Just to confuse matters, this is the column from two weeks ago…
August 26th, 2007
For half an hour last weekend, my inner Hyacinth Bucket (or should that be Bouquet?) reeled in ecstasy. I was sitting outside a café in Paris, enjoying tea made with a silk teabag and flicking through a popular weekly news magazine, which was ruminating on who would be the defining philosopher of the 21st century.
As I struggled though the article, a dapper and evidently well-heeled man pedalled sedately past me on a stylish silver bicycle. I sighed deeply. It was all so unutterably French and civilised.
Then an equally stylish lady whizzed by on an identical bicycle. It was only minutes later when two more women passed on silver bicycles that I realised these were the new Vélibs or free bicycles. Despite initial scepticism from locals, it seems that the Paris bike scheme is working out rather well.
I arrived home to find that Dublin’s “billboards for bicycles” scheme had become mired in controversy, with multiple objections to the planning applications for the billboards, because of their likely impact on the urban environment and the possible danger they pose as distractions to motorists.
I can’t say I’ll lose sleep over either issue. I’m more concerned about how this bicycle scheme is going to work, assuming Dublin City Council and JC Decaux, the advertising company involved, surmount the planning glitches. Yes, the bikes will be GPS-chipped, there will be a small fee for using them and a penalty of €150 for failing to return them. Why do I still think, however, that most of Dublin’s 500 community bicycles will end up in the Liffey and the canals or burned to cinders somewhere?
At heart I suspect we’re just not sufficiently civilised. We don’t believe in putting the common good before our own needs and desires. Irish society works with a nod and a wink and a ‘you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours’ mentality. Not everyone in Dublin will see the benefit of returning an almost-free bicycle safe and undamaged to its stand when there are 499 more up for grabs.
I don’t think I’m being unfair. If you’ve ever been to America, you may have gaped in wonder at the honour system operated by newspaper vending boxes. You put your money in the slot, open the door and take out a newspaper. If you don’t put any money in, you can still open the door and take out a newspaper.
How many Irish people have discovered this and found themselves out of breath 30 seconds later, having sprinted three blocks with as many newspapers as they could carry? If a newspaper publisher tried that here, even the little metal vending boxes would be gone within 15 minutes if they weren’t bolted down.
The honour system is not just used for newspapers in America. Charities leave open boxes of confectionary in stores with no more requirement for a donation than a polite ‘Thank you for your honesty’ notice. Farmers leave stands of produce on the side of the road, with a price list and an honesty cash box.
In other countries, hotels and guesthouses leave unstaffed honour bars open, with a notepad for guests to record their drinks consumption. Picture an honour bar in an Irish hotel. Every bottle would be drained, even the weird liqueurs that no-one drinks unless they’re free. Would there be any account of who had drank what? Like hell, there would. The hotel staff would arrive along the next day to find broken bottles, puddles of vomit and a few comatose patrons in a heap on the floor.
Why are we like this? Why can’t we be trusted?
To be fair, a me-first attitude is somewhat ingrained in human nature. Game theorists the world over spend their careers trying to work out why people act selfishly for their own ends rather than making a small sacrifice so that everyone benefits. But this natural human tendency seems to be overlaid with a sneering cynicism here. It’s not enough to be a cute hoor and get something for nothing. We also have to jeer boorishly at those who don’t do the same.
I asked my brother why he thought we were like this. “Sure, we had nothing,” he said. Could this be it? Is the post-colonial oppression still biting? If so, it’s about time we got over ourselves. There’s no point in sticking it to the man when we’ve become the man.
Still, there could be hope for us, and for the bicycles, yet. A few years ago, I was visiting an Irish friend in Hannover. We were taking a metro journey, so bought our tickets, strolled through the station and onto the train. “We never validated our tickets,” I pointed out. “You don’t have to,” he said, “but I can guarantee you every person on this train has a ticket.” I was astonished. By buying tickets when they weren’t absolutely obliged to, the Germans displayed an impressive adherence to notions of civility, civic pride and the common good. At the same time, the little devil on my right shoulder was excitedly jumping up and down, screeching, “Suckers! They’re paying for something they could get for free”.
So when the Luas came into operation, I was agog to realise that – marking a first for Irish public transport – its passengers are similarly trusted, rather than forced, to buy a ticket. Even though the chances of having your ticket checked by a conductor are relatively slim – it’s never happened to me – almost everyone seems to buy a ticket. Possibly, most passengers believe that paying up is better than risking the scorching public humiliation of being caught ticketless. Or maybe, just maybe, we realise that if no-one pays, the system will grind to a halt and we won’t have a Luas at all. So vive la free bicycle revolution – let’s hope it lasts.
