Covid – the sequel

Well, here we are in October 2020, and the second wave is upon us. This time it’s the Rule of Six, early closing in the pubs, but send your kids to school – and if you packed your bag to go back to the office, unpack it and WFH. A new kind of lockdown – and this time with traffic. Lots of it! Because we are advised to avoid public transport at peak times, and because we are scared of everyone else, especially all those shifty people who don’t wear a mask. So we all get in our cars. They have not introduced flexi-time in schools, so there is no avoiding the peak on the school run. And all the roadworks that were halted in the first wave are now in full swing.

Yes, it’s murder out there. And it’s killing us – just as it did before coronavirus reared its bejewelled head. There are still fewer planes in the skies, but at ground level this lockdown does not resemble the last one at all.

A few more brave families are cycling to school – some opting for the parent-on-road, kid-on-pavement Parallel Lines approach, which has always struck me as bizarre and more dangerous than simply being in the road. The parent must have the eyes and ears of a road-user, while trying to keep the child in view over the parked cars, trying to keep alongside them regardless of road conditions, and remote controlling them across side roads. It’s rather like walking on an overgrown riverbank and trying to follow a stick floating downstream.

Anyway, good on them for trying. Better that than driving to school, a journey which no doubt will be completed at walking speed. I was told recently about a family – friends of ours – who took 1.5 hours to drive home the 0.8 miles from school last Friday. It’s a journey that we used to complete on foot in under 15 minutes! What could be so good about sitting in the car?

Their journey was disrupted more than usual by major roadworks which will transform a busy junction, works which for many years have been campaigned for. The four-way junction has never had a pedestrian phase in the traffic lights, so all walkers have had to gather their wits and their nippers and make a dash for it, usually half-way across at a time, when the traffic allows. It’s miraculous that there has never been a fatality – a fact regularly cited by the local authorities in favour of doing nothing!

The roadworks have provoked typical grumbling from car drivers about the disruption. But that complaining is nothing compared with the petitions and rants generated by the local authority’s proposal to create low traffic zones.

It seems that almost nothing will actually deter drivers from driving. Total gridlock seems to be no impediment. The stubbornness is actually a thing of wonder.