Awesome read…
I have had my experiences with reducing my MAV and it is a difficult thing. I have literally been rammed because I had the temerity to stop at a Zebra crossing because I saw pedestrians waiting to use it. The guy who rear ended me, knocked my car some 20 or 30 feet past the crossing and it happened at Alausa so right next to the Road Safety offices… Yet I was told that I was lucky that no one was crossing because if I had hit any of them (even though a vehicle hit me from behind into them), I would have been held for murder. They also tried to impound my car and said the accident was my fault for stopping on the road. Note… I didn’t stop suddenly, I just noticed the pedestrians and came to a stop, not a fierce one. This from the police and road safety inspectors. In the end, I am not someone without influence so they couldn’t go to town on me and I got my car out pretty quick but they basically tried to hang it all one me… quick confession, my car was be far the more ‘gehn gehn’ of the 2 cars involved and I looked the much richer fellow so it was obvious what the motivation was for this blatant reorganisation of reality.
Our road culture is one of the most obvious examples of this MILT complex but it is so prevalent as to be soul-destroying.