes that it is discussed, there is nothing - but nothing - in the real world that is comparable to the private car in function, reach or dominance. It's a hegemony thang, and it has you in its spell. I'm here to demystify it for you, to break the spell. To make the stone stony, as that Shklovsky fellow used to say. None of this has anything to do with any putative pleasure that might be derived from driving in fictional conditions, about which I am not arguing.

 

[400bhp]

Care to explain that paragraph in more detail?

 

[dellzeqq]

Care to explain that paragraph in more detail?

mine?

 

[youngoldbloke]

My statistics prove you wrong.

All your statistics actusally say is that 760 of 1000 drivers polled are bored (and yes, all of the time?) - thats 0.0026723% of the '37,420,530 drivers in the UK with a full GB driving licence'. I'm very much with Boris on this - cricket and all.

 

[srw]

All your statistics actusally say is that 760 of 1000 drivers polled are bored (and yes, all of the time?) - thats 0.0026723% of the '37,420,530 drivers in the UK with a full GB driving licence'. I'm very much with Boris on this - cricket and all.

You don't understand statistics and the concept of samples representing a population, do you?

 

[400bhp]

mine?

Yes, sorry I was typing whilst theclaud got in before me.

 

[theclaud]

mine?

You can explain mine if you like. I'm pretty relaxed about the authorship thang...

 

[dellzeqq]

Yes, sorry I was typing whilst theclaud got in before me.

I'll try.

Very little of our modern lives can be considered healthful and virtuous. Even less can be considered healthful, virtuous and fun. Having the opportunity to do something that is all three seems to me to be a fantastic privilege. Every day (or night, ahem) that fate or God or whatever puts my way that affords an opportunity to travel by bicycle is a blessing. I ride because it makes my lungs feel good, because it exacts next to no price on the rest of the world, because it is pleasurable in a sensual way and because (this above all) it brings me in to contact with the physical world and with people in a way that being in a car cannot come anywhere close to...............(long sentence, catches breath)

Now......when I look at people in their cars (and I sometimes travel by car as a passenger) and I compare the choice they've made with the choice I've made, well, I'm sorry, but I think to myself 'dohhhhhhh - why would you do that?' Not that there aren't reasons - the journey might be long, or awkward or involve transporting something heavy, or it may be very cold, but, taken overall, the decision to drive is not a smart one. In other words most people who are, at any one moment, behind the wheel of a car, are there because they haven't thought it through, haven't got the gumption, haven't planned ahead or haven't considered the price that they exact and, moreover, (this is the killer item) simply haven't clocked that sitting inside a car puts you at an entirely unnecessary remove from the joy that is the world and the people in it.

Bet you wish you hadn't asked, now............

(later edit) and don't ask me to explain STRAVA which may, for all I know, be even sillier than driving!

 

[User482]

All your statistics actusally say is that 760 of 1000 drivers polled are bored (and yes, all of the time?) - thats 0.0026723% of the '37,420,530 drivers in the UK with a full GB driving licence'. I'm very much with Boris on this - cricket and all.

Had you studied statistics at school, you would know that a sample of 760/ 1,000 for a population of ~37 million gives a margin of error of less than +/- 3%.

In other words, we can be very confident that the sample is accurate.

 

[dellzeqq]

You can explain mine if you like. I'm pretty relaxed about the authorship thang...

well, if you will leave computers lying around...............

 

[400bhp]

@delzeqq - long post above: Thought so, nice answer.

 

[400bhp]

You can explain mine if you like. I'm pretty relaxed about the authorship thang...

Relaxed or bored?

 

[youngoldbloke]

You don't understand statistics and the concept of samples representing a population, do you?

- obviously not - I bow to your superior knowledge - the sample may well be accurate - but can you give me the actual question that was asked? If it was of the nature 'are you ever bored when driving?' , what would you expect?