A trip back to the South East reminds me what the North East is all about

I've just come back from a trip down South over Christmas and some parts of living in the North East have really come home when I spent 10 days away. I have lived in various parts of England and spent a lot of my time living in the South East. I don't know whether it is as I have got older or whether the place has changed but the way of life in and near London really got to me during a ten day stay.

Traffic

I have written before about traffic in the North East and the way that people drive before but the difference becomes even more startling the longer I live here. The drivers in the South East are only interested in getting on their way, whether this means driving in the wrong lane, cutting you up or almost causing a crash makes no difference. As long as they can shave a few seconds off their journey then you are inconsequential.

So people spend so much of their time in the wrong lane because they think it will get them there faster. I saw people cross four lanes of traffic from the wrong lane to the one they wanted because they saw the chance to cut under 2 or 3 cars.Added to the traffic was the fact that it was Christmas and everyone faced this time of festive cheer with a cutthroat attitude of "I'm getting there before you." It was heaven!

The main problem that causes all of the other issues on the roads in the South East is the amount of traffic. In the North East I can drive 20 miles in 20 minutes on a regular basis, no matter what the road or the time of day. In the South East you struggle to do this on a motorway (especially the M25) and this creates a tension in every driver on the road. People know it is going to be hell so the prepare for the worst in their mind. Drivers turn into racers.

People

I have actually seen the people in the South East go in the opposite direction of the traffic. There are fewer people walking and it reminds me in many ways of visits to the United States where people use their car to travel short distances,. The first time I went to Las Vegas I walked along The Strip and the only others I saw walking were Brits.You can walk for a few miles in the South East and not see people until you arrive at a coffee shop or a pub. It's becoming a lost art and it only adds to the problems on the road.

I walked from where I was staying to the local town one day, around a mile and a half and saw nobody outside of their vehicles or homes. I made the similar journey on the way back from the train station one night and again was the only one that didn't choose a taxi.

It will improve health and traffic in one go!

Prices

I am known in my family for the way that I analyse the price of something before making a purchase. I like to have value for money and often I would rather do without than pay what I consider to be over the odds.

Again this may be because it was close to Christmas, but it felt as though the price of absolutely everything in the South East was over the odds and far away. It cost me less for me and the kids to watch a Premier League match when we got home than it did to watch a League 1 match in the South East. The various Santa's Grottoes that I saw were charging between £10 and £15 for a few brief moments with the big man himself. Even after using the discount given by the meerkat off the telly I had to pay nearly £30 for 4 of us (2 adults and 2 kids) to watch the new Star Wars film..

It feels as though everyone wants their cut of your income. It is hard work trying to find value in the South East so I generally went with the flow and knew that I would have to tighten my belt when I got back home in January. So expect to see blogs in the near future to show you how to have a great time in the North East without spending any money!

Road users are ruthless, not reckless

When you get on to the roads of the North East you will notice that the drivers here are ruthless. When I say ruthless, I mean that like many aspects of North East life there are no prisoners taken. It's not particularly dangerous (it's not dangerous at all when you've got used to it) but all the courtesy has been taken out of driving.

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-

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-15975720

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,