I was talking with Rod the other day, he is one of the other drivers at the yard. Like myself we have both held our bus licences and driving licences for a very long time, I got mine back in 1978.

When I first began I learned to drive using a crash gearbox, very different to cars of that time. If you don’t understand then look it up. Back then I was told by the older guys that we didn’t know how lucky we were, because back in their day it was all crash boxes and how easy it was to break your wrist if you screwed up the gear change.

I only had to drive the Bristol Double Decker to get my licence and then most of the buses after that were auto or semi-automatic. Although, we did have a couple of old coaches that all had crash boxes and no power steering and they were a challenge if we were short of buses. Oh and then we got a Volvo B10M 6 speed manual for motorway express work, now that went like shit of a shovel.

You learn many skills learning to drive in a manual that can be easily applied to the driving of a modern vehicle, of course that all changes when you talk about electric vehicles.

In todays world we want everything now and we want it to be easy and we want it to be digital, when in fact some things should stay analogue. Learning to drive a car should be analogue and then if you want you go digital or automatic. If you do not understand the concept of gears and how to change them and use them in everyday driving then you are a hazard on the roads. Here in Australia, I may have mentioned this before, most of the drivers don’t do bends very well and instead of going through a bend they drive around it, and if you don’t understand what I mean then you drive round it. If you only learn to drive using the stop and go pedals then you are not going to be as good as you could be if you had learned in a manual and that is why when I approach a bend I usually leave the car behind in my wake. and why is that? well I use the gears, even in an automatic. Of course you can use the brakes but then you change the attitude of the car and it’s more difficult to brake and steer rapidly at the same time.

In Australia they always promote speeding as the biggest killer on the roads, but I think it’s because too many people learned to drive with only the stop and go pedals and never really gained the skills to drive that wee bit faster through the bends. But catching speeding drivers is good for the revenue for the government, so it’s easier to neglect the real reasons for the many disasters each day.

And now the next generation of folk are already learning to drive in Electric cars with all the nanny controls onboard that make constant noises, a glorified mobile phone and the market will soon be dominated by China, which of course is a country where no one can really drive, but they do like their gimmicks.

Electric cars have an insane amount of power, which will lead to more deaths because they can get to speed quicker than an ICE car and I’ve seen it a few times my self where the driver is struggling to cope with the acceleration. are they going to ban young people from driving these?

There are a few safety features in cars that do improve the experience and protect the occupants in the event of an accident, such as Airbage, Abs and traction control and even cruise control, but not this adaptive kind.

For people who are enthusiastic about cars and enjoy the whole driving experience, then there is virtually nothing mass produced these days to satisfy their hunger, not unless you have deep pockets.

You also need to be an electronics expert these days to work on them. And just think about how long it takes for your phone to stop using certain apps because the operating system is old, this is what you have to look forward to with your car of the future. So enjoy your new toy before it becomes a very expensive paper weight.