Tuesday March 03, 2009

A few horses which should have not left the BMW stable

Over the last two weeks I have seen two examples of the new BMW X6 car. It is the 'X' version of the equally horrible Six series coupe that to me looks like it has been run over by a steam roller. Looking at X6 car from the side its shape appears to be a lop sided triangle. The only reason I can see for buying this car is to indicate to all you meet while you are driving it that you have fifty thousand pounds to spend on a road vehicle; more than the average person. While I am critising BMW cars, I cannot miss out mentioning the one series that seems to be selling well. The front and rear look like they have come from two different designers who never met each other until they glued their front and rear bits together and then BMW made the car.

The final car to mention which is a BMW car in all but name is the Mini. The basic car is a fantastic - if overpriced version of the classic Mini. The rag top version looks silly but then BMW decided to rebuild the Clubman. The original was bad enough but new version looks like a Mini Hearse [pun intended]

Wednesday February 18, 2009

Mobile madness

I do not know who invented the mobile phone but although the device is a very useful object I fear my fellow human beings behaviour when using them is driving me to distraction...

Using the phone when moving. This includes walking, cycling, driving. Human beings cannot do two things at once and using a mobile phone while in motion is a recipe for disaster.

Sending texts that no sense at all [sic]. It seems even easier to send text messages that make no sense especially if single letters are substituted for words like 'r u'.

After a plane lands at an airport the sound of all the phones in the plane being turned on as their owners reconnect to the real world to tell their friends and relatives they have landed and they will be home by ...

Some people seem to think the world needs to witness their conversations with their friends as they discuss marital and other problems. Or even worse discussing in public what happened last night during a rather hectic night on the town..

Someones phone beeping or ringing during a meeting that is quickly followed by an apology..

People who leaving their mobiles in the office while they pop out - the phone then rings and never gets answered. Meanwhile it is annoying everyone in the immediate area..

Another thing that annoys me is when people insist on using their phone when they are in a noisy environment, have a weak signal or when their battery is low. I don't know why they don't wait until they can rectify these problems - all you can hear is a garbled message that you cannot understand.

Now you have read this score yourself. One point for each of the above you admit you do on a regular basis. If you score zero - I am sorry you are lying - try again. Anything under four indicates an average user of a mobile phone. Anything above five means you need help - leave your mobile at home for a few days every week to wean yourself off it.

Tuesday February 19, 2008

Lights on please ( repeat)

My first Grumpy old man entry.. since restarting writing these weblogs..

Like autumn when road users start their journey in daylight but... people are not putting their lights on when they need too. I drove home usual time the other night and lots of cars did not have their lights on. It is amazing the difference it makes when you look at a line of cars and one of them does not have their headlights on. Worse was a regulated L plate car - the one you pay money for a lesson was blithely going along with no lights on. Whether or not the car had a learner in it or was being driven by the instructor is irrelevant it is not a good example to the rest of us. This news article confirms what I heard - that in four years new cars will have their lights on all the time. Given my recent experiences on the road I am coming round to the idea.

Monday February 12, 2007

Speed cameras

I have very mixed feelings about speed cameras. On my new way into work I drive through towns and villages where there are restrictions in speed down to forty/thirty MPH. Generally it has to be said most road users keep to the speed limits despite the lack of cameras on most of the route. The questions is I suppose do cameras encourage good behaviour? From a drivers point of view they are easy to spot now with their bright yellow backs. If you use a road on a regular basis you know where they are. The camera has a small area that it can enforce the speed limit of a few hundred yards. Elsewhere a driver could speed. In a village I pass through there are no speed cameras but a thirty MPH warning sign comes on if you pass it doing more than the speed limit. I quite like the idea of these as they also embarass the driver so everyone can see he is breaking the limit. Being really nasty perhaps people who break the speed limits could be forced to see pictures of videos of people hurt by speeding motorists. I think the same treatment could be applied to folks convicted of drunk driving or other motoring offences.

