Now that you are older, do you drive differently ?

Does The Way you Drive give away your Age ?

They say that to change your routine is the way to discover new things. To cut out the hills for a while, I changed my walking route and it now includes a bit of the main road through our village.

Yesterday was again one of those magical days in Burgenland, where the weather was Mediterranean and the birds were on top form producing tweets of music. Contemplating the beauty of life, I suddenly heard a high pitched kind of noise. If you can imagine a mosquito buzzing and multiply this by a thousand. This noise was akin to a nail being cruelly run over the chalkboard. Just plain awful.

Wondering where it could be from, it came closer until suddenly the penny dropped for me. It was a car driven at high speed ( 50km/h ) and in second gear. Worried that it might be someone who had an emergency and needed help, I stopped just in case. But no, a " slightly " older lady was driving and gave me a cheery wave. No problem there !

Of course now, I was fascinated by this and started recalling other similar happenings. Does the slightly older crowd, just forget to switch gear, or is it just too much effort to move the foot and hand, to shift and switch ? Or do they want to protect the gear lever by not using it overmuch, therefore making it last longer !! ? Maybe as we get older, we loose all compassion for our car ?

When does this style of driving encroach upon us ? In our fifties or ( hopefully not ) in our forties ? I know, that I am already driving slower and at night times, I tend to slow down to a crawl ! Definitely no more roaring twenties.

Of course, the funniest thing is watching drivers who are used to automatic suddenly drive a manual. Very high-pitched protest can be heard from the engine, and passengers conveniently slump into their seats trying to be invisible...

Have you any stories about your economic yet unusual driving methods as you progress through life ? Let me know...

Biggi