I never learned to drive. If I had already been 18 during the summer between high school and university, I might have learned then. However, I was born in September, and by then I was already in Germany, living on my own, enjoying university, and having too many far more interesting things to do. I actually noticed pretty quickly that I had no interest in driving. I thought that, for me, having a car didn’t make sense anyway, and that it therefore it was pointless to spend time and money getting a license. But I was still toying with the idea of getting one.

The next summer, my mother offered to give me some minimal driving lessons. This was forbidden at the time—you had to learn in a school, and I guess with a specially prepared car. I suppose she was trying to hook me in. We were in Perlora—a pretty small place. On a Sunday we went to an industrial park nearby. It was totally empty, with wide streets. The perfect place to put somebody behind a wheel for the first time, I guess. We switched places, and I was about to turn the car on when we saw another car coming from the rear. It was far away and driving pretty slowly, but my mother, always cautious, told me to hold on and let them pass. The problem was that they didn’t. It was the Guardia Civil Rural, the police. They stopped, saw directly what was going on, told us about the fine they could impose on us, and sent us packing. That is the only time in my life I have been close to turning a car on. Those guardias civiles also explained that they were out patrolling on a Sunday because there was a new EU regulation on the lighting of tractors, and they were monitoring if it was being respected. As you see, I have to thank two bored guardias civiles and the EU for preventing me from becoming one of you, you drivers.

You might have felt that the last sentence had an edge. Let me assure you: it was intentional. I hate drivers. I’ve had two cats killed by drivers. Another one badly injured. Although less dramatic, as a cyclist, I was once hit by a car, once thrown into the road by somebody opening a door, and once sent to the ground because a car turned right, cutting the bike path a meter in front of me. I hate you drivers.

Antoine's necklace

Let me be clear. Although most people drive, I don’t hate most people. I just hate you when you’re behind the wheel. People get in a car and forget all their common decency. Some more, some less. There are the evidently crazy things drivers do, but I don’t hate drivers as a whole for those few assholes. Not many people drive 50 km/h in a pedestrian zone. Most people don’t drive when they’re drunk. Not many people start driving in reverse on a highway because they missed their exit. Although these things are probably more common than one thinks—I’ve been in cars where these last two happened—I guess they remain rare enough for people to remember them, probably with some embarrassment. But it’s not those things that make me hate drivers at large.

You put behind a wheel people who patiently wait for their turn to get into the metro, or who let others pass first through a door, and they start not stopping at pedestrians crossings. Many slow down slightly, but they don’t stop. Others speed up. You all do that. And you know it. People who, as pedestrians, would get out of their way to let a wheelchair or a baby stroller pass have no problem blocking the sidewalk, parking their monsters there. You all do that. Sometimes. Maybe not often. But it happens. These same people—you all—take care not to block a garage exit. People who, in a crowded place, would move around carefully to avoid running into somebody have no problem turning sharply right and crossing a bike lane without caring if someone is coming or not. This is rarer, but it happens a lot. Ask anybody who commutes by bike. As I said above, it happened to me, throwing me in the ground. Even rarer, but something that definitely also happens, is that people open doors into bike traffic. Also happened to me, throwing me in the middle of a road where cars drive fast. People who would patiently drive behind a tractor take incredible risks passing cyclists—risks for the cyclists, that’s it. People who patiently wait for their turn in the supermarket queue routinely drive over the speed limit.

The reason for all that is always a good one. Things like, “We’re late.” “There’s no other spot.” “Bikes or pedestrians are hard to see.” “I’m stopping here just for a few minutes.” Well, let me tell you, you wouldn’t jump the queue in the bakery because you might be a couple of minutes late. For most things, being two minutes late is not dramatic. And if it is, then maybe you should think about leaving earlier. And when it comes to parking, I totally agree that it’s a bummer to have to look for a proper spot, which might be a five-minute walk from where you want to go. But seriously, is that the reason why you’re blocking the sidewalk for wheelchairs or forcing somebody with a baby stroller to walk into traffic? And yes, I know that you’re careful, that if ever, you don’t do that often. But you all do it. And the argument about the lack of parking spots doesn’t apply to garage entries. And you will never see a car parked on the road itself, where cars drive? That would be ridiculous, right? Agreed. But why is the sidewalk less ridiculous? And when it comes to bikes or pedestrians being hard to see, please explain to me why bikes with a baby in a back seat, or people who walk next to a small kid, are so much more visible? If you bike with a baby behind you, cars treat you with enormous deference. So much for cyclists being hard to see.

I’m pretty sure that if your kids were doing something dangerous or inconvenient for other people, giving you the same good reasons you give, you would probably not say to them, “It’s very understandable, what else can you do?” Would you? Because this is what you’re telling yourselves. And I know a few people who have been run over by cars doing things that reckless but actually quite ordinary, sometimes fucking up their lives for good. Children playing rough are way less dangerous than you are in a car. But when driving, all those good reasons make total sense, right? To you all. Not all the time, but if you’re honest, quite often.

I keep saying “you all,” and I mean it. I can only think of one exception: Alexandra. She would never have killed my two cats. I would let her drive me up Everest in an ’80s Ford Fiesta. We were often in cars together, and it was sometimes quite funny: she would be slightly late to take the highway exit, she would then allow it to pass, and then, with incredible equanimity, she might drive 10 miles until there was a place to turn around, or until another appropriate exit was found. It took a bit longer to arrive, but it never mattered. It was the same in the Midwest, California, Canada, or Spain. I’m sure that Alexandra stops for every single cyclist or pedestrian. I’m sure she opens her door with care. I’m sure she doesn’t block the path on the sidewalk. Don’t lie to yourself: you are no Alexandra. You may have even smirked when I wrote that to avoid making something brusque or impolite, she would drive 10 miles further. Let me tell you: behind a wheel, you are not as decent as she is.

