A question of attitude

Sir,
Mr Charalambous, the general secretary of the Association of Driving School Owners, says our bad driving habits are due to the absence of proper training. What nonsense! It is not driving instructors who teach motorists to do wheelies, remove their exhaust systems and number plates, nor do they train us to jump traffic lights, drive around town at suicidal speeds, or encourage us to own vehicles more suited to Grand Prix racing than urban motoring. In fact the only vehicles, which seem to obey the rules of the road are those displaying L plates under the guidance of driving instructors.

A casual visitor to Limassol’s coastal road could well be forgiven for thinking that a substantial minority of young, male Cypriot men had gone collectively insane. A 30-minute stroll along the seafront is long enough to witness every kind of dangerous traffic violation in the book. Does Mr Charalambous really expect us to believe that these homicidal practices are the result of something they failed to teach in driving schools? I’m afraid the cause lies much deeper than that. He is quite right, of course, in his assumption that ever increasing fines will not solve the problem. In the short term, it is going to be necessary to take away the licence of anyone found guilty of dangerous driving and back this with a mandatory penal sentence for those who then continue to drive.

In the long term, of course, we have to recognise that the problem is one of attitude, particularly towards authority. The fact is we don’t want anyone telling us how to drive our vehicles, irrespective of the consequences. No amount of “proper training” in driving schools is going to change this. I wish I knew the answer but I don’t. I have driven in Limassol and Cyprus on a daily basis for the past 16 years without a single accident, but then I do obey all the rules of the road and keep within the speed limit at all times. How did I acquire this irritating, inherent need to obey the rules? I suspect it came from my parents. I hope there an increasing number of mums and dads out there who are doing the same for their children. Otherwise I fear that the carnage will continue and, in the end, we will be saying not “how unlucky we are”, but “how fortunate we are that the numbers of road deaths are so low considering our appalling behaviour when we get behind the wheel”.

A frustrated driver, Limassol

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