Will Harris: Commutable

A master of broken resolutions

By the time you read this, I will have abandoned my New Year’s resolutions. I know this to be true because, given this issue’s publication date of 5th January, I will have had at least five clear days to not join a gym, break my diet by picking at leftover Christmas tree chocolates, and steadfastly and resolutely fail to write a novel. Five days in and all those new leaves, so rashly turned over, will have withered on the vine.
If you find my pessimism too confronting for this early in the New Year, hear me out. You’re not dealing with an amateur here. We’re talking about someone who has broken more resolutions than he’s had hot dinners (sometimes with some correlation between the two). Not just the basics either; the ‘lose some weights’ and ‘drink less boozes’. A couple of years ago, demoralised at the prospect of yet another willpower outage, I decided I would make ‘positive resolutions’ that would enrich my life rather than deprive it. These failed too.
Save for a mortgage? I accumulated £500, then blew the lot on Lego. Learn a foreign language? I trawled Amazon for a German primer, got distracted by a cut-price DVD of Das Boot (“Brilliant,” I thought, “I’ll turn off the subtitles and it’ll be immersive learning”), and fell asleep halfway through.
This year, however, there is one New Year’s resolution I have been able to actually muster some excitement for, and it’s so blindingly obvious, I can’t understand why I haven’t thought of it before. I will learn how to drive.
If you’re wondering how someone can manage to get to their not-quite-yet-mid-30s without troubling the portals of the DVLA, here are a number of pointers; a road map if you will. Firstly, have them take their first driving lesson on the week of their 17th birthday, and – over the course of that lesson – have the instructor first direct them onto the high-octane, criss-crossing hell that is the Coventry Ring Road, and later, mid-conversation, casually recount how he once ran over a child.
A few years later, when your aspiring motorist has fully recovered from that (almost literal) crash course, give them a proper series of lessons, this time around the highways and byways of Brighton. Take your time, have them ace their theory test, and then – just as they’re approaching test standard – have the instructor up sticks and relocate to Somerset. Rest assured your aspiring motorist will be too young and lazy to find another instructor (and more to the point, will have already spent the money set aside for the test on a new pair of jeans).
This year, however, it will be different. After years of not seeing the value of owning a car, six months riding the rails between Brighton and London is spurring me towards action. Not as an alternative to my commute (who can afford that?); more so I can climb in my car and drive away when all the delays and cancellations get on top of me. Beachy Head?