Barmy driving

Posted: Tue 3 February, 2009 | Author: | Filed under: Driving, Thoughts, Weirdness | Leave a comment »

Yesterday’s snow (which has all disappeared here now, thanks to a dollop of rain last night) brought out a bundle of bizarre driving habits along with it.

Fortunately none were as dodgy as this bell-end who took his 1300cc bike up to (at least) 122mph with his son riding pillion and said “But it had started to rain and I pulled back the throttle”. Yes, it had started raining, so he sped up to twice the speed limit. Way to go, dickweed.

Yesterday I got to see several idiots though – particularly (as I said at the time) drivers of four-wheel-drive vehicles with still no idea how to handle the weather at all. There were also (as always) several people driving with foglights on (yes, it’s one of my particular bug-bears, I know) during both snow and the evening rain. Now first of all the visibility wasn’t that bad at any point yesterday that it needed foglights on – but also foglights aren’t (as these drivers seemed to think) a Magic Talisman Of Road Protection™®, so I don’t understand the mental equation that says “I think the visibility is so bad that I need to put my foglights on, but I won’t slow down and I’ll still whack along this dual-carriageway at 80+ mph“.

All told, a very strange day on the roads.

But one good thing was that because of all the media rubbish about bad weather etc., there was virtually no traffic on the way home from work – I think I made the best time yet…

Snowed In? No Such Luck

Posted: Mon 2 February, 2009 | Author: | Filed under: 1BEM, Cynicism, Driving, Work-related | Leave a comment »

So apparently London is paralysed because of 3-4inches of snow, with all the buses taken off the roads, various bits of the underground being closed, and trains in the south-east being cancelled. (It’s pathetic really, when you look at the weather in Toronto, and they’re still doing fine)

Up in Norfolk, what’ve we got? Less than an inch of snow, and no-one cares. The roads are gritted (although some of the backroads are “interesting”) and there’s no real problems at all.

In fact, the biggest issue was a certain bell-end this morning in a Subaru WRX on a gritted road who wouldn’t travel at more than 25mph. The fact they were in a 4-wheel drive vehice ideally suited to the conditions (even if they had been skiddy/slippy) seemed to have passed them by completely.

And that’s the only reason I was slightly later than usual getting in to work this morning.

New Tyre – How Much?

Posted: Tue 27 January, 2009 | Author: | Filed under: Customer Services, Cynicism, Driving | 2 Comments »

Well, much to Gordon‘s amazement, I’m not going to whinge or complain at all about the cost of the new tyre for the car.

When I replaced both front tyres back in May ’08, I paid out an extra £18 for something that ATS call “MasterService“. That (very roughly) 10% extra on my bill at the time of replacing the tyres just saved me £80odd.

You see, the tyre itself (well, from the remnants of it that were still anywhere near the wheel) still had very little wear at all- as you’d expect on a tyre that’s less than 9 months old- so I got the full 100% discount on a new tyre.

To me, that’s £18 well spent…

New Tyre

Posted: Tue 27 January, 2009 | Author: | Filed under: Domestic, Driving | 1 Comment »

First thing this morning, I’m getting a new tyre following on from yesterday’s events.

I’ll be back in the office later, and will write more then. (Including, probably, a “How much?!?” post)

Blowout

Posted: Mon 26 January, 2009 | Author: | Filed under: Driving, Travel, Work-related | Leave a comment »

Sometimes you can just tell it’s Monday…

On the way to work this morning, travelling along the dual-carriageway A11, I had a tyre blow out. At the time I was in the outside lane, having just started to overtake another car. A bang, a thud, and a wickedly loud sound like going over the rumble strips. Other than that, I don’t know what else was occurring – I was busy keeping the car safe, and working to get it over onto the hard shoulder.

I did so – and got it onto a decent bit of hard shoulder on one of the slip roads, which helped. However, as it was the driver’s-side tyre, I was wearing dark clothing, and it was 7.30am, I opted for getting the breakdown people to come and change the damn thing rather than attempting it myself. (Something which the recovery guy agreed was a smart move) The breakdown people were great – Tesco insurance/breakdown said the guy would be there by 8.40am, and 8.40, there he was. Ten minutes later, all done and back on the road to work.

All’s OK, although I’m currently on one of those crappy space-saver spare tyres where you’re not supposed to go above 50mph. That’s getting changed tomorrow, at which point all will be well again. I’m a touch narked because the front tyres only got replaced back in May, so I wouldn’t have expected one to die by now, but I’ll talk to the tyre place about that tomorrow.

As it is, the tyre had sounded a bit odd yesterday – to the extent that I’d stopped and checked it wasn’t flat, and also gone round it looking for a big stone in the treads, but hadn’t found any problems. But (I now assume) that was the point where it blew today, so I’ll know better next time it happens – if it ever does.

In a way, I’m kind of pleased with myself – if nothing else, it’s another thing checked off the “I’ve done that, and survived it OK” list of driving tasks. I managed to deal with the situation, handle it safely, and not be a danger to myself or anyone else. Yes, I’ve lost a hubcap along the way, and I’ll need to replace the tyre, but that’s nothing really. After all, it could have been one hell of a lot worse in so many ways…

Icy Windows

Posted: Thu 15 January, 2009 | Author: | Filed under: 1BEM, Cynicism, Driving, Thoughts | 1 Comment »

Now that all the ice and crap has finally thawed again, I’m reminded of something I meant to write a week ago. The subject is simple – iced up car windows.

Over the week or so of consistently cold weather, I found it quite gobsmacking just how many people were out on the roads driving with only a tiny patch of scraped windscreen to see through, while leaving the rest to melt of its own accord. Partly because it’s illegal (if memory serves, you’re supposed to make sure all the windows are scraped/clear before you set off – The Highway Code certainly says so) and partly because it’s – well – incredibly fucking stupid.

Additionally, it doesn’t really take up that much time/effort. For me, the entire process involved simply opening the car, starting it up so that the heater was working and warming things from the inside, and going round with a scraper. By the time I’d done all four side windows, the heated windscreen and rear-windscreen had done their job, and the entire thing was ready to go in about five minutes. (at most)

Now yes, I know that I live out in The Sticks™, so leaving the engine running while scraping the windows isn’t likely to result in an incident like this one. Being outside and scraping the car also means I don’t leave it unattended and then come back to find it’s been nicked. (and let’s be honest, that should just be filed under “Idiot Tax”)

But my point is that it doesn’t take much effort to go round scraping the car’s windows. And personally I’d rather make that effort than either get pulled over by the police for dangerous driving (which I think is the correct charge for driving with non-clear windows) or be involved in an accident where the insurance then refuses to pay out because it could be seen as my fault for not seeing [whatever was collided with] because my windows were still iced over.

Smashing Time

Posted: Fri 9 January, 2009 | Author: | Filed under: Domestic, Driving | Leave a comment »

Last night, while driving to the local(ish) supermarket for an evening shop, I was involved in my first “proper” accident.

Nothing massive, and really nothing special – just a door-mirror to door-mirror impact – but still, another first ticked off the list.

As it is, neither of us stopped (so I can’t really complain on that score) and it was just one of those things that happens on pitch-dark narrow(ish) roads. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t my fault, as I was just about in the verge at the time – but I could be wrong, in all honesty. I don’t think it was down to me – on narrow roads (and this is one I use all the time) I tend to stick as close to my side as humanly possible, especially when cars are coming in the other direction too – but it could’ve been. I just don’t know for sure.

All the same, everything’s OK, and the only cost is going to be a new door mirror – it’s completely smashed to fuck. But things could’ve been much worse, if we’d been a foot closer.

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