low population and no one to clear up a mess both make for politeness

you may be expected to stand on your own 2 feet etc but if you really need
help then you'll be recipient of enormous help - same goes for
thoughtfulness and courtesy

not just in this country

i've known that in Greece and ex Jugoslavia and Scandinavia
once you're out the cities
I'm sure it's the same everywhere
give or take the odd crazy

L








On 22 August 2014 16:15, Douglas Barbour <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Wow: all that information!
>
> I was reminded, NB, of 'single track with passing places,' which we ran
> into on the Scottish islands. Fun those, but the drivers were generally
> polite as I recall...
>
> Terminology shifts from country to country & can confuse...
>
> Doug
> On Aug 22, 2014, at 4:51 AM, Lawrence Upton <[log in to unmask]>
> wrote:
>
> > Many Aussies have said this. I understand. Might even sympathise. But
> > I'm not sure we need motor vehicles for private transport here. (The
> most I
> > ever had was a provisional licence around 20 years old.)
> > I think the desire to have a car must be strong. A woman on my favourite
> > island, where you  can't go a mile in one direction before you hit the
> sea,
> > has said she hopes one day they get a car just so that they could  use it
> > when they go to the pub. That's an expensive self-drive. Or would be.
> > In the wilder emptier stretches of the country, and it empties quite a
> bit
> > in the north, though still densely populated by some measures, one used
> to
> > be able to travel on the post bus. It took planning; but so does getting
> > the money for a car. Now it seems the post will be abolished as we know
> > it...
> > There's  so little land, I'd hate to see more flattened.
> > People do just pull off the road on the moors.
> > Stone hedges etc of antiquity matter to me even if there is no money to
> do
> > pollen counts etc under them. I like em being there. Now and then one
> finds
> > survival of double hedges, the now tarmaced road between where the cattle
> > walked, and sometimes you can still see how the tops of the hedges were
> > cobbled. There's a stretch near Lizard Point where you can walk atop them
> > cross country. I jumped down into a field a few years back and startled a
> > labourer who said he'd been working there n years and it had never
> occurred
> > to him you could do that.
> > Fragments of social history if nothing else. They began taking them down
> on
> > Scilly, to use them for building, and the wind began to destroy
> > agriculture. No one had thought of that.
> > Your sunburnt country is of course somewhat larger, and you don't all
> speak
> > of lawnmowers all the time, thank gawd. We have no space and a high
> > incidence of historical  artefacts.
> >
> > L
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On 22 August 2014 11:06, Bill Wootton <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> >
> >> Ha, L. Last time I drove in the UK, maybe 1992, up Chester way and into
> >> Scotland, I thought exactly the same as your button-holing New South
> >> Welshman. Layovers were so far spaced. You couldn't pull over anywhere,
> a
> >> big shock to one used to roads of a certain width or at least having
> >> flattish spots parallelling roads. Greece, Italy, I did not dare on four
> >> wheels. Trains and buses sufficed.
> >>
> >> B
> >>
> >>> On 21 Aug 2014, at 8:26 pm, Lawrence Upton <[log in to unmask]>
> >> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> You were right. That's all news to me. Our rough is getting narrower
> and
> >>> narrower often with stone hedges. I met a man - he buttonholed me - in
> a
> >>> Penzance pub, a man who had sold lawn mowers in NSW for decades and
> >> wanted
> >>> to talk about all the issues. I sidetracked him, fearing for my will to
> >>> live, and he complained about stone hedges either side of narrow roads
> in
> >>> the surrounding areas. They, he said, should be moved or taken away to
> >>> facilitate traffic flow. I remarked that they have been there centuries
> >>> perhaps millennia. More evidence on his side as far as he was
> concerned.
> >>>
> >>> Very different perspectives, though I am familiar with the behaviour of
> >>> psychos - I watch them parking and unparking if there's such a word
> every
> >>> morning while I wait for the bus. And there is Greece.
> >>>
> >>> In UK, flashing your headlights means Do go ahead dear boy. In Greece,
> it
> >>> means get out of my way;  am not stopping. I discovered that crossing a
> >>> multi-lane road at Piraeus. They didn't stop but were adept at going
> >> round
> >>> me at speed. I didn't even need a loose plaster.
> >>>
> >>> I'll leave you to incorporate what you have told us into your
> narrative.
> >>> Good luck!
> >>>
> >>> L
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>> On 20 August 2014 23:12, Bill Wootton <[log in to unmask]>
> wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>> Ah, Doug and L, I see now that I perhaps need to explain expectations
> on
> >>>> Australian bush roads.  Many roads are still dirt roads but influence,
> >>>> council decisions etc lead to some roads which start to carry a bit
> more
> >>>> traffic over the years, getting the go-ahead for a bitumen strip down
> >> the
> >>>> middle which is wide enough for one car to get a bit more of a hurtle
> >> up.
> >>>> When you come across a car coming from the other direction, both cars
> >> are
> >>>> expected to slow down and ease the two passenger side wheels on to the
> >>>> 'rough', the dirt 'shoulder' of the road while the passing is done. If
> >> one
> >>>> car goes early into the rough, sometimes the road is adjudged as wide
> >>>> enough by the driver of the other to remain hogging bitumen and he
> >> doesn't
> >>>> even deign to slow down.
> >>>>
> >>>> In my poem, the 'I' formed the impression early that the truck was
> fully
> >>>> intent on ploughing on, going nowhere into the rough with his bounty
> of
> >>>> piled pineapples, so he jumped early on to the shoulder. If any of you
> >> have
> >>>> seen the film Mad Max, the first one, you will know what a psycho can
> do
> >>>> bearing down straight at you on the road.
> >>>>
> >>>> Clear?
> >>>>
> >>>> Bill
> >>>>
> >>>>>> On 21 Aug 2014, at 12:32 am, Douglas Barbour <[log in to unmask]>
> >>>>> wrote:
> >>>>>
> >>>>> I sort of feel the same as L, Bill, but also can't quite 'see' the
> >>>> situation:is the 'me' on the road or a sidewalk? What exactly is that
> >>>> 'rough'?
> >>>>>
> >>>>> The 2nd one cuts close, & fast..
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Doug
> >>>>>> On Aug 19, 2014, at 3:37 PM, Bill Wootton <[log in to unmask]
> >
> >>>> wrote:
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> On Jealous Street
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> A truck rattles towards me
> >>>>>> not caring to take two wheels
> >>>>>> into the rough
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> so I swerve off bitumen
> >>>>>> noting his passing tray
> >>>>>> piled high with pineapples.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Laser removal
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Now thou
> >>>>>> inkless
> >>>>>> naked form
> >>>>>> bears
> >>>>>> closer inspection.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Douglas Barbour
> >>>>> [log in to unmask]
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Recent publications: (With Sheila E Murphy) Continuations &
> >> Continuation
> >>>> 2 (UofAPress).
> >>>>> Recording Dates (Rubicon Press).
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Something else is out there
> >>>>> godamnit
> >>>>>
> >>>>> And I want to hear it
> >>>>>
> >>>>>  C.D.Wright
> >>>
> >>
> >
>
> Douglas Barbour
> [log in to unmask]
>
> Recent publications: (With Sheila E Murphy) Continuations & Continuation 2
> (UofAPress).
> Recording Dates (Rubicon Press).
>
> Something else is out there
> godamnit
>
> And I want to hear it
>
>         C.D.Wright
>