Notes & Queries response: Which motoring offences incur a one-point penalty? Which motoring offences should incur a one-point penalty?

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This is my response to a question that appeared on the Notes & Queries page of The Guardian website on 16th October, 2022.

The Guardian is apparently no longer happy to host my comments on their site.

I am replying here instead because it is too good a writing exercise to give up: How quickly can you go from a prompt, a blank mind, and a blank page to a finished piece? And how good can you make it?

This blog is obviously not affiliated with The Guardian. Its reference to a question that appeared in Notes & Queries is presented here under the terms of fair use.

~

I can vividly recall a row of plush toys pressed tightly together across the length of the avocado-coloured dashboard. They formed a low, multicoloured skyline against the windscreen of the camper. There was an elephant sitting upright. A tiny flag attached to one of its front legs read: “I've been to Whipsnade Zoo.” When I tried to remove it, the line of toys at first bowed outward, then suddenly exploded, scattering all over the driver's well. Uncle Terry took us onto the hard shoulder. He got out and drew back the sliding door to the main part of the van. I handed the stuffed animals to him over the backrest, a few at a time. He put them inside a hollow compartment, under the green tartan upholstery of one of the bench seats.

We waited five minutes before a clear stretch of road allowed us an opportunity to rejoin the traffic flow. I watched the needle of the speedometer advance with the slowness of an hour hand, until it was wavering around 50mph. Uncle Terry had adjusted his rear-view mirror so that he could keep one eye on the red kites that were riding the updraughts above the road like scavenging sharks. From where I was sitting I could see the reflection of his brown eyes, but I could not see the birds.

Bored with the journey, my tiny right hand fumbled its way into the small gap between the dashboard and the chassis; a strange unpainted no-man's land. My fingers began to work the calibration dial for the indicator. As we approached the turn-off for Garland Sands, the left blinker flashed slowly and indecisively at thirty second intervals. The driver of the car behind us, who had assumed we were continuing straight-on, and was edging to overtake on the inside, honked his horn in irritation. Uncle Terry drove the heel of his fist into the centre of the steering wheel. The camper horn gave out a deflated and barely audible peep that I doubt was heard outside the van.

“Open that little door in the side of the steering column,” he instructed.

I peeled back the strip of tape holding it closed. Afterwards, I couldn't get it to stick again and the door hung open for the remainder of the journey.

Inside, what looked like a inch-wide piece of withered, pale-brown rubber, was stretched between two metal clamps.

“Is it wet?” asked Uncle Terry.

“No,” I replied.

“That's something we'll have to put right when we go out to the rock pools.”

~

The beach was busy by the time we arrived; the water crowded with surfers. We walked a little way along the coastal path, until we reached the point where the sand recedes into a shelf of craggy black rock that is covered over at high tide.

A red sea anemone snapped its swaying mane of tentacles shut as Uncle Terry's hand breached the surface tension of the pool. Under his looming shadow, a small crab danced lightly on sideways tiptoes into a crevasse. Using the scissor tool on his Swiss Army knife, he cut a length of purple-green seaweed from a clump that had anchored itself to the bottom.

Back at the camper I fumbled around inside the steering column. The old piece of weed disintegrated to powder as I was attempting to remove it.

“You're supposed to spray it every week,” said Uncle Terry. “I always forget to do it.”

With difficulty, I managed to manoeuvre the fresh piece of seaweed into position between the two clamps.

When Uncle Terry sounded the horn, the weed tautened as if agonised by the noise that it had generated. Several people glanced over in our direction.

“That sounds better, don't it?” he said.

~

“It's a good thing we were going to the beach today,” I remarked.

We had decided to build an appetite by hiking to the lonely spot where Calpurnia – Julius Caesar's fourth wife – is rumoured to be buried. An amateur archaeologist uncovered some old bones there once, but put them back. They were never found again and perhaps the sea has taken them and will wash them all the way to back Rome where they belong.

“You mean so we could fix the horn?” said Uncle Terry. “That weed grows all over the shop. There's some in the canal at the moment. The council keep taking it out but it always comes back.

“When they first started using it for car horns, in America, it didn't grow over here at all. The car companies had to import it. That wasn't a problem for very long. Every time somebody sounded their horn, the weed released spores that came out through the air vents. In the end there wasn't a corner of the United Kingdom where you couldn't lay your hands on some.

“It's funny isn't it? The angry voice inside everyone's car is a living thing that we keep chained up in the steering column, like a little demon.”

~

There was a row of cafes along the edge of the beach that we used to always visit. Every season, a few from the year before would have closed down and there would be new businesses operating from the same premises. We always went to a different one. That year we went to Dungavels. It was dark by the time I sat down to eat my fish and chips. Uncle Terry had lamb chops. I remember the moth choir in the rafters of the awning – their frantic wingbeats drawing long notes from the curved glass of the lightbulb.

Outside, the neon bleeding from the café signs was dusting the hair and clothing of the people passing by; families and couples; the odd dog walker. After we had finished eating, we walked up and down until we had enough of the colour on us.

“It's not fancy like the neon they have in the restaurants along the Seine in Paris,” reported Uncle Terry. “When me and Maggie went there on our honeymoon we glowed bright pink and blue for a month after.”

I was hoping that some of the glow would stay on me so that I could show it off at school. It was there on Sunday evening after I turned the nightlight out, but by Monday morning it was gone.

That Saturday night as we were returning home, we got lost. Uncle Terry almost hit a police car while reversing from out of a farm gate. He argued with the officer, who wrote him up. He had to go to court where he was given a fine and a point on his drivers licence.

I hope this is of help.

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