One Year On
Posted: Mon 17 March, 2008 Filed under: Driving Leave a comment »So, it’s a year today since I bought my first car.
In that time, I’ve covered approximately 21,000 miles – which reminds me, I might need to talk to the insurance people about that, as I said I’d only be doing about 18,000 . Ooops. Ah well – it’s about a 15% error in estimation, but I can live with that, to be honest.
Oh yeah, and now that I’ve got through my first year of car ownership, my insurance has suddenly dropped by about £120 for the coming year. Funny, that.
MOT – All Passed
Posted: Fri 7 March, 2008 Filed under: Customer Services, Driving, Travel Leave a comment »So yes, the car passed it’s MOT with flying colours – it didn’t need a thing doing to it.
Needless to say, after a year of being thrashed around motorways and dual carriageways, covering about 20,000 miles, and with the prospect of a long drive up to the Lake District in a weeks time, I’m really rather pleased about that.
I know I’ll need some new tyres for it before long, but for now at least they’ve passed the MOT, so *shrug*. We’ll see. Still, now I know it’s not an urgent requirement (bearing in mind that long drive in a week’s time) which is another relief – I wasn’t sure quite when I was going to get time to do it…
MOT
Posted: Wed 27 February, 2008 Filed under: Customer Services, Driving, Getting Organised 1 Comment »Ah, another milestone. It’s coming up for a year now since I bought the car – and that means it’s time for the first MOT test. OK, it’s the car’s second MOT, but it’s the first one I’ve had to arrange, as the place I bought the car from organised the previous one.
I’m really not sure what it’ll entail – I’m pretty sure that the car will be fine, and it’ll hopefully pass the test with flying colours.
Still, it’s all booked now for Monday, so we’ll just have to wait and see how it does.
Lights
Posted: Fri 4 January, 2008 Filed under: Cynicism, Driving 5 Comments »Yeah, another post about driving, and car lights. I’m driving in to work between 6.30 and 7.30 in the morning at the moment, so it’s where I start waking up and thinking about something for D4D™. Them’s the breaks.
Anyway, another thing that surprises me when I’m driving at night (or in darkness, anyway) is just how many people drive with knackered headlights – usually where only one is working. Now, how come people don’t notice this? I haven’t ever had a knackered headlight, but I figure I’d notice if I could only see half the road, for example.
OK, I suppose that these people could all be on the way to the garage to get the headlamp replaced – but somehow I doubt it.
Bambi
Posted: Thu 27 December, 2007 Filed under: Animals, Driving, Travel 5 Comments »Last night, I had my first real accident in the car – nothing serious, and nothing overly damaged, but still my first real one.
Driving on one of the local(ish) country roads, I came round a corner and there was a deer crossing the road towards me, right at the white line. Absolutely nothing I could do – even though I was “only” going at 30mph, I didn’t even have time for an emergency stop, let alone to swerve or anything. As it was, I clipped it’s head, definitely killed it, but didn’t damage anything else.
In a lot of ways, it was just luck. Five seconds later, I’d have hit it straight on, and done a lot more damage to the car. Five seconds earlier, I would probably not even have seen the deer, or been able to easily avoid the stupid creature.
But instead, I came along at just that time, and killed it. I’m not happy about it, but I know there’s nothing else I could have done.
Not knowing the procedure, I called the police this morning (No, not on the 999 number) to check whether it needed to be reported, but apparently if it’s a deer it doesn’t need reporting. Dogs, cattle and the like yes, but not a deer. (The actual list is “horse, cattle, ass, mule, sheep, pig, goat or dog.” according to the Road Traffic Act). So I don’t need to report it.
All told, “just one of those things”. But still, I wish it hadn’t happened.
Foglights
Posted: Thu 20 December, 2007 Filed under: 1BEM, Cynicism, Driving, Thoughts, Travel 11 Comments »Ah, you knew it wouldn’t be long ’til this one happened (again).
This morning I was driving in to work, and the weather was fairly grungy – lots of freezing fog, and not much fun at all. However, it has to be pointed out that this was at 7am this morning, while it was still completely dark. You can see where this is going, can’t you?
Fog-lights are only supposed to be used in thick fog when visibility is abysmal. They’re not meant as “It’s foggy, use your lights” – there’s supposed to be some application of common sense. In this case, because it’s night, I can see cars half a fucking mile away. There’s no need for foglights if you can see that fucking far, you bollock-minded individuals!
Yes, of course, the foglights came on, and stayed on. Even in the clear bits. Hell, most of the twunts will still have them on this evening when I drive home, I’m sure.
The highway code is a bit wishy-washy on this one – again, I assume, because of the necessity hope of using common sense in these situations – but still it makes it pretty clear that foglights should only be used in poor visibility. Of course, common sense is a commodity in short supply at the moment, so maybe it needs to be re-written in light of that.
Personally, I think that car manufacturers are (slightly) to blame on this one as well – you get a warning light on the dashboard when you put the lights on, but there’s no extra warning/reminder to tell you you’ve put the foglights on. (Well, in Ford cars anyway. I can’t be certain if the same applies to all/most other car manufacturers) But then, if a driver hasn’t got the memory-span to remember they’ve turned the foglights on, should they really be allowed to be driving in the first place?
Drink Driving
Posted: Wed 12 December, 2007 Filed under: Cynicism, Driving, Festering Season, Thoughts, Travel 1 Comment »While I’m not usually a great proponent of the entire “User-generated content” thing, sometimes it can be interesting and useful. One example is this BBC piece about drink-driving, and this year’s advertising campaign to make people think again about drinking and driving. After the piece, there’s a whole set of stories of personal experiences of drink-driving, and being banned, and it makes for interesting reading.
Personally, I don’t drink at all if I’m driving. It doesn’t bother me, and I don’t see the point of the entire “Oh, I’ll be OK if I just have the one” point of view. I could probably get away with one (or even two) because of my size, but to be honest, why risk it?