draft

Friday, 6. March 2020

Leaving the town in the small black car, still before the final lights have been reached catch up with a huge truck, a big square container on bard. At the lights, wait, and then watch it pull away before following. It accelerates at high speed, the tiny black car cannot keep up. But it does not matter. At ninety kilometres an hour the truck does not accelerate any more. That is more than it's legal limit. So just cruise along closely behind it, cruise control on, radio playing classical music. Slow down for a building site, the driver is careful, there is a small diversion. Then speed up again, he pulls away. Turn the cruise control back on again, the small black car catches up slowly.
slow down for the roundabout, stay really close behind the truck as it crawls around the hindrance, then it speeds away again. Same procedure, cruise control, let the automatic systems do the work.
One more traffic light, and then the slip road for the motorway.  The truck speeds away again, follow all the way down the motorway. The speedometer is still, the engine speed indicator is still, only the indicator for diesel level in the tank goes down. This symbiosis, the long draft ends

at the slip road for Freising-Nord.

The little car leaves for the slip road, the

huge truck keeps on the motorway.

Then, see it brake, it's warning lights

go on. Slip by on the left, that is what

slip roads are for. The truck is still visible in

the mirror, slowing down for the traffic

jam  up ahead, lights flashing. Follow the

slip road, up to the junction. Passing over

the bridge, see the motorway down below,

a sea of red lights, the trafic towards

Munich come to a complete standstill.

Carry on down the road, the traffic

lights are green, cruise on.

Suddenly, the car ahead stops and

slows down. There is a Truck standing

in the centre of the road. The car is

just stopped there, it is big and wide.

Drive past, squeeze past the truck.

Then realise that this was a deliberate

manoevre on the part of the truck

driver to block the traffic so that his

colleagues could back their track, a yellow

affair with a trailer, out of a side

road.

so wait, anyway.