I'm going to try to persuade you to give up your car. You don't need it, you're destroying the planet with it, and it costs far too much for what you make.

Don't turn the page. I know you won't sell your car. But I will suggest some ways you might keep it and simultaneously cut your expenses.

Many of Bermuda's traffic problems - if you can call what we have a problem; it's traffic; get used to it - are caused by the volume of unnecessary cars. Owning a car in Bermuda is disproportionately expensive.

If you use your car as little as I suspect you do, consider some alternatives.

If it were possible to find a taxi, you wouldn't need a car at all. You wouldn't need the pain of TCD and the endless expense. You could ride a great number of taxis before you spent as much as your car costs.

But, sadly, taxis in Bermuda are for tourists and corporations. The rest of us have to wing it. On my last trip to New York, for example, with no taxi anywhere in sight after an hour and a half, a passing van driver proved susceptible to a $50 inducement.

I had to sit in the back, in my good suit, on the upturned wheels of a dolly. Every time we swung left or right, I was slammed up against the walls of the van. I have never been happier to take a good beating.

But I digress.

Do a little honest thinking about when you use your car. I would guess you drive it to and from work, use it for groceries, and sometimes go out of an evening. If you have kids, they demand transport too. Now think about the people next door, on either side, and those across the road. How often are they in their car, and why? If you and someone nearby drive to town to work in Hamilton and park all day, why not pool? Cut your biggest expense in half, right there. Not bloody likely, you say. I understand. All I ask is that you think about it.

If you've rejected that idea out of hand, and are considering writing to the Editor urging that I meet a violent end, maybe you should keep the car a year longer than you plan to.

That will cut costs if you've kept the vehicle in reasonably good running order.

If it's going to cost a bundle to keep it going, gussy it up and sell it as fast as possible, advising potential buyers, of course, of its parlous condition. Then buy a smaller one.

A whole range of potential savings becomes possible the next time you buy a car. Don't buy another landwagon that will survive World War IV. You're not Commander Rommel. Go without the sports car of your dreams, in which to do 30 miles an hour. You're not Fangio.

Venturing into unknown territory, I'm guessing that a stunning range of motor accessories is available to satisfy the post-purchase market.

I dare say fancy wheels, and leather seating may be available, and I even saw a pair of giant green fuzzy dice hanging, correctly, below someone's driving sightlines that, though indefensible on economic grounds, looked as if they might be worth buying just for the hell of it. They had a six on every face.

What I'm saying is: chill out. All this business of trying to impress the people in your set, or your neighbourhood, or your family, or whoever it is you're trying to impress: forget it.

Who cares what they think? It's your life, baby, not theirs. Seize the concept, and think about ways to cut your driving expenses.

In a place as small as Bermuda, there must be lots of ways you could spend less, and increase your sense of well-being simultaneously.

To head off correspondence in this matter, I live in a field by the airport, and am often called upon to swoop down on a breaking story at a moment's notice. I am therefore exempt from my own advice in this matter and, as several readers have pointed out, just about all matters.

Not everything has to be about me.

Please read these important footnotes.

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Breaking news: the United Nations, that most perfectly useless of organisations, has declared 2008 to be the International Year of the Potato.

In just four short months, the world will be a better place for potatoes.

The UN won't be able to help the people in Darfur, of course, or any other corner of this unfair world of ours, but potatoes everywhere will be given preferential treatment. About time.

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Readers' advisory: It appears, from the Professional Women's dispute that it is entirely possible to register a charity in Bermuda with the name of an existing charity.

Readers are asked not to establish their own foundation using the name of one of the corporate giants that already have them.

Instead, they are advised to consider joining a rainbow coalition I am forming, called Save the Potato.