I shall resist the temptation to give a list of 'Best of' or 'Highlights' of 2007 and will certainly not be making any predictions for next year. There are loads of these around and they are for the most part facile at best. Perhaps a few thoughts on what has been wandering through my mind at a time of year when I would like to think that nothing is in there at all.
New Zealand drivers are dreadful. They are given the world's worst roads to drive on and a good proportion of them chose to drive an apology for the internal combustion engine so they are off to a great start. Driving licenses are given to kindergarten children who are then negligibly (negligently?) trained prior to sitting an ersatz test. The under prepared take dreadful cars onto worse roads to be greeted by a raft of traffic regulations only the most stupid of which are ever enforced. Park improperly or go 1 kmh above a speed limit on an open road and you are fined. Most of these 'offences' are committed by otherwise law abiding, middle class, 'Joe Average' citizens who wouldn't dream of breaking real laws. They tend to pay their fines and regard them like a bad haircut; an infrequent but nuisance part of life. Drive drunk in an unwarranted, unregistered uninsured car and you are also fined and get you license taken away. All good. Well no. People who tend to commit these far more serious offences tend to be complete wasters. They get fined and their license is suspended and they give society the fingers and go and do it again. And again, and again, and............ What does society do about it? Nothing. Hand wringing might get a look in but that is about it. How many people do we see who are appearing for a driving offence for the umpteenth time and already owe fines in the tens of thousands of dollars range? Eventually the judge (a distinct New Zealand species of mollusc or other invertebrate for the most part) gives in and wipes the telephone number fine in exchange for a few days of Community service - which they then don't do. Repeated drunk driving is a little different as alcoholism is usually involved here which obviously requires a different approach but even that is for the most part not follwed up.
Ok we have the framework for some really crass driving habits and what is the result for Mr Average as he drives about his business? I have never driven in a place where there is so much tailgaiting and so little indicating. Glancing in my rear view mirror I often wonder if I have inadvertently fitted a tow bar to the Jag and am trailing a Nissan Micra round the suburbs. Overtaking on the left. Apparently this is not illegal. Why on earth not? Maybe it is because the first edition of the New Zealand Highway Code (or whatever it is called) to deal with motorways got the lane designations wrong and put the slow lane on the right. This is how we got a de facto speed limit of 98 KMH in the right lane making the middle lane the fast lane - unless of course you require the left lane for warp factor twelve.
However my bete noir of NZ driving is the right turn. Not the daft priority at junctions crap which must have been dreamt up in a pub, but the actual mechanics of how NZ drivers make a right turn. Traffic lights are a good place to study this. Sit in the right lane at red waiting to turn right yourself and you are a panel beaters dream if you are at the front of the queue. People turning right on their green take it as a badge of manhood (or womanhood) to cut off as much of the corner as possible and come with in microns of your paintwork. This pertains whether you are lined up properly with your 'Stop' line or anything up to five metres behind it. I was taught that to turn right you get into your outside lane, progress to the centre of the lane into which you wish to move and then make your turn to the new point of the compass in a measured way, The 'New Zealand Way' is to start your turn ten metres before the intersection using the shortest possible route to the side road of choice. Traffic markings, road islands, commonsense or other vehicles are not to be regarded as a hindrance to your god given antipodean trajectory. I hate it. I make a point of turning right 'properly' and the area bounded by my route and 'The New Zealand Way' is large enough on which to erect a modest shopping centre.
Why is anybody bothering to watch the current New Zealand vs Bangladesh ODIs. In fact looking at the box not many people are - the grounds are empty. In general the standard of cricket we get in NZ is very poor but even by those low standards the current fare is drivel. Bangladesh are rubbish and New Zealand are not much better. However the amount of media coverage cricket gets here is phenomenal. Ball by ball radio commentary (even of completely inconsequential provincial games), full TV coverage and acres of newsprint. As a cricket lover I'll openly admit I get a free ride that is not warranted. If I were a follower of softball (which I am not - banal ersatz baseball) or motor racing (which I am not - good value high carbon emission fun) both of which are more popular than cricket I would feel very aggrieved at the relative lack of coverage for my interest. However at least there is excellent coverage of some proper cricket. How good are the current Australians - or the team before, or the one before that, or............ I was not alone in thinking that the Indians might give them a bit of a tickle up but the whole series was gone after the Indians' woeful first innings in Melbourne. No, Ponting and his boys are just way too good - in the top four inches and the six foot below that.
Why do people celebrate New Year? I can think of no more reason to get stuck into the recreational pharmacology in a big way tonight than I would on the 14th of April. The Scots apparently have an excuse which I have never been able to fathom, but why would anyone else do it? Tonight I will watch the three hour TopGear special which finishes at ten pm, pull on the jimjams, have a cup of cocoa and go to sleep.
See you next year.
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