Death of a Mondeo

Posted: Sun 3 February, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Domestic, Driving, Getting Organised | 1 Comment »

Just under six years ago, I bought my first car, the Mondeo estate. (It’s actually annoying in an OCD way that it’s so close to six years – it’s five years, ten months, two weeks)

Two weeks ago, it crapped itself on the M1, diagnostics pointing to a fault on the Fuel Injection pump – which it turned out had pretty much exploded. That’s pretty serious, lots of money, and probably more than the car’s worth.

I’ve had to hire a replacement car in the meantime, which is a Renault Megane, and a more gutless piece of shit you couldn’t hope to find. In my opinion it’s actually dangerously underpowered, making overtaking manoeuvres into a really un-fun situation.  I hate it, it’s a bucket of crap.

Anyway, I’ve now put the Mondeo onto eBay (as spares/repair – it’s been a good car up til now, but the costs outweigh keeping it) and I’ve started the process for buying a new car. Well, new to me – definitely not new!

On that one, more when I collect it (Wednesday) and know that everything’s good.

The Mondeo’s done me well for the last six years, during which I’ve put 130,000 miles on it. I hope the new one serves as well.

Dodgy Taxi

Posted: Sat 26 January, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Customer Services, Domestic, Driving | Leave a comment »

On Wednesday, for reasons I haven’t yet written about, I had to get a taxi into Bedford in order to sort some stuff out. (I’ll write more about all that at some point soon)

The taxi was – to be blunt – fucked. It was a minibus-type, based on a Ford Transit. The engine management light was on the whole time, it vibrated worryingly when we went above 50mph (on a dual carriageway), and when it came to braking, there were some *very* nasty noises coming from the brakes – the sort of noises that usually mean “no pads”.

And then there, on the windscreen, was a little notice saying “If you’ve got any concerns about this taxi, email us”, and the email address of the local council’s licensing office.

And so, when I got into work, that’s exactly what I did. I’d taken the registration plate, just to make life easier, and emailed them.  Since then, this is what’s happened:

  • Within the hour, I’d had a response back from the council, saying they’d look into it. (Pretty much as expected)
  • By the end of the day, they’d told me the taxi in question had been booked in for a full vehicle check on the Friday
  • By the end of Friday, I got a confirmation that they’d checked the vehicle, it’d failed spectacularly, had it’s plate pulled, and couldn’t go back to being used as a taxi until it had a full signoff from their inspection team. Oh, and the taxi company in question was also being checked now, along with all the maintenance records for all their vehicles.

I’ve got to say, I’m impressed.  Considering the same council has taken a month to inspect/repair a couple of very dangerous potholes in one of the roads I commute on – and that’s a month since I reported it –  it’s been a real surprise to see how quickly they’ve handled this complaint about a taxi.

Sign Typography

Posted: Sat 12 January, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Driving, Geeky, M1, Thoughts, Work-related | Leave a comment »

I’ve already written about the M1 on my commute, and the new “use the hard shoulder when the road’s busy” policy.

This week I’ve noticed something odd about the typography on the signs, particularly when viewed from a distance.

When you can’t use the hard shoulder, the text reads like this :

Hard shoulder
Emergency
Use only

When you can use it, it looks like this :

Congestion
Use
Hard shoulder

What’s interesting to me – and probably to absolutely no-one else – is that when the lane is open, the typography looks like an X, which would imply it’s closed. When it’s closed, it looks like an arrow, implying the lane is open.

I don’t know if that contributes to why people don’t use the hard shoulder when they can – I doubt it, but who knows? – but it’s still something I find interesting, regardless.

Taxi to the Kerb

Posted: Wed 9 January, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: 1BEM, Cynicism, Domestic, Driving, Parking | Leave a comment »

When I got home last night, I was greeted by this exceptional piece of parking, that really did need to be credited.

Car needing a taxi to the kerb

Couldn’t be much further out

From another viewpoint…

Still half a mile from the kerb

And from another viewpoint

You really couldn’t make it up.

On the Shoulder

Posted: Thu 27 December, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: 1BEM, Commuting, Domestic, Driving, Stupidity, Thoughts, Work-related | 2 Comments »

One of the developments in the work that’s been going on with the M1 has been a new congestion relief scheme.  It’s been piloted on other motorways (mainly around Birmingham) and has now made its way to junctions 7 to 15 on the M1.