Friday January 26, 2007

Over the line

As you approach junctions very often white lines split the traffic into lanes. As you get closer to the junction the lines appear so the traffic can split into the right lane. However when it is really busy you can't get to you lane as there are cars in the way. What people are doing is jumping past the queue of cars to get to their line. If you are crossing the junction and going in the opposite direction you can often meet these cars on your side of the road. The other day I met a Chelsea Tractor doing this and I am afraid the driver did not see me or had decided I was expendable. Later that week another driver in his desire to get past me banged mirrors with me. Even more incredible on the same road a driver skipped past several of us and then nipped back into our lane! I don't know how to fix this but its just another symptom of a lack of courtesy on our roads..

Wednesday January 17, 2007

Remember this story?

Remember this story? Well it came up again when I got my insurance renewal.I had been told after last years incident my premium would rise by 50%. The renewal form had it go up by 100%! I rang the company and after going back and forth to a handful of departments it seemed it went up as I had a claim against me in 2005. I did not remember such a claim where a third party had informed my insurance company that I had hit them. It then came clear to me. The insurance company said no money had passed hands and of course it was the incident as above where the Police visited us one night and expected to find my car bashed in by the incident. So I managed to get the no claims re-instated for 2005 and the premium reduced. So if you have such incidents happen to you its worth checking with your insurance what your company has stored about such incidents..

Monday January 08, 2007

Belt Up!

Last weeks terrible coach crash had me thinking about seat belts given that it appears a lot of the injuries may have been prevented if people had been wearing their seat belts. It is law for folks over fourteen to wear belts nowadays in buses. First complaint is why this age? Surely children should be protected as well and the buses like airlines should have belts available for them. The bus company insist they use all three methods required of them to inform passengers they need to wear their belts I was wondering if an indication of a passenger not wearing his/her belt would be useful but even if the bus driver driver refuses to move on until everyone has put their belts on as soon as he is driving folks can undo the buckle. I then thought of a safety video. Show a bus in an accident with dummies in it where none of them are wearing belts. But I suppose we don't want to scare any children on the bus I suppose - who don't have a belt they can wear...

I am amused on airplanes when the seat belt sign goes off after take off. In the cabin you hear this repeated click as people undo their belts. I keep mine on. I wonder wether as airlines recommend people always wear their belts the sign should always stay on.

Friday January 05, 2007

Five Nill...

Monday December 11, 2006

Amazing, amazing..

Indeed...

Thursday November 23, 2006

Two stupid things I am glad I no longer do.

On the drive home I nearly bumped into a cyclist. Why? Because he had no lights on his cycle. It reminded me when in 1976 I took to the road in Cambridgeshire for the first time on a cycle. I had lights but they were not working. I was fined thirty pounds - a lot of money in those days - but I am glad now I was caught.

Stupid thing number two is I used to smoke. I gave up before I got to being twenty one. This cyclist was smoking. Perhaps he thought with the cigarette glow he could see and be seen by other road users. Stop smoking and the money you save go and buy yourself a set of lights and be safe is my advice to this person.

Wednesday October 11, 2006

Getz [sic] this...

Our car is being repaired to fix the damage caused by this event . I am lucky enough to have an insurance company that provides a courtesy car while ours is being repaired - I should not complain about this but I am finding it hard to resist. I appreciate that the car in question provides an affordable motor vehicle for those who cannot afford to spend larger amounts of money on a car like our Golf.

So it was on a rainy afternoon that I was introduced to the loaner car. Outside appearances seemed ok it looks a bit like one of the older generation VW Polo's . It has four doors and wheels. So far so good. It was only when I drove it home later that day that some of its interesting features were made known to me. The cabin is very sparten and basic but I expected that. The seats feel like you are sitting on a bale of straw there is no give in the seat at all. The driving position is fine but it is clear this car would not be enjoyable on a long journey. The things that amused me are:

The electric windows are the only things that work quickly in this car. These open and close at guillotine speeds. Scary.

The car rolls in an un-nerving manner when you do persuade it to go round a corner. Over bumps it tries to shake your teeth fillings out.

I don't expect it has a 0-60 time because I don't think it can get to sixty.

The indicators/wiper stalks are round the other way to most cars in Europe. This means unless I am really carefull when I indicate, the wipers end up going swish swish across the screen or when I put the wipers on I indicate that I am turning when I have no intention of doing so.

The speedometer has a red line on it marking the speed of 30MPH. Does this mean any speed exceeding this is dangerous for either car or driver?

