ADAM TRIMINGHAM

THE other day I set off from my home in West Hove on my bike along the seafront cycle lane and I seemed to be the only soul who wasn't protected from the weather in a car. Even the rain was driving.

Yet when I arrived in Brighton, there were plenty of people walking about.

This made me think that although class divisions have been blurred, there is still a sharp rift between those who drive and those who don't.

Car ownership has increased enormously over the last 40 years to the point where in southern England, fully two-thirds of the households have vehicles and many have two, three, four or more.

But in places like Brighton, the proportion of drivers is not nearly so high.

There is also a division between the suburbs, where most people drive, and the town centre, where many do not.

Some people don't drive because they are too old, too young, too ill or too poor. Others, like me, choose not to do so.

Many of my colleagues at work, who appear to have four wheels rather than two legs, are aghast when I mention that I do not drive. Take away their motors and they appear almost incapable of movement.

Yet Brighton is a compact town and it is easy to walk the length of the town centre within 15 minutes. The cycle lanes are not bad, either.

And although a Tory councillor wrote to me last week saying the bus service was sporadic and expensive, I find that from my home I can take a bus into the town centre every six minutes for just £1 which I don't think is bad at all. There's also a good network of trains.

The motoring fraternity are constantly bleating about all the parking restrictions, traffic lights, one-way streets, and general inconvenience for drivers.

My old boss John Connor never forgave Brighton Council for preventing him from parking outside Woolworths in Western Road and many other motorists feel much the same about the pedestrianisation of George Street in Hove.

But we live in the most crowded corner of one of the most congested islands in the whole wide world. There simply isn't room for everyone who wants to drive to be on the roads at the same time.

It's bad enough being in the country, where even minor roads are busy most of the time and where you are hard put to find any corner of Sussex which is insulated from the drone of traffic noise. It's impossible trying to drive through Brighton on a Saturday afternoon, when the world is queuing up waiting to get into the Churchill Square car parks.

Some drivers are keen to restrict motorists provided their vehicles are kept on the roads. Others advocate removing restrictions although I have yet to hear which roads they wish widened and which town centre areas razed for car parking.

At the end of the next century, we'll look upon our craze for cars as so much motoring madness.

MIKE MIDDLETON, scaffolder and councillor, was the voice of the people every Friday morning on the Brighton breakfast show of Southern Counties Radio.

Now he has been axed. I can still listen to his words of wisdom by giving him a call but it's a shame the rest of the town can't hear him any more.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.