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Letters to the Editor
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Onlooker
A contrary opinion
From Mr M. Woodman, MRPharmS
In reply to Paul Dishman’s pop at “Onlooker” (PJ, 4
September, p268), please accept a contrary opinion in praise of your columnist’s
piece on motormania. There was plenty to laugh about in the caricatures
of people in enthusiastic thrall to this weird phenomenon and a sombre
reminder that the subject is not entirely funny but deadly serious.
Mr Dishman may call me a Luddite, too, if he likes but I came to similar
conclusions to “Onlooker” about what Mr Dishman calls “the
benefits of personal transport that the car gives us” and sold mine
30-odd years ago. I bought a bicycle.
Admittedly, the usefulness of this delightful machine has diminished of
late owing entirely to the tendency, noted so accurately by “Onlooker”,
towards aggressive driving of aggressively designed cars. But I still would
not swap it for a car.
One truly ironic thing about the car which “Onlooker” does
not mention is the limited degree to which its theoretical benefit of freedom
to travel widely is ever realised in practice. By contrast, my humble bicycle
has taken me not only to work and all my locum engagements but also on
extensive journeys through four continents — right across two of
them.
It also has the edge over the motor car as a means of reaching the moral
high ground from which to deliver one’s environmental homilies; that
is, as I am sure “Onlooker” would agree, purely incidental.
Michael Woodman
Exeter,
Devon |
The
Pharmaceutical Journal