There is a surprising lack of activity when using the accelerator pedal. The car is slow for sure but pressing the accelerator does not increase the revs by much I think the rpm meter is optimistic about the max revolutions the engine will reach.

The steering is scary. You turn the wheel and you do not feel any feedback from the wheels it is like you are driving on black ice all the time.

The car in question by the way is a Hyundai Getz the 1.3GSi model which I reckons stands for Go Slow Indefinitely. But the really interesting thing is despite all of these grumbles I am enjoying driving this car because it is easy to drive a car that is easy to drive, but one that has lots of interesting features that you have to find a way of dealing with is a challenge. I won't be trading the Golf in for one of these though..

Wednesday October 04, 2006

15 miles to cross a road..

This amazed me when it was on the TV yesterday. Because the traffic is so bad and there is no pedestrian crossing this person has no alternative but to catch a bus to the next village to visit the Post Office - her own office in her village but is on the opposite side of the road from her house. On the way back as the bus would drop her on the wrong side of the road for her house so she has to double back onto another bus to arrive outside her house. The highways agency say they want to build a crossing but there is a dispute on land ownership.

Tuesday September 19, 2006

An accident waiting to happen

So the threatened use of the hard shoulder as a real lane has finally been rolled out It will be found on the M42 between Junction 3A for the M40, and junction 7 for the M6 and is called Active Traffic Management. When it is operational a 50mph speed limit will appear above the hard shoulder and a maximum 50mph speed limit will also be applied to all lanes on the carriageway. The Highways agency claim safety is a priority and if a motorist develops a problem with their vehicle, they should pull into the emergency refuge areas which have been provided beside the hard shoulder approximately every 500 metres. If the driver cannot get into one of these safe places they say comprehensive CCTV coverage means that Traffic Officers in the control room will be able to spot any incident or break down in a carriageway and close the affected lane by displaying a red X above it.

For me it is an accident waiting to happen. I don't use that road and will make sure I avoid it in the future taking the M42 the other way to skirt around Birmingham

Thursday September 14, 2006

Don't use your garage

I have always been proud in the fact I put our car in the garage. The garage is stuffed full of things, bicycles hanging from the ceiling, onions, wood ,paint all sorts. In the winter while everyone burns fuel warming their cars up and scrape the ice off their cars I just reverse out and I am off. Last night while on a conference call which I took in the room above the garage I heard a rumble then a crash. I pretty much knew something had falled off and landed on the car. After the call I opened the garage up. A shelf with wood on it had fallen off and the wood was over the car and floor of the garage. This morning in the light of day I have a broken windscreen, scratches and three small dents. Time to reconsider where I store of all this stuff and wether I should follow everyone else's lead and leave the car on the drive...

Tuesday September 12, 2006

Six green leds....

The evening before we went on holiday - more on that tomorrow; I got home to find my SunRay at home was not working. My wife's home machine was also struggling to find its way on the internet. I did the usual turn everything off in sight including the ADSL router that for me showed a change in its usual bank of six green leds - one was orange. For me that difference was a potential source of the problem. I rang my ISP and eventually was advised it was a known exchange problem - although it was not mentioned when I rang the number to listen to known outages. I made a fatal mistake here ; I should insisted they did a line test and register the fault.

Of course a week later on our return the fault was still present. This time they did a line test and said my router was not in sync with the exchange - whatever that means.. They would escalate the fault and someone would be in touch with me in forty eight hours. Despite my protestations all I was left with at that point was a ticket number and the promise of that call. I left it for a couple of hours and rang back. I explained I had been sold a dummy a week ago and this is a business line and is forty eight hours really the best they could do ? This phone call resulted in a promise of an update within twenty four hours.

Within two hours of that call the router had its usual merry bank of six green leds on again and we are on the internet. Annoyingly the ISP did not ring back when this happened to claim victory over this technical gremlin. It made me think that we are all starting to treat internet acess like other utilities. Forty eight hours of lack of service of phone,electricity, water etc would be met with outright disgust but we are ( myself included ) starting to rely on internet service to function in our daily lives. Apart from catching up on work email that whole afternoon was punctuated with oh cannot do that the internet is down....