Welcome back to ‘dispatches from car culture’, a recurring series where I observe what it’s like being surrounded by cars as a transport default. Not judgemental; just curious about how we’re all complicit in making the wheels (so to speak) go round. In this edition: somehow I can’t stop name-dropping my lovely colleagues and friends.

I get into my colleague Alice’s car; she has kindly offered me a ride to the North Shore for a piece I’m working on. “There might be something to your theory that cars are like the world’s biggest handbag, filled with detritus that doesn’t really need to come with you,” she jokes, moving some empty plastic containers (Alice is a reusable object and recycling queen, I once came across her angrily washing out takeaway containers someone else had left behind in the kitchen while she was eight months pregnant). I had explained the theory at a meeting a week or two earlier: people who drive places always have small bags (compared to me who always has lots of things in my tote or backpack) because the cars are their bag. The cars are like a metal bag for the whole body, and whatever other items happen to be stuffed inside on the way.  

“I’m so glad you asked for a ride,” says my friend Lyric. “I was worried about you biking!” I am glad that our mutual friend Brie has driven me to Lyrics house, about 9 kilometres away, or 45 minutes on the bike lane route. I am feeling wretched with what I assume is end-of-year exhaustion but will later turn out to be the early symptoms of Covid-19. At the end of the night, Brie’s flatmate Sophia offers to take me home, and I am so, so grateful. 

At a Christmas parade in Waipu, a child who can’t be more than 19 months old careens back and forth in a remote controlled car operated by his mother. He is following the line of vintage cars, immaculate and gleaming; perhaps every interesting looking car in a 40 kilometre radius has been rallied for the cause. Of course, it’s only safe for all the children on the floats, walking in their highland dancing costumes or watching from the side of the road because the road has been closed to traffic. 

A few days later, in the Auckland suburbs, I see two parents driving their toddler in a remote controlled car, the child swerving as the parents fumble with the new controls. Perhaps it was a Christmas present. 

Shreyas and I have meticulously planned our summer low-carbon adventure through Te Urewera. The first leg of the trip depends on us, and our bikes, getting on to the bus in Auckland. I read and reread the Electric Bike Team guide to getting bikes on a bus in the sulky darkness beneath SkyCity, the blog post seeming more absurd each time. The bus driver stops as she goes inside the bus, seeing our bikes with wheels tidily removed. “I won’t be able to take that,” she says, and I feel tearful: here I am trying to live a live of adventure without a car, here I am failing at the first hurdle. There is a bus a few hours later; with some minor adjustments to the schedule, everything goes off without a hitch, and my fears are unrealised. (More on this adventure in both blog and zine format soon!)

Our wonderful friend Ling picks us up in Wairoa, in her Subaru. A Subaru means adventure, I think, remembering the ads in the American adventure magazines that friends used to give us to read. She explains that she can only buy higher quality petrol for her car to keep it running smoothly. 

Brie texts me after we arrange to meet at the beach; after a minor accident involving backing into a pole, her car is out of action. “I’m enjoying learning the bus routes,” she says cheerfully. I unfold the picnic blanket that fitted so easily in my pannier, worrying for her life that stretches across Auckland and the financial stress of a broken car. 

My friend Sophie and I discuss our new years resolutions. I hope to read no books by American authors, table at zinefest and listen to more classical music. I also think I probably should get a full drivers license. “I am going to learn to drive too,” she says. We are both very determined people and yet this is a resolution of necessity, not excitement. 

It has been three years since I lived in Wellington. Yet when I receive Anya and Mika’s wedding invitation I instantly spot that their ceremony and reception venue have been cunningly located on the same bus route, and this fills me with joy. Both are stalwart public transport advocates, so I’m not surprised, just happy to attend a wedding without needing to wrangle rides from people. 

On the ride to the beach, there’s a big poster advertising a ‘direct to boot’ supermarket service. I suppose this is the rebrand of click and collect, as if cars are the only way to do your shopping. 

When I reach the beach, the wings of dawn on a Tuesday morning, a crossfit class is happening. Between gossip about people’s children and trips to Sydney someone asks if buying a Rav4 was worth it. “Oh yes, I use it all the time,” says the fitness instructor, laying out a mat. I settle into the closest side of the mirror sea, I feel my limbs strong and cool, but even here the sound of cars on the Harbour Bridge reaches me, the blurry rev of reversing on the cul de sac holds me fast. 

I am trying to decipher an advertisement that looks like it’s for a DJ show, but on closer inspection turns out to be for a new seatbelt safety song. Speed limits have been increased across New Zealand in the last few years, despite community efforts to make things slower. Fossil momentum turns into seatbelt-straining, bone-crunching injuries, bruises, fear, loss. 

Two bumper stickers. Orange, rectangular, with flowers: “normalise hitting the curb”. Black and white, circular, wobbly font: “Ew my mum told me not to speed.”