Wheel gone kid

No matter how late at night I’ve walked home (OK, staggered on some occasions), I’ve never felt scared on the streets of Madrid.

Step out onto the road, however, and it’s a different matter.

Madrileños are some of the nicest people I know (not counting the waiters, of course, who pride themselves on being so grumpy they make Oscar the Grouch look like Mickey Mouse), but put them behind the wheel of a car and you discover just where Robert Louis Stephenson got his inspiration for Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. They become monsters who forget all rules of the road.

For a start, there’s lanes. Or rather the lack of them. Getting into the right lane is an interesting concept to Madrileños - and one that must be ignored at all costs. Want to turn left? Then just cut in to the five other lanes that are blocking your way (and yes, there are only supposed to be two lanes on most roads, as in Britain, but then there’s the vast number of cars straddling the white lines - where they exist - as well as the mopeds and the taxi drivers who are making up a whole new road system). Bus lane? What bus lane? That’s just a really, really good way to get through the rush-hour traffic (which happens four times a day, thanks to long lunches) and avoid the other cars - if only those cars in the five other lanes weren’t blocking your way and what on earth are those large red vehicles full of people doing trying to get past?

Meanwhile, if the SAS ever need a new way to test the toughness of their new recruits, Madrid pedestrian crossings are the way to go. There are two types - the ones with green man and the ones where you cross and pray to God that the car hurtling towards you will stop (usually they just swerve round you). With the other type you’re halfway over the damn crossing, the green man proudly lighting the way, when you notice the cars coming round the corner are still coming round the corner and hurtling over the crossing. That’s not strictly fair - some will slow to a speed of “not excruciatingly painful if I hit you” as they ignore every rule Tufty the squirrel taught you about the Green Cross Code (look left, look right - dammit just run for your life).

Then there’s the double-parking, the constant tooting of the horn, the speeding . . .

None of this criticism has anything to do with my recent expedition into the driving seat, of course.

I love driving and have missed it terribly in Madrid. I’ve driven in Spain before, several years ago during a trip from Nerja to Huercal Overa, in Almeria. It was all motorway, until we got to the small villages and then our guide offered to take over. I was out of the driving position so quickly you’d think the hire company had installed an ejector seat a la James Bond. Driving on the wrong side on straight roads is easy; on windy, bendy, too-narrow-for-a-burro roads it’s impossible and I was glad to leave the responsibility to someone else.

In Madrid, the traffic is so busy, no matter what time of day or night, that I’d never dared get into a car. Besides, there’s no need - public transport is amazing and we’ve never missed having a car. But I have missed the sensation of being behind the wheel, with the world at my feet (or pedals) and that’s why I took my friend Fernando’s offer of a try behind the wheel of his company car.

We were in a quiet part of the city, with barely another vehicle in sight, and the insurance covered everyone. No problem, I thought, easing the car into first gear and moving off. It was plain sailing - apart from Fernando screaming: “Look left. Left! The other left!” at every junction. In fact, I felt so confident I had no qualms as I maneouvred into the parking lot.

Which is probably why I didn’t see the workmen’s railings on the right-hand-side of the car until I heard a sickening sound similar to fingernails being scratched down a blackboard. I had scraped the side of the car.

I apologised profusely, offering time and time again to pay for the damage, but Fernando merely shrugged it off. “It’s the company’s car, not mine,” he said, displaying a very Spanish attitude.

For the next couple of weeks I could barely look at him, I felt so ashamed. But then he invited me for a drink. “Remember when you drove the car?” he asked over a caña. I groaned and begged him not to talk about it. “No,” he continued, “I was laughing about it with my father - when I did exactly the same thing on exactly the same railings.”

I hid a smile as he muttered something about “at least I know which left to look at”. But who cares about left and right? For me, it was full speed ahead moral superiority.

And so long as I never get behind the wheel again, that’s a road I’ll never have to leave.