Why do drivers do what they do? I evidently don’t know, but I’m pretty sure it has to do with power, with knowing that you’re inside a two-ton metal box. There must be the fun of controlling such a beast. The joy of knowing that you press with your foot and feel the acceleration. The excitement of feeling how you’re taking a curve. I’m sure that all of that plays a role for some of you. Maybe not all of you, because these seem stereotypical male things to me. If you see a car speeding at 80 km/h in a 30 km/h zone, there is most likely a guy behind the wheel. But let me tell you: women are not more considerate. For example, as far as I can see, it’s much more common for women to ignore pedestrian crossings than for men to do the same. Maybe the guys stop because of the same low’level machismo that leaves them to hold the door open. Women do it driving at a reasonable 30 km/h. But 5% of the pedestrians hit at that speed are killed. Just saying. The time a car door threw me from the bike into traffic—thank God there was no car coming directly behind me—it was a woman. The time I fell to the ground because a car had taken a last-minute right turn, crossing the bike lane, it was a woman. The time a car hit me on the bike lane because it just shot from a side road, wanting a better view of incoming traffic, it was a guy. I’m not sure which one of those three was more dangerous.

Besides the sense of power, there must also be a sense of invulnerability. Drivers know that they have to be careful with the police, with radars, with parking fines, but all of that is another matter, and we don’t live in a police state. Much more relevantly, drivers know to be careful with other cars, trucks, or tractors, keeping an eye out for possible unexpected behavior. They also know that their car is valuable. They leave enough space when they take over a truck. Now, you all know that when taking over a cyclist on the road, you’re supposed to slow down and leave 1.5 meters of space. In cities, it’s slightly less, 1 meter. Roughly speaking, 1.5 meters is your arm span—that is, the distance between the tips of your fingers when you stretch your arms laterally. About a pencil’s length less than the width of your car. You know that. And I know you don’t do it. And if you are honest, so do you. To be precise, that you regularly fail to do it.

Very often, as a cyclist, you feel the aggression when a car takes you over. For safety reasons, cyclists are supposed to ride 1 meter inside the road. That is, if a car wants to take over, it has to account for moving quite a bit into oncoming traffic. Now, it must be frustrating to tag along for 100 meters behind a cyclist going at 15 km/h. I guess. You’re surely coming late somewhere. And those decisive 30 seconds can change it all. I guess. So, you all end up passing cyclists in really dangerous ways. Now, you know that if the cyclist had been a tractor crawling along, then you would instead have gone zen, waiting for it to leave the road or to arrive somewhere it’s safe to overtake it. The difference? The tractor is bigger and heavier than your car and probably would get less badly damaged if you were to hit it. The cyclist? You and your car are going to be fine. That is power there. And a sense of entitlement. And if your older kid was playing some rough game with the younger one, you would make sure that your older kid understands that they have to be careful and patient. That they have to bridle their sense of power and entitlement. Right? Apply it to yourself.

Cyclists, not to speak of people on electric scooters, also do plenty of irregular things. Maybe even more than cars. They definitely stop less for pedestrians than cars do. I’m totally for them getting fined, in the same way that cars sometimes get fined. Now, there’s a difference between them and cars. If you give me the choice, I definitely prefer being hit by a bike at 30 km/h than by a car at that speed. Maybe it’s just me, I don’t know. But I don’t think so. Every year (data from 2017), up to 3 deaths are caused by bikes in the UK. On the other hand, around 400 pedestrian and 100 cyclist deaths are caused by motorists each year. There are cases of dangerous driving or manslaughter, but most of them are the effect of careless driving. When it came to cyclists, the following were the main causes: failing to check mirrors or blind spots, turning across a cyclist’s path, driving too close when overtaking, opening a car door into a cyclist, and failing to yield at roundabouts or junctions. Now, of those drivers, 44% were condemned to jail with an average sentence of 2 years (that means that the majority of those condemned didn’t go to jail at all), and 74% of them got their license taken away for an average period of 22 months. For killing somebody. I would not sentence to life in prison somebody who has been careless and caused an accident by driving too close to a cyclist when overtaking, but I would definitely not allow them to drive ever again. In their whole fucking lives. If you have a hard time seeing cyclists or pedestrians, you cannot be trusted driving a two-ton behemoth. Period.

When I started writing this, I wanted to write something funny. I wanted to write about the smiles I get when I show up at the department or in class dressed in British chic, pictured above. I wanted to tell how I tease the being that I am going to pick her up from school wearing that coat, blasting Será porque te amo from a Bluetooth speaker. But the reason why I wear that coat is that last year, as a pedestrian, I had a few close calls with cars, and I want to be incredibly visible. Evidently, people working on the road are the most visible, so I went along, navigated all norms that describe professional clothing, and finally had to choose between orange—apparently mandatory if you work for national rail—or yellow. You see what I got. The being also has a very visible coat, but one that looks much nicer—a gray one that, in normal light, doesn’t look reflecting at all, but at night is really bright. Anyway, that coat I wear has an amazing effect: when I’m crossing the road, cars often stop 5–10 meters away. I’m sure that part of it is that I’m visible, but I suspect that they must be thinking that I’m police, or an emergency worker, or something. Whatever it is, it works.

As I said, I wanted to write something a bit funny and self-deprecating. But what came out was this hate letter. I hate cars. And you, drivers. Mostly only when you’re behind the wheel. Usually, you’re a pretty decent bunch, but cars have the same effect on you as Tolkien’s ring.