I love driving. Always have done. Learnt the basics of over- and understeer, centres of gravity and the merits of plastic tyres on a diet of pedal tractors and go-karts. Practiced on-the-limit handling via PlayStation controllers and pixels on Gran Turismo and Colin McRae Rally. Progressed onto actual tractors as soon as I could reach the pedals (only experienced oversteer on agricultural machinery once, a story for another time and not something I’m in a hurry to try again...) and, finally, cars. Like most farmers' sons, initial introductions consisted of a decrepit rust-mobile, ideally ran on green diesel, in which various manoeuvres could be performed in the freedom of a freshly cut paddock. To celebrate passing my driving test, the seventeen-year-old me tore the learner plates off with a flourish and became a ditch-bound missile, hell-bent on extracting the maximum from a poor unsuspecting Vectra on every journey. This lasted a few months before a stone wall announced that my attempts at lift-off oversteer were not as proficient as I might have thought. I was a lunatic on the road, and so were most of my friends, consumed by the freedom and enjoyment that only four wheels can bring.
Fast-forward a decade and I’ve stopped trying to become a statistic, the realisation of how stupid I was back then thankfully having hit home in time. I still love driving, probably more than ever in fact. The difference is that now I treat it as a responsibility and a skill. Like any skill, it requires constant practice just to keep it at a certain level of competence. I find that this is the aspect that provides the most reward. I relish adverse conditions, even setting my alarm earlier during frosty weather and seeking out the slipperiest backroads on my commute to work. I’m not mental; I merely want to build up my experience in all types of road conditions. Every journey means more knowledge gained. I’ve also stopped writing off old Opels and am now lucky enough to drive a Renault Clio 182 Trophy every day. It’s small and easy to place on the road, quick, light, stops on a sixpence and, thanks to some Sachs suspension wizardry and sticky Michelin tyres it grips ferociously. At least once a week I make a point of taking the long way home from work, or from the shops, or I just simply go for a drive on the twistiest road I can think of. Hands at quarter-to-three, window slightly down to hear the tyres on the road surface and detect any change in grip, radio off, listen to the engine, heel-and-toe every downshift, turn, accelerate, feel the car move around from corner entry to exit. Just drive. No better feeling in the world.
So, I hear you say, he loves driving. What’s the big deal? Many people do. Conversely, many people don’t, and I’ve no issue with that. Driving is another thing to do in order to get where you want to be. Fine. There are many journeys that can test the patience of even the most devout petrolhead. Stuck in traffic, tired after a long day at work, rain, nothing on the radio. We’ve all been there, and with the amount of congestion on our roads it’s something that’s not going away anytime soon. But one good drive can make up for 100 of those journeys as far as I’m concerned, which is why I choose to drive a loud, badly-built, uncomfortable car with roots distinctly buried in the hot hatch concept circa 1982. I’m one of the minority however, and whether I like it or not, autonomous aids are coming to sanitise everything I hold dear about driving.
This frankly scares the crap out of me. And there’s no stopping it. The ’rise of the machines’ feels like it has occurred overnight, with the industry drip-feeding us a parking-aid here and an active-cruise- control there, hidden under the radar. Now, in 2016, when you tot up all the aids as a package, we are frighteningly close to a self-driving car. Tesla’s Model S has an autopilot mode. PSA has tested driverless cars in real world traffic. This is seen as acceptable on pretty much every other form of transport, so why not cars? Volvo aims to have people immune from injuries in 'crash free’ vehicles by 2020, with Google setting the same date as its target for elimination of all outstanding issues with autonomous cars. Industry experts predict three quarters of all vehicles will be autonomous by 2040. It’s not that far away you know...
Now, I’m no Luddite. I’m an engineer by trade and discovering and learning new technologies is in my nature. I appreciate that progress is necessary, and I can see the benefits autonomous aids can bring. Less accidents, less pollution, less stress, everyone gets to work on time; no-one has to worry about road conditions. Hell, if it means that I never again have to be overtaken by an MPV driven by a man using his phone, with a full complement of kids in the back, doing unmentionable speed in the rain, on bald tyres, after he’d spent the previous five minutes at a distance of 3.4mm from my rear bumper, then great, bring on the robots. This type of nonsense will be a welcome casualty of our new automatic world. But I still find myself dreading the day I hop into a driverless pod and shoot off to my destination with nary a thought of the road ahead.
The industry that caused me to worship anything with four wheels (well almost anything, I can’t say I feel much for Hyundai Accents and the like), is now hell-bent on removing humans from the equation. This makes me extremely angry. OK, so we now have some of the most fantastically capable road cars available to us today, machines like the Golf R that can pulverise any road while carrying your weekly groceries in its cavernous boot. But, even those leave me cold with their Haldex this and their DSG that. I crave steering feel, low weight, a naturally-aspirated engine, a manual gearbox and not much else. Essentially, I’m stuck in the past, which is why I’m Googling the prices of old Elises as I write this. I can’t be alone though, can I? For any of you reading this that may feel the same, please put the kids out, put the cat to bed, get into your car and go for a drive before it’s too late and the robots do it all for you. If I spot you on the road you can be sure of a salute, from a fellow member of a dying breed.