Random reminder

Press, 10 January 1981, Page 21

Random reminder

THE LONG WAY ROUND

Her driving could sometimes be hair-raising — "kamikaze” her husband called her, and he suggested a defensive driving course. But she was a frugal lady, not inclined to fritter money on unnecessary luxuries. She could learn all she needed to know about better toad safety, she informed him, by riding a bike. And ride a bike she did. She wasn’t too proud, she said, to be seen riding a bike — but she did park it out of sight when she used it to pay a visit to her sharebroker. As the price of petrol rose, she found, a social virtue in her bike. "I’m pedalling to save Valuable Overseas Resources,” she told anyone who would listen. Came a day when she couldn t face riding into the teeth of a Christchurch southerly. She took a bus. Resplendent in a mink coat (an investment, of course) she handed over 20 cents and stated her destination. "Not enough,’ the driver told her. “Another five cents please.” How far would 20 cents take her, she asked. Two stops before her destination, she was told.. s ‘That will do me,” she declared, and flounced down the aisle. Not that she

was mean, she insisted afterwards, but it was quicker to walk two stops than hold up a bus, idling away fuel, while she rummaged in her handbag for five cents. Sometimes she still had to use a car. At traffic lights she fumed, thinking of the fuel she wasted idling the motor. When the lights changed she took off in a roar and a cloud of small stones, determined to waste no more time. On one such occasion her husband was a reluctant passenger. He pointed out she was blowing dollars of Valuable Overseas Resources out the exhaust every time she took off in her style. Our lady was shattered. Here she was saving petrol on her bicycle. Was she wasting it all again at the lights? Yes, insisted the husband, and seeing an opportunity, he pounced. “Why don’t you take a defensive driving course?” he suggested. “They’ll teach you things like that.” ~ Much to his relief, and the relief or all those who knew her driving (and even her cycling)* she’s off to enroll. Which just goes to show that good things can come out of a petrol crisis, after all.