I've done the JHB to BFN commute in 3h15, and that included limping through the last 60km at around 100km behind a traffic jam of trucks. Since few people are more aware than I am about the Peak Oil problem, I determined to drive slower on Saturday - with a few to saving fuel. Think about it. If you drive from A-B, the faster you go, the more fuel you consume extra over what it would have taken to get there anyway. Some experts have advised an international speed limit of 90km/h.
When I got to the last tollgate at Verkeerdevlei I thought I'd skip it and head off to Brandfort. Immediately the road turned to gravel, and the 20km stretch through muddy ditches and dirt dongas sucked up a lot of time. But it was also a piece of road I had never been on before, and I found the ordinary and otherwise unseen Free State scenery quite bewitching. I stopped for a few photos of sunflowers that were desiccated and seemingly fossilised against the Free State's ageless blue sky. In the end I did the trip in about 4h45.
On the way back - leaving at around 6pm - I was less altruistic. I ended up cruising at 140km/h most of the way, and in the last 20km a speed camera lense singed my number plate into memory as my car's silver body sizzle by at 150km/h. I'm guessing that's a R500 fine.
It occurred to me that a 90km/h speed limit is a daydream. Even with higher fuel prices, people aren't really feeling it enough to change their driving habits. But we're getting there. In large landmass countries (the US, Oz and here), fuel is still pretty cheap. But a few years from now a drive to Bloem will be a major undertaking. It will be what flying used to be like, once upon a time. And flying, by the by, will be out, unless you're one of the president's men, or Nicky Oppenheimer.
Wouldn't it be nice if, in order to save fuel, they began NO DRIVE ZONES. So perhaps you may only drive from JHB to Kroonstad, and then from there you have to bicycle the rest of the way. What fun - entire highway sections devoted to cycling. Or NO DRIVE WEEKENDS - but cyclists are free to use the carriageways. Then, if you wanted to visit someone in Bloem and they wanted to visit you, you could meet halfway in Kroonstad. Now I know it sounds insane, but 200km on a bike is manageable if you have the whole day. You do 100km in the morning, 70 in the afternoon, and then 30km warm down. And let's face it, the road from JHB to BFN is flat as a pancake.
If prices break through the roof it might actually be quite fun...of course not including the poor out there whose survival is at stake. On the drive back I noticed with alarm the number of shacks that are literally an arm and leg away from the edge of the N1, and there is no fence. We have a long way to go before we become this daydream society singing 'The Hills Are Alive With The Sound Of Music', as we happily peddle our bicycles over free and thriving farmland. But it's fairytale worth keeping in the back of our minds I think.
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