Driving then vs. driving now - memoirs of a motoring journalist

 

Starting out

By Ané Theron

When we were in secondary school, My best friend and I dreamed about having our own cars. Oh, the independence it would bring - not to mention the cool factor. Rolling up at the robot, young and bad-ass, the world would be our oyster. But we’d have to get our licenses first.

OK,53...

Driving lessons were taken. A patient, elderly gentleman in a little Hyundai i10 taught me the finer points of paranoid (but compulsory) K53-driving. When I went for my license in Bloemfontein at the age of 18, I got nervous and made a three-point turn with one turn too many and rode over an orange cone in the process. As there were no appointments available within the next month, I decided to go elsewhere - Brandfort, in the Free State. It was an easy driving exam as there were no uphills to pull away against, and no robots - only traffic circles! I aced it, and my driving life was launched!

Driving experience

Soon afterwards I’d leave for Germany where I’d work as an Au Pair. My mode of transport? A huge, long and enormously daunting panel van (I cannot recall the brand) with manual gear-lever mounted on the steering column. I struggled with it. And if that wasn’t enough, my boss  insisted that I don’t use the handbrake, only clutch-control. Those were the days before parking sensors . it’s only a miracle I didn’t run anyone over. On the Autobahn I flew, in my fridge on wheels.

Fast forward a few years and I’m in Egypt, teaching German tourists to scuba dive at a PADI resort in the Cyprus party capital of Ayia Napa. The owner saw fit to give me a dilapidated old Land Rover Defender D90, in which I’d transport divers to and from the dive sites in remote and inhospitable places (the one the photo is a beautifully restored D90 by VIntage & Cool). Did my love affair with Defenders start here? Indeed it did! It was noisy, dirty and temperamental, but it could do anything and go anywhere.

Back in South Africa I took a summer job teaching diving to students in Knysna. As luck would have it, a rusty and beaten-up old VW Kombi with the roof sawn off, would be my wheels for 3 months. All good and well until it rains, of course. Then you ask the person sitting next to you to open an umbrella, or you park under a tree until it stops!

My very last stint with dodgy wheels was a small Nissan 1400 bakkie that the owners neglected to maintain. I was assisting a local diving company (who shall not be named)  in the Western Cape at the time. One day, the bakkie’s brakes decided to fail as I was gingerly driving on the N2 between Cape Town and Somerset West. After pumping the brakes feverishly for what seemed an eternity, I managed to come to a stop all on my own. With nobody available to come and help, I had no choice but to drive the bakkie back 150 km to where it belonged, at 60 km/h, and left it there.

My very own set of pre-loved wheels!

By then my poor parents had had enough of me risking my life, and scraped together enough cash to buy me a third-generation 1983 white Ford Escort 1.3 with a four-speed manual transmission. I was overjoyed! Already a petrolhead of note, I pushed the Escort as far as its 1300cc would allow. Sure, there were a few fender-benders. Of course there were no airbags in used cars within that price range back then, but I didn’t let that stop me. One day my Escort and I ended up on a sidewalk as I turned a corner too fast on a wet road. These are the lessons you learn when you’re young and there’s no traction control - which is why I think that manufacturers should rather add this very important feature to their cars, instead of distracting touchscreens!  There’s not such a big difference between texting and working that touchscreen, now is there? (If you’re looking for an inexpensive used car with traction control, consider a Renault Sandero 66kW Expression or a Citroёn C1 Vti 51 kW Feel; the latter offers curtain airbags as well and scored highest for safety overall, in this segment.)

40km/h speed limit

Not being able to stay in one place for long, there was more travelling and working abroad. I got married in 2005, and we acquired a green Jeep Cherokee Ltd. to drive around Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, where my husband worked. In the Middle East, nobody in their right mind drives anything without ground clearance, and less than a V6-engine. Since women were only allowed to drive within the confines of the compound where we stayed, I never drove it faster than 60 km/h. Since you could fill up your tank to the halfway mark with the Halalas (small change) in your pocket, ‘size matters’ is the national motto.

Easter accident

Our green Jeep was left-hand-drive, so we couldn’t import it to South Africa when we moved back in 2010. Instead, we bought a pre-loved 1999 Mercedes-Benz C-Class, which saved our behinds when someone ran a stop street and sped into the carriageway while we were cruising along in it, at the national speed limit. Nobody was harmed apart from a few bruises and a few stitches, (the kids were safely strapped into their car-seats and us adults were buckled-up), but our car was a complete write-off (see photo). Thanks to both front airbags deploying, we were spared.

Life-saving tech of today

Had we been in a 2017 Volvo S90 or Mercedes-Benz E-Class, the car probably would have stopped autonomously before the reckless driver could hit us. If we had indeed crashed, an SOS call would have been made by the car to deploy emergency services to our exact location. But since most of us can only afford what we can afford, we need to rely on our eyes, ears and driving skills to stay out of trouble, not to mention stopping those bad driving habits that needlessly endanger other road-users. 14 071 people died on our roads last year; 1120 more than 2015. According to the AA, it remains the human factor that is the biggest contributor to road deaths, accounting for 77% thereof.

If you do have a bit of money to spend, one of the most affordable, technologically advanced cars at the moment is the Opel Astra Hatch 1.4T Sport, at R368 400. Featuring the ‘Opel Eye’ that constantly scans the environment around the car, it is also capable of steering (if it senses you’re veering out of your lane) and stopping autonomously if it detects that a collision is imminent. The Opel Eye camera system includes* Traffic Sign Assistant

Invest in yourself

Until you’re sitting in the pound seats where you can buy yourself the safest thing on four wheels, the best thing you can do for yourself and others, is simply to obey the rules of the road. Doing a defensive driving and/or advanced driving course in Cape Town or Johannesburg is highly recommended, and can even reduce your monthly insurance premium.