I've driven in the South East and on the roads of London and there are some drivers there that I would call reckless rather than ruthless. Some London and South East drivers see every part of the road as a race or contest and will cut you up, undertake you and throw whatever abuse at you think will get themselves to their destination 20 seconds earlier. Every roundabout, every set of lights becomes a duel if you let them get to you. But with that there is sometimes a strange courtesy of not blocking road ends, letting people through and saying thanks with a smile and a wave.
Back to the North East and these things don't exist. As a recent arrival to this part of the World I don't know if these courtesies used to happen and have died out or never happened at all. My thoughts are that it never happened at all. For example, the road end thing really got me when I first moved up here. It happens when you're travelling along a main road where the traffic is slow and frequently stopping. You pass other, smaller roads that have to give way to get into your slow main road. The traffic comes to a half and the car in front of you stops just past the smaller side road. Do you-
A - Stop before the smaller road, leaving a gap so that card can get in and out if the smaller road
B - Stop over the smaller road to ensure that no one gets out of the road in front of you and putting you further back in the queue
Now I can't claim to have driven extensively in all parts of the UK but my experience tells me that if you chose option A then you are a driver from the South East and if you chose option B then you are a driver from the North East.
I'm not here to judge which way is correct or tell people how to drive - I've made it my role to offer guidance to a visitor to the North East from Outer Space. And being pre-warned about any aspects of life here is useful for a visitor.
It's symptomatic of the wider role that courtesy has in our society. I don't think that people from the North East are generally any more spiteful to each other than in any other part of the country. It's just the way of life here. Covering the end of the road, pulling out on someone, not letting people pass through a small gap first are hardly ever followed with the sounding of the horn, tempered voices, swear words and raised fists. It's just accepted that the other person was acting within the rules of the road and was just a bit more ruthless this time.
As an observer from outside the area, I find a lot of this interesting and amusing. As I've said, once you get used to it the danger mostly falls by the wayside - not to say that there's never any dangerous drivers or never any accidents. It's more to say that the initiated can see what's coming.
And I think that this get on with it and accept what others do on the road feels like a healthier attitude than making every road trip a stressful and competitive trial where the most ruthless wins.
But the figures don't really back that up. The only road traffic accident casualty figures I can find that actually break down the figures by Region are these from the BBC website-
The figures show deaths on the road in each local authority from 1999-2010. The closest local authorities from North East and South East I can find are Barking & Dagenham and Stockton-on-Tees, with the two being only a couple of thousand residents apart. In the years covered by the figures, Barking & Dagenham had 68 casualties and Stockton-on-Tees had 71. Looking at larger local authorities, there isn't much difference in terms of population size between Lewisham and Newcastle-upon-Tyne. There isn't much difference in road casualties either, with Lewisham showing 79 for the period and Newcastle-upon-Tyne showing 80.
It all goes to show that maybe the North East England driving style isn't any safer or more dangerous but it feels a lot more relaxed.
My next blog edition will be our next week and I'll take a look at another aspect of North East England life that will be useful for a visitor from Outer Space,
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