A late start, peak-hour traffic and a dash home all add up to a fine for Janet with no sympathy at all from Bob
Janet feels she is a good driver, but her husband says she’s just a woman driver.
It happened after I’d left the Harbour Bridge, that infuriating bottle-neck of traffic where in peak hours it takes you so long to crawl up to the toll gate and pay your shilling that you begin to think it’s about time they made the Bridge free.
After all it’s been built more than 30 years; and anyway I can’t see why people living on the north side of the Harbour should have to pay as much as they do for it. They should at least give us northsiders a weekly concession!
Many of us use it twice a day, whereas the people on the other side rarely cross it more than once or twice a week.
I’d been to see my mother-in-law out at Bondi and had overstayed my time. I’d meant to start for home about 3.30, but had left it until an hour later. So I ran bang into the five o’clock scramble at the Bridge.
Eventually I got to the toll gates and handed over my shilling. Carefully I adged into the stream of north-going traffic. It began to speed-up and so did I. By the time I’d reached the north side of the Bridge I was going at least 25 miles an hour!
Then there was the usual creep up the hill, with traffic cops holding us up and cars and trucks every which way. It was already getting quite dark. I glanced at my watch – 5.30.
Although I knew my mother was at home fixing the tea and looking after the little boys, I began to get a bit anxious.
We started off again and to my relief I saw the turn off ahead which would set me on the road to home. I pulled up, waited for the oncoming traffic and as soon as there was a break shot off to the right.
The road that leads to the Junction looked pretty clear and I started to drive more quickly. I’d been driving about five minutes when I saw the motor bike racing up behind me in my rear vision mirror. Fool, I thought. He’ll kill himself at that pace.
Then, suddenly, the bike was passing me and cutting in on me and a voice was ordering me to “Pull in, driver.”
Horrified, I slowed down and stopped close to the pavement. A helmeted policeman was approaching me, notebook ready.
“Hello,” I said brightly, as he drew level with my front window. “What’s the matter, officer?”
“What . . . what’s the matter?” he spluttered. “You were doing 45 miles an hour, madam!”
“I couldn’t have been!”
“But you were, madam, 45 miles per hour. The speed limit’s 35. You know that, don’t you?”
“Yes, but, well, I’m sure I wasn’t going as fast as that. You must have made a mistake, officer.”
“We don’t make mistakes. I’m going to book you, lady.”
“Look officer,” I leaned out the window and flashed him my widest smile. “Do I look like the sort of person who’d break the speed laws? I have two little sons at home and I’m having another baby soon. I’m a very careful driver, officer.” “You were doing 45,” he insisted. “Now, can I see your licence, please?”
I scrabbled in my handbag without result. “Oh,” I said plaintively, “I must have left it in my other bag.”
“All right . . . all right,” he said wearily. “Just give me your name and address.”
“I still don’t think I was doing 45,” I said.
“Name and address, please.”
I told him who I was and where I lived. He wrote it down slowly and carefully.
“You’ll be hearing about this,” he said morosely.
After my mother had gone and the children were in bed I confessed to my husband. His immediate reaction was one of horror.
“You have no business to be driving at 45 along the Junction Road,” he stormed. “You’re . . . you’re not good enough, Jano, You could have killed yourself.”
“I don’t believe I was going 45 and besides, Bob Middleton, you know very well I’m a good driver. I can handle the car.”
“Oh, you’re all right but you’re still only a woman,” said my husband. “You’re not fit to drive at 45 anywhere, let alone in the city. You don’t see things quickly enough.”
“My reflexes are excellent. You’re like every other male, Bob. Just because I’m a female, you think I’m a rotten driver.”
“I didn’t say you were a rotten driver. But you ought to have enough sense to recognise your limitations. You’ll get fined, Jano, five to 10 pounds most likely. Well, you can pay it yourself, out of housekeeping money. It might teach you a lesson.”
I opened my mouth to argue and then decided against it. If it’d been Bob who’d been pulled up for speeding I’d have been full of sympathy, but a wife can’t expect the same treatment from her husband when it happens to her.
In the male book all women are hopeless nitwits in a motor car, and all the talking in the world isn’t going to change that opinion.
The only thing to do in a case like this is to shut up and start saving for the fine.
Real names are not used in this story.
Another complete episode in the real life story LIFE WITH THE MIDDLETONS
From Woman’s Day. Australia. August 2, 1965.