The plan is surprisingly simple, but takes a lot of work beforehand. Basically, the hard shoulder becomes a fourth lane in times of need, and new ‘refuges’ off the hard-shoulder are put in for cars that actually have broken down.

It’s a good scheme, and since going ‘live’ in early December it’s worked well, except for one assumption that has turned out to be rather flawed.  And that assumption is this : that drivers actually read motorway signs.

I wrote a couple of weeks ago about drivers who can’t (or won’t) think ahead and so fuck up traffic for everyone, and this is a similar situation.

Basically, when you can use the hard shoulder, the road information signs read “Congestion. Use hard shoulder“.  You’d think that was pretty simple, and easy to understand. But no, most drivers appear to not see it, or not understand it.

How do I know? Because I do use the hard shoulder, and blast past the drivers in the other three lanes. (When I say ‘blast’, I’m usually going 60 – it’s just the other three lanes are stuck and doing 40) It’s perfectly legal, because I’m not jogging between lanes, just sticking to my inner lane and going past slower traffic.  But when I do, a good 40% of the drivers flash their lights at me, implying (I assume) that they think I’m doing something wrong. Which implies that they’ve not read the signs, that they think the hard shoulder isn’t for driving on.

It’s not common yet, which could be the other reason people don’t get it. Whether it’ll catch on, I don’t know. But I do know it works pretty well so long as you can read the damn signs.

Forward Thinking

Posted: Fri 14 December, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Commuting, Driving, People, Thoughts | Leave a comment »

Last night, my drive home (less than twenty miles, all on motorway) took nearly two hours. The cause? A truck with a blown tyre, needing to get it replaced. Because it was an offside wheel, Health and Safety now apparently means that the inside lane needs to be coned off and closed as well, ensuring a safe (or at least comparatively so) workspace for the people replacing the tyre. And I’ve got to be honest, that’s one job I wouldn’t fancy.

I understand that need though, and it doesn’t annoy me. It’s one of those things – it’s not like the trucker planned it to happen, it’s just a facet of the number of miles trucks do. Shit happens.

But while that was the cause of the delays, it wasn’t the reason for the delays. The reason is something that does piss me off – shitty drivers (and particularly the so-called ‘professional drivers’ of trucks, coaches etc.) who don’t move out of the closed lane ’til the last possible second.

In this case, the ‘lane closed’ warnings were in place for eight or nine miles beforehand – and the delays went all that way back. And all of that distance, people were sticking into that lane that they knew was closed – that the signs were reporting as closed. I kept on seeing ‘professional drivers’ bombing down the hard shoulder as well, trying to avoid the stuck traffic. I truly hope those cunts got hauled in by the police and/or Highways Agency, but I’m willing to bet they didn’t.

The only time these (primarily truck-driving) fuck-knuckles moved out of ‘their’ lanes was once the cones were pushing them out, so they had to come in to the next lane, and squeeze in at the last second. It buggers things up, because the people already in that lane then have to move out, or brake and pause to let the fuck-knuckles in, and every time that happens, the jam behind gets worse.

If people moved out in plenty of time, paid heed to the road signs, and worked with the flow of traffic, the entire thing wouldn’t be anywhere near the hassle it proved to be last night.

Oh, who am I trying to kid? It’s never going to happen.

Middle of the Road

Posted: Fri 7 December, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Charm School, Driving, Work-related | 5 Comments »

Yesterday was another Devon run, 400 miles in a day, as well as a bundle of work meetings and so on.

Yes, I must be mad.

Anyway, the entire run is motorway miles, which I don’t mind, and which the car pretty much shrugs off.

It does mean, though, that I come across *way* too many shitbag arsewipe drives who just sit in the middle lane, nothing on the inside lane, and sit there for mile after mile after mile.

It’s another of those things I don’t understand at all, and that seems to be becoming more and more prevalent. I kind of get it if there’s sporadic traffic (and particularly slower trucks etc.) on the inside lane, and the driver is just too lazy to “keep on” moving in and out to overtake. I kind of understand that – I don’t like it, and I think it’s still shit driving – but I sort of understand the thoughts.

But when even that isn’t an excuse, when the road is clear for miles ahead (and has been for miles already) I think it’s just a sign that the driver is an unutterable fuck-knuckle, with no redeeming factors whatsoever.

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