I had an epiphany the other day. I was cycling home from town, as usual, passing through Fairview. It came to me, this vision, in an instant. For once it did not consist of my life flashing before my eyes as a driver (in a terrible hurry, I'm sure) cut in front of me at speed to take a corner and join the line of traffic around it. No, this revelation was rather more surreal. I saw the United States of America and it was a great big car. Next to it I saw Mexico and it was a bicycle, writes Paddy Monahan.
I realised, as I pushed onwards, that this vision applied to almost any relationship of unequals (20 years ago it could have Britain and Ireland). The point is, if the bigger, dominant party in the relationship is aware of the other's existence at all it is merely as a minor annoyance - as the bike is to the car. Whereas to the smaller party, the dominator is root of and reason for all of its woes. Indeed, the larger party (be it Britain, America or the car) may be entirely oblivious of such resentment, insulated as it is by its sheer power and size.
This, I feel, comes down to a sense of entitlement. Just as many states genuinely feel it is their birthright to lord it over the nations of the earth, so too car owners feel the road is theirs, to use as they wish. Where once one might have laughed (hysterically, perhaps) at the classic bumper sticker, "Yes, I do own the road", now it reads more as a stark statement of belief. And to those who own the road, those who merely use it can be ever so inconvenient. (For there is surely nothing more annoying than a thoughtless pedestrian stepping out to cross the road just as a five-metre gap has opened in the traffic, begging to be filled.)
Motorists possess a sense of autonomy that inhabitants of the real world do not. Cyclists can't afford to - they're too vulnerable. Ditto pedestrians. Those on the bus share their space with many others, all in the care of another, and so they cannot either. But motorists exist as lords and rulers of their own tiny kingdoms and that's where the trouble begins.
Colonialism depends solely on pig-headed power. Any attempt to understand or empathise with "the native" will only dilute its effectiveness. If the native is to exist in the same sphere as the coloniser he must first defer totally to the coloniser's innate authority. The coloniser will not budge an inch. Besides, when one is in a dominant position there is no need for empathy. This goes for the rulers of the road: they are untouchable, supreme predators with no effective enemies (except, perhaps, each other). On the rare when occasion another road user does enter their consciousness it is to gently encourage them to get the hell out of the way or start empathising with their bumper.
However, the autonomy the car endows is limited. Yes, the driver can control his climate and swim in a sea of surround sound, but he can't change the fact that often he's going nowhere (slowly, ever so slowly). The frustration is almost palpable and many are responsible. The driver himself, certainly, for lacking imagination. The Government, for elevating the status of the driver above all others by ploughing the vast majority of transport funding into road building. And the car companies and advertisers for selling the dream. Along with the Government, they have inflated drivers' expectations and self-importance to an utterly unsustainable level. When the dream of the car - of vast expanses to be explored, of freedom and self-actualisation - proves as elusive as a square metre of open road on a Monday morning, something's going to blow.
The myth of the car is freedom. The fact of the car is impotence. This opposition is so stark that aggressive, domineering behaviour is bound to ensue. So why not smell the roses and ditch the car? Well, if you've just spent €30k to €50k on a dream, you're going to have a hard time admitting it's a lemon. Moreover, cars are an addiction (and this country's got it bad). Once you've smelt that sweet air-conditioning and felt those pumping sub-woofers, well, why not spend four hours a day sitting there? God knows it beats - euggh! - social interaction.
My advice? Go to Europe. Take a train. Go inter-railing; there is nothing so wonderfully relaxing as knowing a comfortable, pre-booked seat awaits you to whisk you to your destination while you sit back, close your eyes and do precisely nothing. Ever heard of train-rage? No, I thought not. And when you get back, vote for someone who will do for Irish public transport even a fraction of what they take for granted on the mainland.
And there the epiphany ended. Although it seemed as if much time had passed, I was, in fact, still in Fairview, approaching the Malahide Road. I found myself on that serpentine cycle track (designed, it seemed, by a blind man bereft of a ruler, but with a good dose of the hangover shakes) as it meandered jauntily across lanes of heavy traffic as though slipping down a Snakes and Ladders board. Just then a fat man talking on his phone in an SUV cut across at speed about half-a-metre in front of me so that he could spin around the corner and join the long, long line of stationary traffic that awaited him there. I shook my fist vigorously in a cloud of his exhaust fumes. I've never felt so Mexican.